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Growing Your Own Fruit and Vegetables

We grow our own fruit and vegetables for our meals for as much of the year as we can. Without a greenhouse we have to buy shop food in the winter months but in the spring, summer and autumn we often have enough to share with family and friends.

Read about growing your fruit and vegetables here on my growing your own food pages.

Thursday 26 January 2012

When Planning What to Grow to Help your Vegetable Plot , 5 plants to grow to help an organic vegetable plot

Comfrey.   
Comfrey is a plant that has more than one use on an organic garden.


  • You can make a liquid feed from it.
  • You can add the leaves to the compost heap as it is supposed to speed up the process of making compost.
  • You can add a few leaves to the bottom of the trench when planting potatoes and bury them before planting the seed potatoes ( not sure why I was told to do this, I think it acts as a slow release organic feed/fertiliser.)

You need to be careful where you plant this and the type you plant as you may end up with more comfrey plants on you plot than you would wish for.

Grow a Green Manure Crop.


Select the type of green manure seeds that you sow to suit the needs of your vegetable garden. Remember that these some types of these seeds may grow into plants that need to be included in your crop rotation plan.

  • Phacelia is a good one to grow for keeping that area of the plot free of weeds (not 100% weed free but much better than bare soil).   It can be pulled up and added to the compost heap to improve the quality of it. Or you can dig it into the soil to increase the humus of it. 
  • Other types will improve the nitrogen levels in your soil in the way that beans do.
  • Some types of green manure are good for improving certain soil types and are said to help if your soil has a wire worm problem ( green manure type - mustard seeds).
Some people say green manure growing is hard work but if you dig it in at an early stage or pull it up and add it to the compost if you have left in in the ground too long I do not think it is.

Discover the possibilities of companion planting.
Look into planting things that grow well together or that help with beneficial insects or help to control pests.

Plant Potatoes on a newly cleared patch that will become a vegetable plot.
There is a reason experienced gardeners will tell you to do this and basically it is because by the time you have raised a crop of potatoes you will have dug the soil and removed some of the stones and weeds there. You will also find that once the potatoes get started and produce green leaves they shade the soil around them and slow the germination and growth of weeds - well sometimes it works.

Plant Marigolds.
They add colour to the plot but also are a good plant to grow on a vegetable patch as they seem to attract some of the good bugs and help to keep the bad bugs off your vegetable plants - again it works sometimes and not others but it is worth a try.

a link to the BBC website more about companion planting

ops that is four I have forgotten the 5th and will add it as soon as possible.


a healthy potato plant in flower

a healthy potato plant in flower
photo of potatoes in flower

home grown carrots.. grown from seed

home grown carrots.. grown from seed
photo of my first bunch of carrots 2009

Even a small batch of mixed fruit can be useful

Even a small batch of mixed fruit can be useful
Home Grown Fruit can be made into delicious compote