9. Kitchen Garden Planting

In my first year of kitchen gardening I played it safe, using plug plants rather than growing from seed. I selected crops that I knew well, nothing very daring. I wasn’t organised enough to phase the planting, which meant that everything was ready at the same time. My main objective was to learn the ropes.

I read avidly, mugging up on everything I could about individual plant requirements, crop rotation and companion planting. The result was a very straightforward planting plan: Bed 1 with brassicas, Bed 2 with root vegetables, Bed 3 with cucumbers and squashes, Bed 4 with salad leaves. The smaller single-crop metal raised beds were used for beans, peas, potatoes and strawberries. All my tomatoes were in specialist self-watering plant pots.

It wasn’t long before the local pigeons arrived, lined up along the garden wall, eyeing my beds with high expectations. Clearly protective netting was required. I took James Wong’s advice and made an arched frame for the nets out of bamboo poles and old pieces of hosepipe. A cheap and very practical frame to support the net and allows you to change the height easily by swapping the length of the bamboo poles. To secure the net at the bottom I used stainless steel screws at intervals around the bed, giving something to hook the nets on to. It is a solution that has worked really well.

It is easy to add plant supports to these beds by using bamboo supports, but it can be a nuisance when the nets get caught on them. I use small plant pots or plastic stick toppers to stop them catching. It doesn’t eliminate the problem, but makes it workable on a day to day basis.