How big is your veg garden?

[BrandNewDay]

Do you have an allotment or are you growing at home?

How big is your garden?

I'm starting to realize, after reading some posts by people with huge allotment plots, that my veg plot is really small. We've pretty much dedicated our entire back garden to veg, but it's not all that much space.

Here's a photo:



We're still putting down gravel in the front (takes a while to buy and put down all that gravel.) Hubby is digging out the back steep slope into a set of steps and terraces where we can squeeze in four more raised beds and paths.

That will bring our total to 14 raised beds. The two largest are 1x3 m and the others are about 2 x 1m. I guess that's a total of about 30 square meters or just under 100 square feet. (Correction: it's 330 square feet.)

Which really isn't very much.

[terrier]

Hi, BND, hope you're enjoying the forum. My garden veg patch looks about as big as your's but I use as much space as possible for growing. I have the beds running across the plot and the paths are only a foot wide. Not using raised beds yet but probably will when I get around to it as we have a high water table and some of the beds get quite soggy in winter. I use the borders around the garden for herbs and strawberries and grow beans and sweetpeas, etc, up against the house wall.

[rana]

30 square meters is about 330 (not 100) square feet which IMO is a fair amount of ground under cultivation, particularly as it is ALL available in raised beds with decent width paths between. I am very lucky in having about twice that amount of space in total for my garden veg plot and I have a 'large' garden.

Most non-allotmenteers would be pushed to match your yardage, there are plenty of grapes on here who gain much pleasure from growing in pots on patios and balconies as I once did.

[BrandNewDay]

The two beds in the front are in shade for more than half the year. I can't even dry wash out on the line outside of the summer months. So, that's why we haven't built a lot beds down there, and the herbs there are in moveable pots. I figure the two beds can be used exclusively for things that grow/crop from April to September. Actually, I'm going to have to keep an eye on it and see when the shadow of the house hits it. It may only be good for May to August. Stuff can grow that fast, but it will be limited. I'll start another thread on that subject....

Thanks, Terrier, for the welcome!

Rana, thanks for checking my math!

[sweetiepea]

HI BND. Your garden looks great! You're making the most of the space you have, and to be honest, you seem to be making a great job of it. Lots of grapes would give their eye teeth to have the space you have. Don't get hung up on comparisons. Size doesn't matter - its what you do with it that counts!!!

[Rabidbun]

Hi BND, looks a nice setup! My growing space is fairly teeny - around 4 square metres in raised beds with enough room around the edges of the decking/lawn (the wee one needs space to play and apparently cannot do that between veg plants in raised borders! ) to put nine huge pots and around 50 others ranging from 12 to 4 inches or thereabouts. I am lucky enough to have found room for a 6x4 greenhouse though, which helps a lot!

Would love an allotment, but there aren't any close enough!

[pdblake]

Ours is quite a big garden but we don't use all of it for growing, a good chunk is lawn (or what passes for lawn with three kids and a football)

I've got a diagram on my website, though it's a tad out of date at the moment. One of the sheds has moved an KH's play area is now a chicken run

If you don't mind my saying, you'll get a few more raised beds in there if you narrow your paths a bit. As for the shady bit why not use that for rhubarb and the like?

[ann-the-nan]

How big is your veg garden?

Wow! What super veg patch. It is about 6 times bigger than mine. OK, there is only the two of us and it is crammed to the hilt. I have 3 tiny paths about a foot wide each. At the end of the season they will be covered with cardboard and grass cuttings on top and new paths worked out next time.

[Bagpuss]

I've gone green ! I'm mostly growing in containers due to a VERY small urban garden. I'm still producing a fair amount at the mo as I'm concentrating on upward growing things!

[BrandNewDay]

pdblake, I looked at your web site and I loved the diagram. That's a really big garden! You have everything there... patio, decking, lawn, play area, wildlife area, veg plots, herb garden, greenhouse and two sheds! Wow.

I think the paths will have to stay as they are. It's hard to see the spacing of everything with that perspective, but things are very crowded over on the right side. That's partly to do with us believing the seed packet of "self-supporting" peas. We'll fix that next year.

Then, the two smallish beds to the far right are very crowded together. The one against the fence is strawberries. I want to make them both strawberries for a while so that we can net them both more easily.

The foreground - the shaded bit - is actually two beds centered in the drying green, which has a concrete walkway around it just under the lines/between the poles. We also didn't want to squeeze in too close to the lines so that I can still use the lines (which I don't do as often as I ought.)

The terraces at the back are coming along slow but sure (Hubby digging them.) There will be two beds on the right and two on the left with a stairway in the middle and paths between. It will go "Bed - up to a path - up to another bed - up to a path - up to roses and bulbs along the back fence." Each bed will be 1x2 meters, so that will give us an extra 1X8 meters.

[Alison Adams]

I get the impression that for most Grapes the answer is "not big enough" ! We are just getting our kitchen garden underway, its a 12x12m square but not all of it can be cultivated - there is a gap of about a metre on two sides that we cant use as cows lean over the fence and eat anything within reach ! One side has a hedge with roots that mean we cant dig there but are putting pots on pallets instead so we can still use the space. At first it seemed massive - whatever are we going to do with it all ? Now I am looking around thinking, but where can I put the cabbages ?!

[BrandNewDay]

I get the impression that for most Grapes the answer is "not big enough" ! We are just getting our kitchen garden underway, its a 12x12m square but not all of it can be cultivated - there is a gap of about a metre on two sides that we cant use as cows lean over the fence and eat anything within reach ! One side has a hedge with roots that mean we cant dig there but are putting pots on pallets instead so we can still use the space. At first it seemed massive - whatever are we going to do with it all ? Now I am looking around thinking, but where can I put the cabbages ?!

Can a change of fencing deter the cows? How determined are cows, anyway? Will they just lean on anything you put up, or chew it, or what?

There's a farm behind us and so sheep frequently graze right behind us. Cows and ponies on occasion, too. But, that's a good fence and animals can't get through it.

[Alison Adams]

Can a change of fencing deter the cows? How determined are cows, anyway? Will they just lean on anything you put up, or chew it, or what?

There's a farm behind us and so sheep frequently graze right behind us. Cows and ponies on occasion, too. But, that's a good fence and animals can't get through it.

The fence is about 4' with barbed wire on top, classic post and pigwire as specified by the farmer we bought the land from. The barbed wire doesnt seem to put the cows off at all, last year they ate our potatoes and the hedge of hawthorn, holly and roses never gets taller than the fence as they just eat the top shoots off ! The sheep will nibble anything against the lower part of the fence ! It means our perimeter paths are bigger than we might like but that also helps with the spread of couch grass from the field (I know, who am I kidding). Still, we love seeing animals other than cats and dogs from our window, so not really complaining !