How to Grow.. Patio Veg

Editor: Steve Ott, sott@mortons.co.uk

Deputy editor: Emma Rawlings, erawlings@mortons.co.uk

Staff writer: Tony Flanagan, tflanagan@ mortons.co.uk

Advertising: Craig Amess, camess@mortons.co.uk

Tel. 01507 529529

WELCOME

More and more of us are discovering the delights of growing our own healthy fruit and veg at home and the advantages are obvious: seasonal produce grown without chemicals or air miles, picked fresh from your own garden when at their most nutritious. But with a rising population and squeeze on space in the UK, the trend is for modern gardens to become ever smaller. So can we still realise our dream of growing food for our families? Well yes, we can and How To Grow Patio Veg sets out to show you how.

Packed with advice and top tips, you’ll nd all the information you need to grow delicious harvests from the smallest of spaces; from sunny windowsill to patio or small garden.

A sunny wall o ers the opportunity to grow delicious apples, pears and plums while a small border or raised bed is all you need to produce tasty salads all year round. Happy Gardening!

Acknowledgement: My thanks to organic gardening expert and writer Ben Vanheems for his help in collating this title.

Steve Ott Editor, Kitchen Garden magazine www.kitchengarden.co.uk

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Publisher: Steve O’Hara

Published by: Mortons Media Group Ltd. Media Centre Morton Way Horncastle Lincolnshire LN9 6JR

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© 2022 Mortons Media Group Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage retrieval system without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

CONTENTS

LET’S GET STARTED!

6 An introduction to small space growing

Discover the secrets to success of small space gardening

8 Small space growing ideas

Great ideas and inspiration to help you get the best from available space

12 Using raised beds and containers

How to make use of raised beds and containers to grow your edible crops

16 Hanging baskets

Discover how hanging baskets and containers can help to maximise your growing space

20 Vertical gardening

Even walls and fences can be turned into productive places to grow crops

22 Windowsill crops

No garden? No problem! Using your windowsills to harvest food all-year-round

CLASSIC SMALL SPACE CROPS

26 Growing salads

Salad crops are the quickest and easiest to grow. Here’s how

30 Small space potatoes

Yes, even potatoes can be grown successfully in large pots and containers of all types

34

16

42

32 Chillies

Some like it hot! If that’s you, you’ll love to harvest chillies from your patio or even a windowsill

34 Beans

Accommodating beans are super nutritious and versatile and there are varieties for gardens of all sizes

36 Squashes

Even the smallest patch can have room for some squashes. It’s just a case of choosing the right ones

38 Tomatoes

Nothing beats the taste of home-grown, sun-warm tomatoes picked fresh from your own plants

40 Carrots

Healthy carrots can be grown in no more than a bucket or pot and will store for months until needed

20

42 Beetroot

Brighten your borders with nutritious beetroot. With tasty roots and leaves you have two crops in one

44 Onions

From salad onions to large bulb types, no garden should be without this kitchen essential. Discover how simple it is to grow in open soil or pots

46 Garlic

This pungent onion relative thrives in any sunny spot and will reward you with freshtasting cloves for the kitchen

47 Microgreens

Turn any small space or windowsill into a year-round salad garden with our simple advice

ESSENTIAL TECHNIQUES

52 Feeding containers

Fast-growing fruit and veg need feeding if they are to go on to feed your family. But did you know you can brew your own organic plant food to feed your crops?

56 Small space composting

The compost heap is the powerhouse of any garden, big or small. Turn every bit of green and kitchen waste into life-giving compost for your garden

58 Maximise your growing space

Simple ideas to help you make use of every inch of growing space in your home and garden

MONEY-SAVERS

50 Save on a subscription to Kitchen Garden magazine

Save pounds and receive free seeds every month with a subscription to the best-selling magazine for those who want to grow their own

62 Great reader offers

Make your gardening pound go further with our super money-saving reader offers

FRUIT FOR SMALL GARDENS

64 Fruit for small spaces

A mini orchard in your garden is within your reach with our top tips and advice

68 Cordon fruit trees

Learn how fruit trees growing on a single straight stem can be used to pack in the produce

70 Strawberries

Nothing says summer like strawberries and home-grown strawberries taste so much better than shop-bought fruit

73 Blueberries

This is the ideal fruit for small places since it thrives in a pot and requires very little attention, yet it provides bagfuls of vitaminpacked fruit year after year

HERBS FROM YOUR PATIO

76 Growing herbs

Fresh or dried herbs are so useful in the kitchen and easy to grow in the garden. Just a few pots can fragrance the whole patio

80 Mint

Fast-growing and available in many varieties, each with its own distinct flavour. Mint is such a useful herb

81 Basil

A touch of the Mediterranean on your windowsill. So easy to grow that you need never buy fresh basil again

SMALL ON SPACE, BIG ON AMBITION!

The size of your garden –whether it be a bijoux town garden, courtyard patio or merely a balcony space – shouldn’t crimp your growing ambitions. Small gardens are often the most creative, with every nook and cranny brought to life with often spectacular results. It’s amazing what can be grown in the tightest of spaces – all that’s needed is a little imagination.

e secret behind a beautiful and productive plot, no matter its size, is to make the most of every surface. is includes growing vegetables vertically to make the most of the one dimension you do have plenty of! Container bean tepees dripping with ready-to-pick pods, troughs jam-packed with salads, pots of cherry tomatoes and wall-hung herbs can transform a dull space into a kitchen gardener’s paradise! ere are

even fruit trees suitable for containergrowing – yes you can pick your own apples!

Over the coming pages you’ll nd plenty of ideas to pinch for your own garden, with suggestions for smallspace friendly crops, plus general growing advice to help your plants thrive. Start planning your own garden. Be inspired to give it a grow and go big on ambition!

