In the first lockdown, I took to gardening. I’d never taken any interest in it but my dad was doing the shopping for three households in our local little M&S (Tesco was impossible for the first month or so due to the combination of epic queues and shortages caused by panic buying) and they were giving away little seedling kits when you spent a certain amount, or when they decided they just wanted to get rid of them. So I grew lettuces and beetroot and herbs and a fine time was had, much to my surprise.
So come spring 2021, I was ready. I wanted to grow a veritable market garden and I’d already done some gardening, I knew it all! And what I didn’t know, I could get from Leyla Kazim’s invaluable #PotToPickle series. I did indeed grow a lot of stuff and make a lot of changes and now here we are, approaching spring 2022 and I’m going to play the “I know all now!” game for the second year in a row and tell you everything I learned from my second year of gardening.
Everything grows so much better in a greenhouse
In an ideal world, I’d have a garden the size of Kew and a greenhouse the size of Alexandra Palace. In reality, I have the paving slabs around a 10×10 suburban garden and two plastic greenhouse about the size of a child’s wardrobe. In 2020, my peppers lived outside in grow bags and it took until October or November to get even a hint of fruit. In 2021, my first chilli appeared in July and I actually went out and picked them for dinner occasionally. They didn’t do as well as I would have liked but they did so much better the second time around and what I learned from that is that greenhouses are the best. Yes, I bought one last year and then my parents spied another in Lidl and couldn’t come home without it. I have no idea where it’s going to go but so far it’s been in the box in the hall for at least a month, getting in everyone’s way.
Greenhouses don’t keep plants warm in winter
Leyla’s #PotToPickle said to start getting things like tomatoes, chillis and peppers started indoors in January, which I did, no problem. But that first greenhouse, I got that in late February and by mid-March, I’d moved all my babies out there. Turns out it’s quite chilly out there and they basically went into stasis until about May. My tomato plants did not thrive so badly that my dad went to the garden centre and bought three pre-planted (cheat!) tomato plants. By about June my seed-grown ones started to catch up and became as tall as the garden centre ones and far bushier but it was a rocky beginning. They should have stayed inside on the windowsill for another two months. This year’s have already outgrown their windowsill nursery propagator and been moved into the mid-size windowsill box. I think they’re going to have to be in junior pots on any windowsill where there’s space before it’s warm enough to put them outside.
Eggboxes are the best nurseries
For Christmas, I had a long windowbox propagator thing and a sort of mini greenhouse and they’re both great but ultimately, I had good results with eggboxes in 2020 and 2021 and I’d have been quite happy to grow this year’s babies in them again. They’re upcycling, in a way, they fit nicely on windowsills and they’re already recycled unbleached cardboard so they decompose really well and really quickly when you’re done with them.
Hardening off is a thing
This is another thing that came from #PototPickle. I’ve always put my peppers and chillis outside to “sunbathe” on warm days but Leyla taught me that you can’t just suddenly put an indoor plant outside and expect it to thrive. It needs to acclimatise to the weather, so it needs to go outside come rain or shine every day for at least a week, preferably two. After that it can go outside permanently and the cold fresh air won’t be quite such a shock to it. Perhaps the stuff I put in the greenhouse too early might have been ok if I’d done this first but I didn’t (it wouldn’t. I just plain put it out too early). Didn’t know about it at the time. My sister bought a pair of passion flowers (turned out to be something altogether different) and I told her I’d be bringing it in at night for the first two weeks. She said “Oh, I’m not going to bother with that, it’s going straight out”. Three weeks later: “Huh. Your flower is doing a lot better than mine”. Follow Leyla, seriously.
Don’t follow the dates listed on the seed packets
What I mean by that is that the seed packets said to plant my carrots, spring onions, radishes and leeks outside around March. They then proceeded to sit in the ground and do absolutely nothing for three months because it was too cold. By the time they actually started to sprout, I could have shortcut all that by waiting to plant them until May or June. They’d be at exactly the same stage because being planted early just meant three months of stasis. Similarly, the seed packet said radishes take about five weeks to get from planted to eating. My third crop, yes. It’s magic. But my first crop took months because it was too early to plant them out. Leave these things until summer is well on its way.
Home-grown vegetables genuinely are better than the supermarket version
Early in my radish season, my mum muttered about how the radishes you get on holiday are the size of footballs but the radishes you get in Tesco are tiny little things. In July I pulled up radishes the size of footballs. The first tiny carrot was deemed “very carroty” but when some small ones went into a roast dinner, my mum stopped, looked up, almost in distress, and said “These carrots are really nice!”. The radishes are also excellent, by the way, very peppery and not at all woody. I mean, I can’t grow enough to be self-sufficient on vegetables, even if I had that palatial garden and 24 hours a day to tend to them so we’re not giving up supermarket vegetables any time soon but I’m very pleased to find that my babies are so good. I’d be very pleased just to have them at the point of eating them but I’m extra pleased that they’re so tasty.
