KNOW YOUR PLOT

Understanding your vegetable garden takes time but is the key to success, as professional gardener and keen organic veg grower Nicola Hope explains

- Nicola Hop

Getting to know a garden is a long process and a luxury. I have had the luxury of working in an organically managed walled vegetable garden in the Cotswolds for the last 12 years and I feel like I have finally got to grips with what works and what does not.

Salad crops, beans, and peas, for instance, work beautifully. Root vegetables do not. Over the years I have added ton after ton of well-rotted manure, homemade compost, and leaf mould but the Cotswold brash soil keeps throwing up stones. A few years ago I would spend hours on my hands and knees picking individual stones out of each bed. These days I spend my precious time matching the right crop to the right conditions.

The vegetable garden was newly constructed when I arrived to take charge in November 2009. The adjoining glasshouse and potting shed were a figment of the owners’ imagination. The owners had great plans of self-sufficiency and spending lots of time out there themselves. In reality, their busy lives meant that the garden quickly became my opportunity to experiment.

CAGED CARROTS