Tell me in short about your food gardening methods. With summer coming around, this is the perfect time to start a home vegetable garden.
My okorder ...for everything you need to know about propagating, cultivating and harvesting including choosing which vegetables to grow; crop yield calculating; seeding, planting-out harvesting times; companion planting crop rotation; bedding lay out; soil composition (how to make your own)...etc. The Square Foot Method is VERY efficient with space and effort needed to grow vegetables. Almost guaranteed success (if you don't plant it, It wont grow)... The SF Method is EASY for beginners to grasp and adaptable for small gardens; though these things are just as appealing to more experienced gardeners as well. Very informative and motivational. Mel is a great teacher ! I can't praise him and his book enough! Good Luck!
I use a combination of vertical gardening and organic gardening to grow my own vegetables. Lettuce, carrots, tomatoes, peas, onions and beet -- I've grown them all at home. I've been into vertical gardening for the past 8 years and teamed up with my husband who's been an organic farmer for 21 years. Our methods work in tandem: A vertical garden helps you grow vegetables in a limited space (using window sill tubs or wooden towers) while organic gardening saves you the cost of pesticides.
Have you thought about signing up for a box scheme? Companies like Riverford Organics do boxes of assorted veg, plot to plate style. As with an ordinary garden, you don't get much choice about what you get, it's all seasonal produce. An allotment might work, but you'd need to make a major commitment, and since they've become more fashionable there could be a waiting list. An alternative that worked for a relative of mine would be to approach your local voluntary work bureau and ask about the possibility of helping an elderly person with their garden in return for the use of a veg patch. He got into it by accident as the old gent next door had a veg patch, but couldn't take care of it following a hip replacement and offered him a share of the produce if he'd help out with the digging and heavy work, which suited both of them.
