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Grow your own in a small plot, or pot for that matter.

Category: Growing your own in a small garden | Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2009 12:02 pm

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Although I have worked in commercial horticulture for over 15 years I haven't always had a garden, or been able to grow plants for my self.

With the housing market the way it is we have been living for the last year or so in a rented house with a small garden. This presents a couple of challenges. Firstly we aren't really allowed to plant anything, and secondly it is a small garden that also need to double up as a play area for our son. I have always tried to grow a bit of fruit and veg and a few herbs and have had a bit of success, along with quite a few failures.

I am now forced to grow everything in containers of one sort or another, so I am quickly becoming and expert on what works and what doesn't. I think with more of us wanting to grow our own fruit and veg and with the waiting lists for allotments growing longer, those of us with small gardens need to get a bit more creative to make the best use of space.



Pots of salads and strawberries ( photo / image / picture from grownforyou's Garden )



I think my greatest success this year has been the salad plants like lettuce and rocket. I was running out of space so I under planted a Japanese Maple that I have owned for a few years with whatever I could fit in to see what would happen. With careful watering everything flourished and did really well. The added bonus was that my son (4) really loved helping and thought that this was his vegetable patch, therefore he was much more likely to eat the salad leaves that came out of it! All in all a great success.


Every little helps! ( photo / image / picture from grownforyou's Garden )


There is one drawback I found with pot sharing. The Japanese Maple has always had an ants nest in the pot. Not a problem in it's self and we have always got on well, but the ants farm a colony of aphids that spend the summer on the tree, this meant that the salad plants did get pretty heavily attacked. as I don't spray chemicals I had to rely on a high pressure jet from my pump up plant sprayer. It worked well, and gives a tremendous sense of satisfaction to see clean leaves. The ants weren't too happy though!







Last edited: Tue Nov 03, 2009 5:09 pm

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