Planning the Kitchen Garden

Growing your own vegetables, herbs and fruit ensures that the food you eat is fresh, tasty and free of chemicals.  An ideal starting point is to make a list of all the vegetables and fruit that you eat on a regular basis and add a few that you might like to try.  Then you should have a good look at your garden and decide whether there is enough room to grow everything that is on your list.

Many edible plants, especially herbs and vegetables, are easy to grow and can be ready for harvesting in a short space of time.  Growing fruit is a longer term investment, as many types such as apples, pears and blackcurrants take several years to crop, but once they start they will continue to crop for many years and are much less time consuming than growing vegetables.

You do not need acres of space to enjoy your own fresh fruit and vegetables- even a small garden will support an edible crop for two.  You can grow potatoes in barrels, herbs in pots and fruit trees in ornamental containers.  If you live in an appartment, you can use window boxes and containers to grow fresh herbs and vegetables.  Try planting hanging baskets with trailing tomatoes, herbs or fruit such as strawberries.  Edible gardening involves using any space that is conveniently available.

There are a number of points you will need to consider in order to get the most out of your kitchen garden.  Check the pH of your soil before getting underway as vegetables such as cauliflowers and cabbages will not grow well if the soil is too acidic (under pH of 6.5).  You can buy a soil testing kit at any garden centre.  You should also test the soil for nutrients, this will tell you whether there is any need to improve the soil before you start planting.  The aspect of your garden is also critical in the siting of your plants.  Fruit needs a lot of sun in order to ripen properly and develop flavour.  It is a good idea to plant fruit trees in a lawn, this makes is easy to collect the fruit.

Any design needs to consider the difference between annual and perennial crops.  Annual vegetable crops such as potatoes, carrots, cabbages and beetroot will need to be rotated within the vegetable garden to prevent attack from soil-bourne pests and diseases.  Strawberries are a good example, as they are treated as an annual and have to be divided every year.  You can rotate your strawberry bed with flowers and annual herbs such as basil and dill, to keep the pests at bay.

Perennial crops such as asparagus and rhubarb can be assigned their own areas, as these are not rotated on an annual basis.  Raspberries and blackberries, which are both perennial, are best sited permanently on a wire trellis.  Avoid putting them in a huge expanding clump that can take over the whole of your garden.  Consider how difficult a particular plant is to grow.  Peaches, for example, can be challenging.  They are disease prone and require lots of care and attention.  Unless you are a committed gardener with time on your hands you might want to buy your organically grown peaches from a local shop.