The thing about any good design is that it has to look beautiful as well as being practical to use, I think these photos show that vegetables can look as good as any decorative plants.
This look is achieved by having a good selection of proper old terracotta plant-pots, zinc planters, vintage tools and a good eye for composition.
I loved this table with a row of herbs and edible flowers down the centre, it featured in one of the show gardens at RHS Hampton Court this year.
The advantges of growing your own vegetables are that:
- you can grow food that isn’t readily available in the shops
- you know exactly how it’s been grown and can choose if chemicals are to be used
- the carbon footprint will be as small as possible
- your vegetables will be super fresh, you can pick and cook them within minutes
A vegetable bed works best if it has plenty of light, as much warmth and sunshine as possible during the growing season and good healthy soil.
Raised beds are ideal if your soil is poor because you can fill them with lovely rich compost.
With the luxury of a greenhouse you can start plants off earlier in the year and they’ll be more productive under the controlled growing conditions.
Plants like chillis and basil don’t like a big fluctuations between night -time and day-time temperatures and will really flourish in a green-house.
There’s still just enough time to sow vegetable seeds such as rocket, coriander, parsley and salad leaves whilst there’s still enough warmth and daylight for them to germinate.
What have been your successes with vegetable growing this year?
Jill
images: Jill Anderson
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