How to Plan a Vegetable Garden in the UK
- 1). Test the soil using a soil-testing kit to find out its acidity. Rub it between your fingers to see what sort of soil you have. Loamy soil is brown and crumbly and good for growing almost any type of vegetable. Clay soil can easily become waterlogged and cause the roots of plants to rot.
- 2). Find out your local climatic conditions. The South and East in the U.K. are drier and sunnier than the north and west. The Southwest is the warmest but very wet, and Scotland is colder, wetter and windier. The growing season is longer in the South than in the North. Plan to install poly-tunnels or green-houses if you want to extend the growing season.
- 3). Draw an accurate plan of your plot on graph paper. Consider the position of the sun, whether the plot is it flat or sloped, how much sunshine and shade the plot has and if it needs any irrigation or drainage installed. Cut out diagrams in the shape of the beds you plan to dig so you can see if they fit on the plan. Mark out any pathways so you can easily reach your plants. Once you've put your plan into practice keep it in a safe place so you can refer to it in future years for crop rotation.
- 4). Devise a planting calendar so that every part of the plot remains in use after each crop is harvested. When your early crop potatoes have been dug up in June, you can use the soil to sow some over-wintering vegetables such as purple sprouting broccoli or brussels sprouts, harvested later in the year. Plan your planting according to the frosts to ensure a sudden cold snap does not stunt growth. In colder parts of the U.K., you will need to sow your seedlings under glass until the weather is warm enough for you to plant them out in late spring.
- 5). Price and source any physical features such as trellising, raised beds, drainage or watering systems and structures to protect your plants from birds and insects. Old shower doors and windows make good home-made greenhouses, and you can use old pieces of wood to hold soil in place on terraced plots. Netting and bird scarers are also important to ensure your crops thrive.
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