SMALL SPACE SAVIOURS

Not everyone is blessed with a big garden or allotment but if you thought a lack of space might limit your options, think again! Benedict Vanheems shares some ingenious ideas to make the most of what you have

- Benedict Vanheem

As a nation of gardeners there's some irony that the average garden is continually shrinking, down to around 250sq m today. In many towns and cities, the typical garden is smaller still - for example, just 23sq m in Brighton, or about the area of two parking spaces.

Room is always going to be at a premium on our small, crowded islands. But like so many things it's not size that matters, it's what you do with it - and gardeners big on ambition but limited on plot size simply need to get creative.

REMEMBER TO LOOK UP

Thankfully there's always plenty of sky to grow up into. So, the obvious starting point is to make the most of both vertical surfaces and supports that enable more produce to be packed into the same footprint.

Walls and fences, particularly if they are sun-facing, make ideal surfaces for meticulously trained fruit trees. Apples, pears, plums, peaches, cherries and more can be coaxed into various fancy forms, from espaliers to fans, or simply grown as single-stemmed cordons or other columnar forms. It makes sense to cloak every available vertical space in fruit, climbing vegetables or pots, troughs and planting pockets brimming with herbs, salads and strawberries.

Trellises, arches, pergolas, wigwams or sturdy stakes are great starting points for climbing beans and peas, indeterminate or cordon tomatoes, cucumbers and other vining veg, as well as sprawling fruits like grapevines or kiwis. I'm a massive fan of arches for both their good looks and the somewhat smug sense of satisfaction that comes with growing food in otherwise 'wasted' space — why not turn paths into a wall-to-wall gallery of goodness, complete with overhead dangling beans, squashes or cucumbers?