It’s finally spring – I know this because the rain is not as sleety as it used to be and because my friend Joanne from Ourganic Gardens has started posting pictures of her endeavours. Joanne is gardening in Donegal in the north-west of Ireland. To give you an idea of the climatic conditions there I suggest you read Shacketon’s diaries from the South Pole, replacing each time he mentions ‘ice’ with ‘rain’, and each mention of ‘snow’ with ‘more rain’. Nevertheless Joanne and her colleagues are sowing, growing and harvesting such a wide range of plants and vegetables that it regularly puts us to shame.

Tomatoes enjoying the sunshine

Where we live, in the outskirts of London, the climate is mild, occasionally even sunny, and our garden is quite generously sized – at least by London standards. We even have a greenhouse, although, as you can see in the picture on the left, it occasionally doubles up as a bathroom. Here we gave our tomatoes a head start, but as they were beginning to flower we had to brave the elements and plant them out. Thank god for those stylish cloches from the Coop!

Stylish cloches for the tumbling tomato plants

Our sunniest spots are unfortunately covered by a concrete path, which means we have to resort to pots and containers. I was inspired by an idea at last year’s Chelsea Fringe: Abundance London had an apple crate garden, which I recreated en miniature by using some beautiful old crates and empty compost bags. Although not quite abundant yet, the first signs of life in form of pea shoots, lettuce and some carrot leaves are looking promising.

How about you – have you started your vegetable patches? Any ideas for vertical gardening solutions?

A new take on the ‘veg box’