growing my own - a veg update

A while ago I rambled on about plans for a vegetable patch in our small suburban garden.
We planted some stuff and then the sun came out - more sunshine than April usually gives us - and everything grew. Grew so fast you could almost settle down in a deckchair and watch it. Tomatoes, courgette plants, rocket, lettuce, spring onions, shallots, strawberries. Here's how it's all looking.

 planting diddy plants in a bleak wintery patch

spring starts to work its magic

now the raised bed is groaning with produce!

after consuming more than our fair share of salad we let the rocket plants flower because they're pretty

all the other flowers loved the sunshine too

I think the best way to learn how to grow your own is just to take the plunge and do it. It probably takes a few years before you really get it right - know where to grow things in the right places, and how to position them, and feed them. I can't wait to have my own flourishing vegetable garden when I'm older and be able to grow most of the fruit & veg I eat. I don't care how much of a granny I sound - I care about the planet, I love food and things just taste better homegrown.

There'll be more veg-orientated posts coming - I'm sorry if gardening makes you yawn!

And yes, that's right, pink crocs. I'm still shocked by my own fashion crime... They're my gardening shoes! (oh god)

green-fingered

In the last few months I've developed a bit of an interest in gardening - inspired by a few people, including, of course, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and his River Cottage garden!

One day I'd love to have my own beautiful garden, complete with a vegetable patch, lush lawn, red brick walls and huge slightly wild flowers. Until then I've contented myself with a small vegetable patch in our small suburban garden. Like Hugh, I always want to be as self-sufficient as I can.
Back in the autumn I pulled up a giant ghastly red hot poker plant and an oversized rosemary bush to make way for a raised bed, which my dad had built out of old scraps of wood. I prepared the ground by adding extra soil and fertiliser. Then there was nothing else to do but wait until spring (and pilfer my mum's gardening handbook for a bit of light bedtime reading).
Yesterday I went outside to investigate the effects of winter on my vegetable patch so far. With spring only a couple of months around the corner, I need to start planning what fruit & veg yums to plant..

 

 

A lot of weeding definitely needs to be done...
What fruit and veg do you think I should grow? I'm currently thinking courgettes and tomatoes...what else?
I will probably keep documenting the progress of my vegetable patch on this blog, so you can watch it change through the seasons and see how much of a success (or failure) the crop turns out to be.

There was also a small sign that spring is on the way...

Today the weather was sunny and gorgeous, adding to that spring feeling. Sunny days feel so rare in winter, so of course I just had to take my camera for a walk this afternoon. I wore my mum's red gilet (a bargain thrift from charity shopping earlier in the week!)