Claire’s vegetable garden

Claire's Vegetable Garden

My vegetable garden is quite exposed to the elements so in this lesson I'll show you how to protect your patch and get rid of any pesky perennial weeds.

It's early spring in East Sussex, so it's time to get to work on the new growing season. I'll be working on my five beds which form a five-year crop rotation and showing you how to grow from seed to harvest.

The Story of My Veg Patch

When I first arrived at my home in East Sussex the space where I have my veg patch was just an empty field. In early spring of the following year I decided to start cultivating my space. My first step was to mark out the area I wanted to cultivate, before drawing a map of it so I could visualise what I wanted it to look like.

The size of my beds was determined by the size of the site, so they are around 4 metres long by a metre wide. The metre width means that you can be comfortable picking and harvesting from either side, but you can adapt the width and length of your beds to your own specific needs.

Spring in the Garden

At this time of year, there isn't much in the beds themselves, as the seedlings are not quite ready to be planted out, and all that is in the beds are the vegetables that have overwintered.

Currently, I have overwintering parsley and chard, as well as leeks and purple-sprouting broccoli, which is moving towards the end of its productivity.

Within a few weeks, these crops will be removed and replaced by my spring crops which are currently safe inside the greenhouse.

How Sunshine Can Affect Your Growing Plan

Fortunately for me, my veg plot gets a lot of sunshine and the trees that overlook my beds protect my crops from the midday heat in the height of summer.

One of my beds is particularly exposed to the sun, so when I was growing lettuces in it last year I used shade netting to protect them from the midday sun, as too much heat can cause lettuces to bolt (more on this later).

When you are planning your growing space, select the sunniest part of your garden for your vegetable patch and try to avoid any areas that are shaded all day long as you will struggle to produce successful crops in very shady conditions.

How to Protect Your Vegetables from Wind

As my vegetable patch backs onto an open field it is quite exposed and so it can be quite windy at times.

During windy weather, you will need to keep an eye on crops which are easily damaged by these conditions, such as purple sprouting broccoli which can be quite top-heavy and topple over. Providing plants like these with a support structure can help to protect them from the elements.

Wind can also be very drying, so you may find that you need to water your soil after particularly windy weather.

The Infrastructure of Your Vegetable Patch

One of the most important features of my veg patch is the wire fence that runs around its perimeter. The field that my veg patch backs onto is full of rabbits, and we all know that rabbits are particularly fond of munching through practically any vegetable they can find.

My rabbit-proof fence goes into the ground at an angle, which makes it hard for them to burrow underneath.

Dealing with Perennial Weeds

Before I built our vegetable patch, this land was just an unused field, so I suspected that there would be quite a lot of weeds amongst the grass.

To find out what was lurking beneath the surface, I removed the top layer of grass and discovered that the soil was full of perennial roots, including the roots of couch grass, nettles and brambles.

As I am an organic gardener I removed all the roots I could find by hand, which was painstaking work but necessary for the future success of the veg patch.

Once I had removed everything I could find, I put a layer of cardboard on the beds to suppress any of the weeds that I was unable to remove.

Following this, I laid down a thick layer of organic compost on top of the cardboard, which acted as a mulch and fed the beds. The cardboard and the compost then slowly decomposed into the soil below, feeding it for the following growing season.

Now the veg patch is established, I continue to add a thick layer of compost to the beds every winter, which replenishes them for the year to come.