It’s important to enjoy our vegetable gardens to the maximum. They should be abundant and enjoyable havens in which to grow food and nurture ourselves away from the craziness and costliness of the world. Yet all too often we get ourselves in a frenzy of seed sowing and planting early in the year only to then stop… Instead filling our time with weeding, back-and-forth watering, feeding, produce picking and general all-purpose worrying over what on earth to do with the multifarious gluts we now have at our disposal. Spiralized courgette anyone?
All too often gardeners feel guilt. I see it time and time again on the courses I run.
We are familiar with the slow food movement, but I believe there needs to be a slower gardening momentum which puts wellbeing, wildlife and lower work generation centre stage. Honestly, it really doesn’t have to be this time consuming, not if we pace ourselves throughout the season, take time to enjoy our vegetable gardens and look beyond the summer surplus.
Sowing some later season seed is sensible in a myriad of ways. Not only will it provide you with opportunity to enjoy watching as new seedlings emerge dutifully into the mid-summer light, it will also help you make the best use of your smallholding vegetable garden. Filling any bare gaps of soil with these seedlings will ultimately help reduce the watering requirements of your plot by protecting the soil from drying out. Especially if you apply a mulch around plants till they develop robust root systems and get established, so there’s that too. Know also that in every packet of seed (in the crop varieties outlined below) lies a fantastic array of opportunities for a longer growing season, winter edibles and ways to beat the hungry gap of the following spring.
This story is from the August 2023 edition of The Country Smallholder.
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This story is from the August 2023 edition of The Country Smallholder.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
How to Buy a Smallholding in France- Long-time smallholder Lorraine Turnbull looks at the practicalities of moving to rural France
Aspiring smallholders are continually thwarted by the prices of smallholdings and property with land located within the UK. Even the humblest croft in Scotland comes with a substantial price tag and conditions which would make even an adventurous wannabee consider carefully. But all is not lost. For those willing to take the adventure of a lifetime, there is always Europe, and one of the most popular places is France.
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