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Wot No Garden

How to garden without a garden

We haven’t all got gardens the size of football pitches, as seen on most TV gardening programs. If you have to survive, like I do, with little or no garden you have to make the most of what you have, or haven’t, got.

‘Erb Indoors
A number of herbs, such as chives and basil (pinch the tops out to make the basil bushier), grow well on a window sill. If it’s a sunny window make sure the plants are behind good net curtains or they will get scorched. If you have a sunny and light room try peppers. Pollinate the flowers with a small paint brush, unless you have lots of bees in your house.

Use hanging baskets or window boxes to grow herbs, nasturtiums (you can eat these) and beans, which can hang over the edges. You will get less trouble from slugs than in a garden. One pest you have to look out for is Norwich City Council who will be worried your pot will fall on someone’s head.

Pot Growing
You can get books on container gardens in most libraries. Basically use anything that can do as a pot. Make sure it’s got good drainage; holes in the bottom, bits of crockery/shells in the bottom of the pot, raise it just off the floor. If you’re keeping plants out over winter plastic and tin pots do not give great insulation and some terracotta pots crack in frost.

It is probably not worth growing anything that is dead cheap in the shops.

You can grow dwarf fruit trees; apples, plums, walnuts, in pots about 2 foot by 2 foot. Get a couple or a self pollinating one. Don’t plant too deep in the pot and only water lightly for the first few weeks. Decide where it is going to stay before the thing grows too big and heavy for you to move.

Climbing beans, tomatoes and cucumbers can grow up walls on trellises, or up canes out of pots, or up those potted trees.

Bushy tomatoes grow well in pots, so do redcurrents. Growbags, split open, are good for strawberries for a couple of years.

Look for more space on top of sheds (watch the weight/roof ratio). Old stepladders can give more pot space per square foot for small pots of baby beetroot, carrots, spinach or chard.

Neighbourhood Squat
Look out for long time empty properties with long time empty properties attached. If you’re pretty sure it’s not going to be occupied next week and it’s not the local junkie den, you don’t want to go weeding needles, then get digging.

Obviously it’s best not to spend too much on plants but a bit of clearing, weeding and a few packets of seeds won’t cost much. A padlock on the gate to keep the casual vandals out. Personally I don’t mind the kids eating my fruit but a kicked to death cabbage patch is a waste of effort.

You might be lucky and find an abandoned garden still growing some uncared for survivors. I’ve had 2 years of ready grown rhubarb, raspberries and fennel before one garden got new owners.

Grow Wild
Old railway tracks, waste ground and hedgerows are all begging for your touch. Plants you don’t have to work on or plant year after year are best for this. Herbs such as rosemary and sage, or fruit trees. You might not be the one to harvest but you’ve added to the wild food out there; like herb garlic, mallow and fat hen. Just a word of warning on wild plants. Anything dog leg height, especially solitary bushes on pathway corners, might have a strange taste most people don’t care for.
Plotting Ahead

If you have got the time, dedication and effort to spare you can look for an allotment. Some allotments have a contact address on the gate, or you might be able to get it from someone working there, or the library. In some places there is quite a waiting list and in others odd hereditary type systems, but it’s worth trying.

There will be some sort of rent to pay and don’t forget you have got to get to and from it, probably with your tools, whenever you want to work on it. But you will get fresh veg, exercise, a bad back and muddy hands instead of having to stay in the warm watching TV and eating oven chips – no contest really.