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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

This blog entry has been viewed 425 times

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Frank wrote on Sat Oct 24, 2009 12:17 pm:

That's very interesting especially as it got your son encouraged to help also.

If you are having photo upload problems I suggest to email one of your photo to the email address at the bottom of this page and I'll investigate :)

// frank

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eileen wrote on Sat Oct 24, 2009 1:35 pm:

A very interesting read GFY. I'm glad your son enjoys taking part in growing things. Children are certainly more inclined to eat their greens if they've grown them in the garden. Hopefully one day you'll have a home of your own with a garden big enough to allow you to grow everything you want.

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glendann wrote on Sat Oct 24, 2009 7:02 pm:

Your blog was very interesting to me.I'm going to try growing in containers next Spring.

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grownforyou wrote on Mon Oct 26, 2009 2:57 pm:

Thanks for all the kind comments. There is plenty more to come!

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