It’s almost the start of the 2023 growing season, so here are 5 tips for your best growing year ever! Our gardens will soon be bursting with greenery after it’s long winters slumber. If you’re like me, maybe you have already started to mulch over beds and plant out winter-happy crops such as broad beans. Or maybe you’re waiting for the warmer weather before you get back out there.
I have 5 tips for your best growing year ever. These tips are based on my previous 3 years of having an allotment plot and I hope they will be useful to you. Some are practical, some are more philosophical. All of them are designed to help you to have your best growing year ever!
5 TIPS FOR YOUR BEST GROWING YEAR EVER!
1. WHACK STUFF OUT
One of the best tips I can give you, is to just start whacking stuff out (when you can!). Don’t wait for your garden to look perfect before planting. Your garden will never be perfect because it’s constantly evolving and changing. Gardens are not static things, so chasing this idea of perfection is pointless.
Just start whacking stuff out as soon as the weather is warmer and the soil has been mulched with fresh compost.
2. HAVE A PLAN B
When it comes to vegetable growing, each season is like trying to navigate a herd of elephants through a blizzard in London. Every time you think one of them has made it over the ice, the next three behind him fall in and your journey becomes a desperate rescue mission.
Have back up plans. Sow more than you need, keep succession sowing and when crops all die for unexpected reasons, have something else ready to plant in it’s place. You’re not failing if your pumpkins just didn’t grow this year, it just wasn’t meant to be. So whack out some sweetcorn or courgettes instead. Find what works. Use your plan B and you’ll always have something to harvest!
3. MULCH YOUR BEDS
Adding new nutrients and goodness to your soil after the winter is a great way of ensuring your crops will get the best start this year. Mulch over beds with natural materials such as leaf mould, compost or even shredded paper. Layer up as much as you can and feed your soil.
If that’s too much, just throwing over a fresh bag of shop bought peat-free compost will be enough to give your crops a head start. Don’t dig it in, let the worms and the rain pull it down into the soil.
4. GROW WHAT YOU ACTUALLY LIKE
This is one I struggle with every single year. With so many exciting varieties of vegetables now available to in seed form to buy and sow, it’s hard to stay focussed on what you actually like. I loved growing chard, it’s such a beautiful crop, but I can’t stand the taste. For a couple of years it sat on my plot, serving only as a 5 star slug hotel, until eventually I pulled it all up and grew something I actually liked to eat.
Spending all year growing crops that you wont actually enjoy, while not a total waste of time and energy, isn’t nearly as rewarding as growing something you do like. So to have your best growing year ever, stick to growing what you like!
5. COMPARISON IS THE THEIF OF JOY
Dont compare your vegetable garden or harvests to anyone else. This is hard to do these days with everyone posting their successes on instagram and YouTube, but lets be honest, people rarely post their failures. They carefully hide the parts of their gardens that look a mess and instead show you beautiful rows of cabbages that Peter Rabbit would be proud of.
Comparison is the thief of joy. Don’t let it take the joy out of your own garden and diminish your own personal achievements.
I hope these tips for your best growing year ever help you on your journey to grow a beautiful and productive vegetable garden. Remember, gardens are constantly evolving beings and there is no such thing as perfection. So enjoy this season, whack stuff out there and grow yourself happy!
