Maximum veg whatever your space

Make 2022 your best veg-growing year ever with Huw Richards’ action plan for big harvests year-round – whatever the size of your plot

- Huw Richards

Plants aren’t my priority in the vegetable garden. My priority is nurturing the healthiest soil possible in my raised beds and containers through an eclectic mix of techniques influenced by no-dig gardening and managing my soil without herbicides or pesticides. No dig serves as my foundation, upon which I include other ideas and methods that I believe hold merit and potential to make my soil and plants healthier and my life easier!

Experimentation is at the heart of my growing journey. I am constantly pushing the boundaries to see what is possible for gardeners to make the most of their space, and I will be sharing many ways that you can help unearth your garden’s full potential throughout the year.

Being in the depths of winter, it is the ideal time to double down and think carefully about what you want to achieve from your growing space this coming growing season. The plans on these following pages will show you what you can achieve in a single 1.2m x 3m raised bed, season by season. If you have more space to grow, these ideas are all easy to scale up.

Spring

The new growing season can be hectic, so I prefer to gently ease into it by only starting a handful of crops in March. Tomatoes on the windowsill, broad beans in pots and new potatoes in the ground.

Salads are also sown, usually in pots in order to free up bed space. The trick for any salad crop is to only sow a little every couple of weeks from March to September, so you get a continuous flow of leaves throughout the year. If you don’t have a greenhouse or polytunnel, you can start seedlings off on a sunny windowsill – just be sure to rotate seedlings 180° daily to avoid bendy plants.