Twelve Things I Have Learned Through Vegetable Gardening

Always keep your wellies by the back door.


Keep your watering can outside the back door and pour all your waste cooking/kettle water in there. I get a kick out of re-using my pink boiled beetroot water on their surviving cousins in the garden.


Slugs are less enticed by older leaves so it pays to bring your plants to a decent size before planting out.


Always keep an eye peeled for pests. I just paused to have a quick slug hunt and rid myself of seven small ones and this monstrosity:

Cover your salad leaves with a net or the birds will eat them, in fact cover as much as you can!


The cabbage white butterfly often lays her eggs on the underside of the leaves, so a seemingly flawless plant can be covered in caterpillars over night. Find those little yellow eggs under your brassica leaves and squish.


The amount of insects per square foot of soil is terrifying.


Even correctly spaced beetroot may need to be thinned, as a single seed can be a cluster of a few seeds.


Loosen the soil around your onion and garlic bulbs before lifting, to allow the bulbs to expand in the soil.


You can eat the tops of a lot of plants – Brussels sprouts, turnips, beetroot, peas, and beans to name only a few.


Don’t pull up your salad plants – many of them will grow new leaves after you cut what you need. Look up “cut and come again”.


Little and often is the key to keeping the garden going through the year.

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