The Kitchen Garden Book: The Complete Practical Guide to Kitchen Gardening, from Planning and Planting to Harvesting and Storing

243 Pages·1999·59.73 MB·English

• The complete practical guide to kitchen gardening,
from planning and planting to harvesting and storing
• Covers all the main vegetables,
fruit and herbs with detailed
advice on the best
varieties to choose
• Provides an
invaluable easy-to-
use calendar of vital
tasks in the kitchen
garden throughout
the year
RICHARD BIRD
RICHARD BIRD
with photography by
Jonathan Buckley
LO R E N Z BOOKS
First published in 1999 by Lorenz Books
© Anness Publishing Limited 1999
Lorenz Books is an imprint of
Anness Publishing Limited
Hermes House
88-89 Blackfriars Road
London SE1 8HA
Published in the USA by Lorenz Books
Anness Publishing Inc.
27 West 20th Street
New York
NY 10011
[phone]
This edition distributed in Canada by
Raincoast Books
8680 Cambie Street
Vancouver
British Columbia V6P 6M9
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted
in any way or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the
prior written permission of the copyright holder.
ISBN 0 7548 0198 5
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from
the British Library
Publisher: Joanna Lorenz
Senior Editor: Caroline Davison
Designer: Ruth Hope
Production Controller: Ann Childers
Illustrator: Liz Pepperell
Printed and bound in Germany
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Publishers' note: In the United States, the
burning of plants or bulbs (if they are diseased,
for example) is prohibited.
Page One A bay tree clipped into a spiral.
Page Two Vegetable plots can be decorative
as well as productive.
Page Four Brick paths divide up this large
informal vegetable garden.
Introduction 6
Designing a Kitchen Garden 9
Planning the Crops 23
Greenhouses, Sheds and Equipment 37
Soil 53
Techniques 71
Common Problems 101
Vegetables 115
Bulb Vegetables 116
Leaf Vegetables 126
Root Crops 150
Peas and Beans 172
Marrows and Squash Crops 180
Shoot Crops 188
Fruiting Vegetables 202
Herbs 211
Fruit 225
Gardening Calendar 250
Index 252
Acknowledgements 256
At the beginning of the 21st century it may seem something of an anachronism
that people in the so-called civilized world should be growing their own
vegetables. Not only are they readily available from supermarkets, but there is
also so much else to do with our time. But take a look at people who do grow
their own produce and you will usually find healthy happy souls who enjoy
good food - there's more to it than saving a little money.
In the days when spending a few pennies on seed saved much more
at the greengrocers, growing vegetables used to be the cheap option, but
this is no longer necessarily true, particularly if you include your own time
in the equation.
People's reasons for growing vegetables and fruit vary widely, but nearly all
vegetable gardeners would say that the crops you grow yourself are far superior
ABOVE Retaining a kitchen garden with dwarf to those you buy. There is, of course, an element of one-upmanship about this,
box hedging is the ideal way to keep the area
neat and tidy. Here, sunflowers add the perfect but this is far from the whole story.
decorative touch to the garden.
Above all, vegetables from your own garden are fresh. They can be in the
ground one minute and in the pot the next. Once you have tasted fresh
vegetables you realize the vast difference between them and the glossy, but
BELOW These terracotta forcers are used to hurry
vegetables such as rhubarb into growth. They also days-old ones in the supermarkets. Mass-produced vegetables have been bred
serve an ornamental purpose, dressing up what
can be a dull vegetable plot. to different criteria from those that we grow in the garden. Greengrocers
and supermarkets want fruit that will arrive at the shops looking fresh and
undamaged, and so the produce has tough skins, which also give them a long
shelf life. Fruit and vegetables from the garden do not have to travel.
Farmers want to harvest a crop all at once, so it is important that all the
peas, for example, are ready for picking on the same day. Gardeners, on the
other hand, want the reverse - they want as long a season as possible. Super-
markets want all the vegetables they stock to be the same size and to look the
same, but gardeners, provided they are not interested in exhibiting, are not so
fussy.
