A 21st century good life in Bristol: part 5 - veggies

It’s almost April and I haven’t even mentioned the corner stone of my attempts to reduce my food miles and live more cheaply and sustainably: the veggie garden. This is where most of my ‘good life’ efforts are spent.

We’re lucky enough to have a front garden – say 20x17 feet – and a back garden 50x17 feet. Out back, we have three raised beds and a long thin growing area against a sunny wall. Outside of this plot, we have a couple of fruit trees and lots of fruit bushes dotted around, particularly in the front garden – more on these in a later blog.

Back in January, everything was looking rather forlorn: a couple of battle-hardened cabbages and kale plants and a glut of Jerusalem artichokes. For those unfamiliar with the latter, these are root veg that produce loads of sunflower type blooms at the end of a long stem. The knobbly roots are delicious roasted or whizzed up in soups but have a very unfortunate side-effect: wind. So although we had plenty, they had to be used sparingly. And with no naked flames.

Other winter survivors are our purple sprouting broccoli plants (PSB). I usually grow these from seed but, last year, while our son was very tiny, we didn’t get around to it. A local garden centre actually gave us some PSB plants in September (way too late but we thoughts we’d get them in anyway). They’re now starting to produce those delicious purple spears – a month later than last year and in far fewer numbers. A shame but a lesson for me to start sowing new plants this April. We’ll get a couple of meals from them, nonetheless.

Elsewhere, things are coming on nicely. Three rows of broad bean shoots in the top bed, lots of tiny spinach, beetroot and chard plants in our tiny greenhouse and cold frame. In choosing veg to grow, we have four criteria: 1. Easy to grow; 2. Extra delicious when fresh, 3. Expensive to buy; 4. Productive over a long period.

My can't live without list is: broan beans, peas, chard, PSB, salad leaves…

And tonight we will harvest our first rhubarb of the year.

Still haven’t finished that chicken house, though…

Fergus Collins

Fergus Collins is the editor of Countryfile Magazine and enjoys growing, foraging and harvesting his own food from his home in Bristol.