Gordon - The Self Learned Vegetable Grower

by Gordon
(Sutton-in-Ashfield)

Me Not Digging

Hi folks, first a moan or two, now come to think of it there is even a lot of ways to spell moan, so excuse any mistakes you'll always know what I'm on about.

Ok... Bad back, hernia, arthritis, aches and pains, etc etc! And people told me gardening wasn't a very good idea 'maybe it's not for me' - however have you seen the prices of fruit and veg in supermarkets these days? Anyway that's enough of the moans for now.

I decided to have a go at this grow your own vegetables and live a healthy life. Fortunately an allotment was up for grabs so I grabbed it and thought what have I done!

It was overgrown with weeds, and I mean big weeds, a rotting shed and a half fallen derelict greenhouse. To add to that I thought it must have been used as an Halfords scrap heap as it was covered in bicycle frames, wheels, tyres - in fact everything you could think of. Somehow it all had to be cleared.

After clearing the allotment plot with some help from my sons and a neighbour I needed this project to be as easy as possible. First thing to do was to build a new shed, after going on the scrounge from family and friends I managed to get hold of some ply board, latts, corrugated sheet, scaffold boards and screws.

With a little help I built a 7 x 14 foot shed - great! But after just a couple of nights vandals broke in by ripping the doors off the hinges but found nothing much to steal.

My answer to that in short is never lock your shed and keep valuables at home.

The first vegetables I grew that year were some potatoes to help clear twitch grass (which I was advised by others), it worked. Also some easier vegetables like beetroot and onions - first year over.

However, not satisfied and still with pain problems, I needed to build a poly tunnel and install raised beds... I'll tell you more about that next week.