At the bottom of the list of qualities that are demanded by shops and
supermarkets, and frequently not on the list at all, is taste. Customers go back
to buy carrots every week without any thought to what the
last batch tasted like. Gardeners, however, have a wide
choice of carrot seeds, many selected for flavour, and they
can choose the variety with the taste they like best.
Another advantage, allied to taste, is that gardeners
know what has been put on the food. Today, gardeners
choose to use few chemical sprays and powders, but
crops bought from supermarkets have been doused in an
ever-increasing number of compounds to make sure that,
among other things, they come to the shops in a totally
unblemished state. Gardeners can know that their food
is completely untainted by chemicals.
Garden vegetables are the ultimate in convenience
food. Admittedly, you have to wash them, but they sit
there just waiting to be harvested when you want them.
You may need only one stalk of celery, so why go and buy
a whole bunch, when you can quickly cut one stalk from
the garden? This is much more economical and saves on
time spent shopping. Excess produce can be frozen or
stored, and used when you need it.
Kitchen gardens can be decorative, too. Even a
simple garden with everything grown in rows or blocks
is likely to be attractive, but when they are planted as part
of a potager, vegetables can be arranged in even more
decorative ways.
Lastly, as well as having healthy food, the gardener gets
plenty of exercise and fresh air. There is also a sense of closeness to nature. ABOVE Here, pink-flowered chives, red lettuce and
purple cabbage as well as fennel and parsley create
A cliche perhaps, but there is still something fundamental about getting your
an informal vegetable garden.
hands dirty and listening to the birds as you work.
That is the end of the philosophy of the kitchen garden. From this point the
book becomes a practical one. It concentrates on describing the techniques
required to produce an attractive and productive kitchen garden. With this
book as a guide you will soon not only be growing your own produce but
acquiring a whole set of skills, many of them traditional ones, handed down
over the centuries, and others that are the result of modern experience.
Before you even contemplate putting a spade in the soil, it is a very
useful exercise to sit down and think about what you are trying to
achieve in your kitchen garden. Firstly, you need to consider whether
you have the time, space and conditions to achieve what you want.
The design of a kitchen garden can then be approached in two ways.
It can be either purely functional, in which case you simply have to
ensure that the layout and planting of the garden will produce the
largest possible volume of produce. Alternatively, you might like to
adopt a more decorative approach, orchestrating the design so that the
garden is pleasing to look at as well as productive.
There is also a variety of more technical considerations to take into
account. For example, how you are going to get the best out of your
plot? Will there be any limitations to your plans caused by lack of space,
problem soils and difficult weather conditions, and how can the overall
layout help to prevent the influx of pests and diseases? Once you have
thought through questions such as these, you can start having fun and
planning your garden in greater detail.
RIGHT This is a traditional
There are several factors to consider when planning the
kitchen garden, with
vegetables neatly lined overall design of a kitchen garden. Many of these relate
up in rows. Although it
is autumn, there will be to more specific issues and are dealt with later in more
plenty of vegetables in
detail but are mentioned here in a general context.
season over the next
few months.
What do you want?
The first priority is to work out what you want. Do you
want a productive garden that will provide food for a large
family or for selling or giving away? If so, you will probably
be planting varieties of vegetables in bulk, which reduces the possibility of
using intricate patterns. If, however, you are thinking in terms of a decorative
feature, with the vegetable crops as a secondary consideration, you are going to
need a different approach to laying out the kitchen garden. What do you want
to include? Are you hoping to grow fruit and herbs as well as vegetables? This
kind of decision will influence how much space you need and how you use it.
Do you want a greenhouse? If so, is it going to be within your kitchen
garden or will it be tucked away, out of sight in a corner of the garden? What
are you going to do with items such as sheds,
cold frames and compost bins? Someone with a
working kitchen garden is likely to position
these where they are convenient. If you want a
decorative kitchen garden, you may well
consider that these structures are eyesores and
better located in a separate area, perhaps
screened by a hedge.
How much time?
If you are going to do it properly, a kitchen gar-
den takes up a tremendous amount of time. If
you have help in the garden this may not be a
problem, but if you do it all yourself, at week-
ends for example, you may find that time runs
short during a critical period if there are two
LEFT This is a highly decorative kitchen garden, in which a
selection of flowering plants grows among the vegetables.
wet weekends followed by one when you are away
from home. In other words, design the garden to suit
the amount of time available. A large kitchen garden
that has been neglected is a sad sight.
