The Bunker Vegetable Garden

I come from a long line of gardeners. My father, both my grandfathers and, presumably, their fathers and grandfathers all knew one end of a hoe from another. Unfortunately that line ended with me. I have had a couple of half hearted attempts at vegetable gardening but none lasted for more than a year. So when, in 2009, I decided to plant vegetables in the area cleared from my wife's 15 year old shrubbery I didn't have high expectations.

2009

After cutting down the shrubs, digging out the stumps and pulling up the roots I was left with half a patch of quite stoney soil and half a patch of pure filth. Proper gardeners would have looked to improve their soil before trying to grow anything but that has never been my way - I prefer to make my own mistakes. I made plenty.

Mistake 1. I decided to plant potatoes to "clean the soil." The theory is that growing potatoes involves a bit of physical input so you actually tend to get some of the crap out of your plot. I went to a local supermarket and grabbed a packet of seed potatoes. I think they were probably "Catriona." They seemed to grow quite well but when the crop was harvested I wasn't too happy. Some were scabby, some had hollow hearts and they weren't, in my experience, great potatoes for boiling or mashing. One to avoid in future.

Mistake 2. I bought some Florence fennel seedlings from a market stall and planted them in anticipation of a bumper crop of big fat fennel bulbs. The whole lot went straight to seed and never developed a single bulb. Worse still I didn't dig them out but left them there and, in 2010, I had hundreds of self set fennel seedlings coming up all over the place.

Mistake 3. I was given a couple of summer cabbage plants which were completely devastated by pests.

Mistake 4. The worst bit of the patch was, I think, the site of a demolished pigsty and the ground was full of bricks, rubble, debris and some thin, ash-like, soil. I planted courgettes and squash on the assumption that they don't need very good ground. The courgettes did badly and though the squash did OK I don't really like squash that much so I gave 2 away, turned one into a Halloween lantern and left the rest to rot.

Mistake 5. I planted tomatoes in the greenhouse. 2009 must have been one of the worst ever summers for tomatoes. Despite watering, tending and feeding they refused to ripen until late September. October was my best month for tomatoes and I was still picking them in November.

Mistake 6. I tried to grow some parsnips in large containers. By the time I came to harvest them they were badly scabbed and generally rotten.

Mistake 7. I planted flat leaf parsley in tubs. It resolutely failed to flourish. Though the sage, marjoram, thyme and chives did OK.

The soggy summer of 2009 wasn't a total disaster. I grew leeks and made some nice flans; the broad-beans grew well and were unaffected by blackfly and I supplemented a few salads with homegrown rocket and salad leaves. But it wasn't an auspicious start.

2010

You might be surprised that persevered with vegetable gardening after 2009. Perhaps it was the sound of my ancestors turning in their graves... Anyway - I bought a bag of shallots and planted them into the old fennel bed - apart from the application of a drop of water and continual weeding of fennel seedlings the shallots produced a nice crop that was ready for harvest in late June/early July

I chose Charlotte potatoes this year and chitted them in egg boxes in the hallway before planting up a couple of containers which I started in the greenhouse to protect them from the late frosts that carried on into May. I commandeered another patch of ground over by the oil tank to plant the rest of the potatoes. The container grown potatoes were an excellent experiment and produced some excellent salad potatoes and good boilers. I haven't dug up the ones in the new patch yet.

I had tried to improve the pigsty patch with the old tomato compost but it was quite hopeless - the only way to make it useful was to add a lot of compost and some decent soil. I googled "raised bed gardening" and found a site that gave directions for building one. The site seems to have disappeared now but it was so useful I'll pass on the basic design when I've finished this page. Withe the bed in position I dug it thoroughly, sieving the soil to removing the crap. I reckon I got a ton of stones and bricks out of it. I got some decent topsoil from Aldi - it took 2 trips in the car to get enough bags but mixed with some Erin general purpose compost it filled up the bed nicely. The transformation was amazing - the worst part of the plot had become the best part. The bed has lettuce, broad-beans, kidney beans, asparagus, purple sprouting, flat leaf parsley and thyme all flourishing.

In the last year's potato patch I have leeks, courgettes, onions and sweet corn - all doing well although the leeks do seem to be slower this year - probably because it's been a very dry spring and summer. I've even left a few of the fennel plants to see if they do anything this year. (They didn't.) The greenhouse has salad leaves, coriander, cucumber and aubergines.

The transformation of the pigsty plot has been the real eye-opener and I've bought enough timber to build 3 more raised beds. I put the second one in after harvesting the shallots and I'll convert the rest of the plot this autumn.

Well I'd love to stop and talk some more but I think it's time I took a walk around the garden.