Use your site to the best Advantage!

Written by John Mauger   Date Posted: 24 March 2016 

Below are a few tips, ideas and suggestions on how to use particular areas of your garden to the best advantage:

 

• A brick or concrete wall will provide wind protection and will store heat. This will help things to ripen earlier and could extend the growing season for some plants further into the autumn.

 

• A fence will provide protection and somewhere to grow climbing plants such as beans, peas and ‘staking’ tomatoes.

 

• A window box outside a north or east facing window could be planted with herbs, flowers or small vegetables.

 

More ideas:

• Wire fixed to the side of a carport and planted with climbing beans could provide some shade in the summer for your car as well as being a screen from neighbours.
• A leaky gutter or downpipe on your house or even a neighbours’ shed could provide extra water to grow ‘thirsty’ vegetables such as rhubarb or sweet corn.
• ‘Stacking’ plants is another great way to fit more food plants into a small space (more on this later ).

 

Take a few minutes ‘time out’ and have a wander around your ‘domain’. Find the warm spots, the cool spots, the damp spots, the shady spots and the drier spots. They will all grow something, why not something to eat?