Growing Organic Vegetables, Fruit, and Herbs

Vegetables

This category contains advice to help you organize your vegetable growing, whether in vegetable beds, or as part of a mixed cottage garden planting plan. You should grow only what you need. If space is limited, eliminate vegetables such as potatoes that are easy to obtain. Instead, grow vegetables, such as sweetcorn, that deteriorate rapidly after harvesting and the so-called “gourmet” vegetables such as asparagus, which are so expensive.

All planting distances and pH numbers are approximate. In the cultivation sections each vegetable is assigned an ideal plot (A, B, C, or D) that applies if you use a three year crop rotation plan. Pests and diseases indicated are specific ones that attack the particular crop. If you have any other problems with these crops or with those marked “trouble free”.

Fruit

This chapter gives advice on growing fruit trees and bushes. Fences and walls can be utilized for growing fan-trained fruit. A warm, south-facing wall is particularly valuable, especially in temperate regions for the more tender types, such as peaches, nectarines, and figs. Pears and apples can be grown on east- and west-facing walls, and morello cherries and quinces on walls facing north. Vines also look good scrambling up walls and will give a good crop of wine berries. Redcurrants and gooseberries can be grown as decorative double or triple cordons against walls or fences. Grow strawberries, gooseberries, redcurrants, and blackcurrants in the ornamental borders and consider a cherry, mulberry, orange, lemon, peach, plum, apple, or pear tree as a lawn specimen. If you need a hedge to divide one part of the garden from another, try cordon apples and pears or single-tier espaliers, or stepovers, only 12 in high, as a decorative and productive edging to a fruit plot.

Herbs

The range of herbs you grow will depend on personal priorities. You may base your selection on culinary value, decorative qualities, or a combination of these and other factors. Herbs like the variegated sages and the thymes make superb ground-cover plants, swamping weeds and providing a splash of color, as well as attracting pollinating insects. Grow some of the “cultivated” forms of herbs in the flower garden.

Several varieties of giant chives produce large, dramatic flowers. There are also golden and variegated sages and some highly attractive colored hops, all as useful in the kitchen as their more commonly grown counterparts. However, you must also consider the practicalities of your choice, such as size, whether the plant is frost-hardy, and so on. So, before you buy your seeds or young plants, ensure you can provide the space and conditions needed to grow them successfully.