I need to put in a little more effort than I realised last year
In 2020, I was all about moving them up a pot size when they got too big and watering them. In 2021, I found I was weeding my leek planter, constantly rearranging the things in the greenhouse as they git too big for the shelves and to keep the snails off them, my cucamelons, tomatoes and beans all needed things to climb up, my tarragon, peppers and chillis needed support sticks, half of my herbs needed gentle but constant encouragement – rosemary is really hard to grow from seed – and I had to go out and take photos of their progress almost every day. I loved it, honestly, especially watching it all get closer to eating-size and in particular staring at the triffids that used to be tiny baby tomato plants and saying in awe “I grew that – on the windowsill in an eggbox!” but it does require a little more effort from me than I think I realised in 2020.
I need to label my plants
It was easy in 2020 but in 2021, I had about eleven varieties of vegetable, seven herbs and some other bits and pieces and by July I was already at the point where I had to stop and think about what exactly I was looking at, especially with the herbs. They need labels. I bought some mini lolly sticks for a Guides craft and the leftovers were very useful for sticking in pots and planters to remind me exactly what that particular feathery green thing is. I’m going to have to get some more this year, because last year’s have gone mouldy and most of them got thrown out with the remains.
Beans need support
I have a nice big pot and I have a sort of metal pyramid-obelisk thing for them to climb but one thing I learned in 2020 was that beans are quite top-heavy and they’ll fall over at even the slightest suggestion of a breeze. I tied them up but there was nowhere really convenient that really worked. I had a string tied to the arm of the bench next to the pot and a string tied to the garage door handle on the other side but they were both long and looser than I would have liked and frankly they might as well have not been there for all the good they did.
In 2021, I had a tiny bit of decking next to my greenhouse (my sister had a tiny deck built in her miniature garden and I used the offcuts) and my beans lived there. Because greenhouse and deck are up against a fence, the greenhouse is attached to the fence with large eyehooks and so my obelisk is tied to one of them right up at the top and then to a second hook on the other side – both short and taut, so they should be a lot more stable – and it’s also tied to the bottom of the greenhouse for extra stability. It went nowhere. The greenhouse remained standing and intact through Storm Eunice and if the worst storm in 30 years couldn’t damage it, I’m pretty sure that thing will remain standing forever.
Prune but carefully
I got overexcited with my tomatoes. They thrived after all, eventually, and went wild. We had a jungle out there blocking an entire window. And Leyla said to prune them. So I followed her advice very enthusiastically. Worst mistake ever. One week I had hundreds of tomatoes, although it was a bit hard to find them among the jungle. The next week, the plants were turning black and what tomatoes were appearing were mouldy from the start. In 2022, I’m leaving them to go wild again. It may be better for them to be pruned but clearly I don’t have the delicacy of touch.
Cucamelons are the best
I planted my cucas because my friend Catherine told me to. Whether it was because she was curious about how it would go or because she knew I wouldn’t know what they were, I don’t know, but I did it. And they were great! I had no idea what they’d do or what to do with them and what they did was climb like crazy, grab at anything within about two feet of their basket and they reached about eight feet up the trellis in the end. They produce so much fruit – it was just a shame no one actually turned out to like them. But I’m going to grow them again because they were fun.
Actually, radishes are the best
Last year I concluded that radishes are the absolute best beginner vegetable. You sprinkle them in a trough or a pot or the ground or whatever you’ve got; a little over a month later, you’ve got an edible crop of radishes. Pull ’em, eat ’em, sprinkle new ones and there’s another lot. Or you could be organised and keep five little batches, where you sow one a week and then within a month, every week you’ve got a fresh supply and by the time you get to the end, you’ve got the first of the new ones to start the cycle again. Really, if you’ve never tried growing vegetables before and you don’t have any space, put a trough on a windowsill and grow some radishes. I even have a radish t-shirt!
What did I grow?
Just for interest, this is what I grew in 2021. It’s a bit early for me to be certain what I’m going to grow in 2022 but so far I’ve got tomatoes, peppers and chillis on my office windowsill. The 2021 menu:
Vegetables
Peppers, chillis, tomatoes, leeks, red onions, spring onions, radishes, carrots, fennel, cucamelons, green beans
Herbs
Lavender, thyme, tarragon, mint, parsley, chives, rosemary, basil
Other
Raspberries, cornflowers, Chinese lantern flower