Creating a victory garden using permaculture

This year we want to grow as many of our own fruit, vegetables, herbs and edible flowers as we can. We have a raised planter already but we want to try and utilise the space in the borders we have that normally I would be growing annuals in, for this year growing vegetables.

The garden we inherited from the previous occupant was pretty destitute (see the photo at the bottom of this post). Everthing you see in my photographs has been added by us over the past six years. The majority of the plants have either been grown from seed, cuttings of taken (with permission) from the gardens of friends and family members. Gardening needn’t be expensive, and if you’re interested in gardening for the first time due to the lockdown I welcome you to a wonderful community of sharers. From knowledge to seedlings, gardeners love to share.

Our small suburban garden in Cheshire, england

Our garden is west-facing, with six foot fences either side, a high mixed hedge at the back, a 12 square metre raised patio and a round-ish lawn. It’s about 10 metres 8 metres. We’ve squeezed in a swing, a play house, a shed, a chicken run, two and a bit borders, a raised bed, the washing line, and a pop-up grow house. And some pots. And a BBQ. I think we’re probably at capacity. 

The border you see behind my son in the photograph is our ‘sunny’ border. It’s south facing and gets the sun the majority of the day. I already have some summer fruiting raspberries and a blueberry in here, but plan to add autumn fruiting raspberries, herbs, beans, squashes and plenty of sunflowers too to attract the pollinators our suburban gardens so deperately need.

I felt quite sad putting away all the flowers I’d planned to grow this year, but it didn’t sit right to just carry on as if nothing had changed. Where I would usually have slotted annuals into the boarders, we only want to plant edibles. So I’m mixing little clusters of things like french beans, peas, beetroot and even red cabbages amongst the perennials, in the hope the garden will be both beautiful and productive without taking away the space we need for our young children.

As the lockdown approached, and anxieties around food were raised, sowing some seeds really helped me feel like I had some control over the situation.

We’re repurposing as many containers as we can to grow fruit and vegetables, herbs and edible flowers as well. We bought these pots for trees that we used to decorate our wedding venue a few years ago. The trees are now here, and I would have planted the pots up with a mix of flowers or sweet peas but now they have our first early potatoes - Charlotte - in them.

Upcycling a palette into a strawberry planter

We always try to reuse as much as we can and have been pretty keen upcyclers. For example, the brick path is from the old 1970s conservatory we demolished two years ago. The raised bed is made from the broken gazebo we inherited from the previous owner. The sleeper step we saved from someone’s skip last summer. 

Recently we made this strawberry planter from an old shipping palette we had, thanks to a tutorial we found on YouTube. It’s lined with empty compost bags and we even used some of the chicken’s used bedding to bulk out the compost we had so we could make it stretch a little further.

When I feel like I’ve accomplished nothing throughout the day, I know I can come out to the garden in the evening, once the children are asleep and even if I only achieve one thing, I feel much calmer about this strange time we’re living in.

And our garden isn’t perfect. Slugs help themselves regularly. Our lawn has probably more bald patches than there is green grass. And with two small children, chickens and a dog things get dug up, pulled out, trodden on or squashed on quite a regular basis. 

But if we can do something that puts food on our table ourselves and smiles on our faces along the way, I think we’ll have done some good.

If you have any gardening questions at all, or are interested in anything you can see in my photographs, do drop me a comment below and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. And do take a look at the RHS’ #NationalGardeningWeek on their website and social media channels for lots of tips and advice too.

Laura

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National Gardening Week

April 27 marks the beginning of the Royal Horticultural Society’s annual National Gardening Week and I have decided there is no better time than to tell you I am expanding the content of my blog to include my great passion and hobby - gardening.

I’ve created a new gardening category and will be keeping you updated each month on what’s going on in my small suburban garden in Cheshire, England. The journal below shows what I’ve sown and the stages the plants are at, including the varieties I’m using this year.

Seedlings out in the growhouse

• Dwarf bean purple queen

Plants in the ground / containers

• Pea (snap) sugar bon

• Broad bean Suprifin

• Nasturtium tip top velvet

• Mustard oriental colour & bite

• Mixed lettuce leaves

• Radish bright light

• Strawberry Red gauntlet, Cambridge favourite and Strawberrys and cream

• Borage

• Garlic chives

• Red cabbage

• Red onion

Harvesting / over

• Ruby Chard

• Swiss Chard

• Leeks (over-wintered)

• Purple sprouting broccoli

Seeds sown / to sow

• Squash (summer) sun burst

• Squash patty pan

• Squash harrier F1

• Runner bean Enorma

• Beetroot Golden eye

• Beetroot Rhonda F1

• Fennel do Firenze

• Dill nano

• Sweet basil

• Purple sprouting broccoli

Seedling indoors

• Cucumber marketmore 76

• Courgette Grisette de Provence 

• Tomato Moneymaker

• Tomato Tumbling Tom yellow

• Tomato black opal

• Tomato beefstake

• Tomato costoluto fiorentino

• Sweet pepper summer salad mixed

• Parsley plain leaves

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