How much space?
It may not be a question of deciding how much space
you want to devote to vegetables; this may already be
decided by the amount of space actually available. Do
not try and squeeze too much into a small space.
Remember that there may be a call on the space for
other purposes - children playing, for example.
Suitability of the space
An important point to consider is whether the space you
want to use is suitable for vegetables or whether you will
have to modify the design to allow for problem areas. For
example, there is no point in trying to grow vegetables
under trees. Nor can they be grown on swamp-like
ground. Removing the trees or, at least, reducing the
shade they cast is possible, but it may be undesirable
or too expensive. Wet ground can be drained, of course,
but this, again, may be too expensive, and it may be
better to turn that part of the garden into a pond.
What's the weather like?
Although it is not a serious problem for the design of the garden, the weather ABOVE A well-ordered garden is attractive in its
own way. Many gardeners take great pride in
does play a part in your plans. A vegetable garden should have plenty of keeping everything neat and tidy, which not only
looks good, but also increases productivity.
sunshine, so if you want to reserve the sunny part of the garden for relaxation
and sunbathing, there may well be nowhere to grow vegetables. If the bottom
of the garden is a frost hollow, growth will be delayed there, and this may
upset the overall decorative balance of your garden even if it does not affect
its productivity. Prevailing dry, wet, cold or warm climates may affect what
you can grow and therefore limit the productive or decorative qualities of
your intended garden.
The Vegetable Plot
In the working vegetable garden, the overall visual design may not
he important. Vegetables are, of course, decorative in their own
right, and even the most regimented plot, where everything is grown
in rows, usually has some visual appeal. With this type of garden,
however, the design is subordinate to convenience and output, with
rectangular blocks composed of rows or blocks of crops.
Permanent structures only 1.2m/4ft wide. Such beds, can, in fact,
The first consideration is the position of more be easily superimposed on the old system by
permanent items, such as greenhouses, cold dividing up the long plot into any number of
frames, sheds and compost bins. The green- 1.2 x 3.6m/4x 12ft beds. The significance of
house needs plenty of light and should be the 1.2m/4ft width is that the whole bed can
away from cold winds. It should also be near be reached from either side. These smaller
the house because it often needs attention in beds have permanent paths on each side, ABOVE Lack of space is not a problem if you want
the winter and at night. This also applies to which can be paved or left as bare earth. to grow your own vegetables. Even this small
border functions as a working vegetable garden.
cold frames. The shed and the compost bins
can be more or less anywhere, although not Permanent planting
too far away. If the compost bin is a long way Most planting in the kitchen garden is done These types of plants are usually kept
away, you may be tempted to leave rotting ve- on an annual basis and changes every year, together, partly for convenience and partly
getation lying around rather than clearing up. but there are some plants that stay in the because they can all be protected against
All these structures need access paths, same position for several, if not many, years. birds by being included in one fruit cage.
which again will dictate their position. A Vegetables such as rhubarb, globe artichokes
compost bin on the far side of a bed may fill and asparagus need a permanent base. Most Paths
a space, but it will be of little use if you have fruit is permanent or is moved only every few Paths in a productive kitchen garden tend to
to walk over the bed to get to it. Putting in a years. Tree fruit, in particular, must be con- be for access purposes and not seen as part
path to it, however, will take up valuable sidered as a long-term addition to the garden. of a decorative pattern.
growing space.
Bed design
The positioning of the beds should have
prime consideration. Practice varies consid-
erably on the shape and method employed.
Most gardeners prefer to have large rectangu-
lar plots, 3.6m/12ft wide and as long as the
garden allows. Typically, there are two such
plots, one each side of a central path. Within
these plots rows of vegetables are set out
across the beds, with temporary narrow paths
between each row.
Recent years have seen the reintroduc-
tion of a different method, which had fallen
out of favour. This is the use of deep beds,
RIGHT This large traditional vegetable garden
contains a great variety of foliage, which can be
highly decorative.