insideSUSSEX Magazine Issue 01 - March 2015 | Seite 79

OUTDOORLIVING

grow your own
Although the idea of growing your own fruit and vegetables might sound like something other
people do, it’s not as hard as you first think. Once you’ve done the initial planning and preparing,
many foods take care of themselves, with little need for any technical skill. As long as you have
patience, you should get some great results from your veggie patch. BY LISAMARIE LAMB

The first step is to choose where to set up your new food-producing garden.
A lot depends on what you want to grow, and how much room you have
in which to grow it. However, generally, you can start in containers, a
greenhouse, a few feet of lawn turned over or, if you are lucky enough to
be able to become part of one, an allotment. A good tip when it comes to
location is to ask yourself where you would like to sunbathe – somewhere
sunny with some shelter from the wind. Don’t allow overhanging trees or
garden sheds to get in the way of a bountiful crop.

clay), then raised beds could be a great idea for you – you can add inches
of good quality topsoil to enable your seeds to grow to their full potential.
Once you have decided on the place and type of vegetable patch you want,
you need to prepare the ground. Remove all of the turf and turn over the
earth, making sure that any stones or lumps of brick and building debris
are removed. All of the weeds have to go too. It may be tempting just to
plant the seeds straight away, but you do need to ensure that your soil is
ready for them. To really make the soil ideal, you should add as much
compost as possible to it. This is available from the garden centre, although
you may want to consider setting up your own compost heap in the garden
– it saves time and money when you need nutrient rich goodness for your
veggies.

However and wherever you are working, a good word of advice is to divide
your space into four quadrants – one for each of the first vegetables you
choose to grow. This makes it easier to maintain, as different products need
different amounts of water and tending, and easier to remember what went
where before things start to grow. If you want to grow more than four, why
not use the quadrants to separate your seeds into type? You could have
legumes (beans and peas), salads, root vegetables, and herbs, or any other
combination that takes your fancy.

Now you are ready. But what to grow? Some produce takes a lot of looking
after, and for the effort put in, doesn’t produce that much reward (things
like peppers and potatoes), so you may want to stay away from those at
the beginning. The best things to grow are those ‘cut and come again’
varieties that keep coming back, seemingly no matter what. These include
salad vegetables and herbs, as well as a number of other delicious items.
Below is a list of what to sow when, and when to harvest them, so you
have an idea of what you might be able to achieve from your lovely new
vegetable patch.

Another question to answer is whether or not you want to make your beds
raised. Raised beds are those that are set in a frame a few inches from the
ground, rather than digging straight into the earth itself. If you have very
little topsoil (which would occur when your soil is mostly chalk, sand, or

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