SMALLBUT PERFECTLY FORMED HOW TO GROW

If you don’t have a lot of room to grow, there are many ways to maximise crops from tiny places. Here are some ideas

EDIBLE CORNER

This picture shows that in a small sunny corner you can create something attractive but productive. Planted at the back is an espalier fruit tree. You can buy young, trained trees, or you could pay a lot less and buy what is known as a one-year maiden tree, which will tend to be a single

stem with few or no sideshoots. You then take the top out and encourage sideshoots to form and train these horizontally to form the branches.

At the base of the tree is rosemary. is will eventually get too big for this space, but it can be kept smaller by regular pruning and using the clippings

in cooking. Also in this bed is red-veined sorrel, a perennial plant that comes up every year. e very young leaves can be added to salads to give a slight lemony tang. Older leaves can be cut and cooked like spinach. Add a viola for their edible owers and you have an interesting little productive corner.

HANGING TROUGHS

For something a bit more uniform and stylish you could x several small troughs to a wall or strong fence. ese have been planted with lettuce and tiny bush tomatoes. All vertical plantings do need careful watering. Rainfall is often shielded from these planters so do check regularly. Ideally, keep to a height to make checking soil moisture and watering easy.

PALLET PLANTING

Pallets are great for increasing your growing area. Secure them strongly to a wall to stop them falling forward. You can remove one or two planks and reattach under the slats to form a rudimentary planting box. You can either drop small pots into the box or ll with multipurpose compost and sow or plant up. is pallet has a mixture of crops, including herbs such as thyme, lemon balm and also kale and pansies to add colour. You could also plant several dwarf bush tomatoes with trailing nasturtiums and basil to make a really attractive pallet garden.

VERTICAL LIFT

Using vertical spaces around your plot will vastly increase its growing area. is beautiful living wall has been created using scrap wood and pallets. Runner beans grow through it at one end and sweet peas the other. Old sacks have had their tops sewn up then been turned on their sides, with one long side opened up to create a planting pocket. To securely hold the sack with the weight of compost and plants, it would be best to batten and screw it to the wall. You could grow a wide range of crops in the pockets. Pictured are carrots (stump-rooted types work best), strawberries and salads.

FRUIT TREE DOUBLE ACT

is fruit tree has been underplanted with lettuces. When fruit trees are rst potted on into large pots you will nd the base is a perfect area for some shallow rooted veg such as salad leaves. is space can be planted as long as the tree is getting enough water and occasional feeds. Many little spaces like this soon add up to

PACK THEM IN

When you have a small area you can often experiment with crop spacing. Sometimes you can get away with having plants a bit closer together, giving you a bigger overall harvest. So long as water and nutrients are in plentiful supply and plants are not too shaded, it is worth just bending the rules a little on spacings.

POTTED AND PLENTIFUL

Growing in containers is a great way to grow veg if you don’t have much space. A balcony, patio or tiny backyard can be very productive. Growing in pots is also ideal if you rent and don’t want to ‘put down roots’ or you are restricted in what you can do in the garden. You can grow in pretty much anything that holds compost and has holes in the bottom for drainage. In this picture, along with traditional pots, is a homemade trough made from recycled planks of wood. It may not be the prettiest container but it’s still a perfect home for some strawberry plants.

JUST BOOTIFUL

Even an old pair of boots can hold some compost and therefore some fruit or veg plants – in this case two strawberry plants.

BLOCK PLANTING

Sometimes making the best use of odd-shaped pieces of land requires a bit of creative thought. Why should vegetables be in rows? Sow in blocks instead. In this case patches of green and red lettuce have been sown around a cross-planting of brassicas. ey are close together but the lettuce will be harvested before the brassicas because the latter need the extra space to grow on. Growing quick-to-mature lettuce around slower-growing crops like brassicas is also known as intercropping – a great way to increase harvests from one space.

BAGGED UP

If you don’t have much space, you could buy some growing bags and sow them with a whole range of veg. Growing bags would t down a narrow alleyway or in a corner of a sunny patio. Simply break up the compacted bag by punching it and moving it around. Place it where you want it then put some holes into the bottom. Cut out the plastic on the top in a rectangular shape and then sow. Lettuce and mixed salad leaves do well in growing bags. In the picture the bag contains spinach plus a round-rooted carrot called ‘Atlas’, but you could also grow ‘Parmex’.

ALL TOGETHER

If you haven’t the space to devote solely to vegetable growing but have a ower border, why not just grow them all together? is both beautiful and edible space has a wigwam of runner beans and, around it, brassica and beetroot plants, plus yellow tagetes, orange marigolds and nasturtiums for a splash of colour. Also note the feathery foliage of cosmos, which will be topped with a mass of pollinator-attracting owers come midsummer. e tall purple Verbena bonariensis is a great bee attractant and as it is a spindly plant will not shade out your veggies. You could also dot in some purple kale plants and patches of spinach with lettuce at the front of the border.

TIME FOR BEDS HOW TO GROW

There are a lot of options with raised bed and container growing. Here are some for you to consider

Many of us grow owering plants in containers and pots, from geraniums to petunias, but what about growing your veg in containers and raised beds?

ere are a multitude of reasons why people grow in raised beds in their garden and for some the veg garden is a combination of large

pots and raised beds. is is the best option if the surface soil is not good enough, if it is mostly clay for example.

Just about anything you grow in the garden can be grown in a pot, container or raised bed if it is big enough for the plant. Even small fruit trees and bushes can thrive in containers and pots.

Raised beds made using the WoodblocX system of interlocking blocks Raised beds flush with a range of healthy crops