Wealden Times | WT170 | April 2016 | Garden supplement inside

WT Garden Supplement
Harmonious
bed-fellows
Jo Arnell shares her tips for growing
beautifully healthy vegetables
FreeImages.com/ Michael & Christa Richert
FreeImages.com/ Martina West
Monocultures are lonely places, communist states
filled with row-upon-row of the same vegetables,
grown for a single purpose. No unruly weeds
or maverick flowers allowed. There are advantages to this
if you’re growing a commercial crop but it’s an unnatural
way to cultivate plants and will eventually – as with most
communist regimes – lead to problems. Soil nutrients are
depleted and pests and diseases can reach biblical proportions
if not sprayed with chemicals. In our own plot, a similar
scene could be unfolding in miniature. It is labour-saving
to grow strict rows of just one thing in each bed, but
ultimately it’s not the most healthy way. Crop rotation
helps to combat this, if you can be organised enough. A
prettier way to avoid using chemicals (and, if like me you
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Lush, healthy vegetable beds
at Hornbrook Manor
4
can’t remember which phase of the rotation you’re in),
is to introduce some companion plants to your plot.
Permaculture follows a more natural, ecologically based
method of growing edible food. The most natural form
is ‘forest gardening’, which isn’t – as I like to imagine –
growing crops in a forest, but replicates the hierarchy
of species naturally found in a woodland environment,
so that everything gets the right amount of light and
nutrients. The theory is that a more natural ecosystem
will look after itself, produce less waste and need less
labour. Polyculture is a form of permaculture that means
growing crops together in the same space. It’s a friendly,
diverse and beautiful way to grow edible food.
The layout
When I first inherited my vegetable patch – a rough fenced
off square of weeds – I created beds in a random (random is
a kind word for them) fashion, and edged them with herbs
and low-growing companion plants. I found that good
edging plants turned out to be chives, parsley and marigolds
and occasionally I’d use a row or two of a low-growing crop
– dwarf beans or lettuce as dividers. Nearly everything else
I tried - golden marjoram, purple sage, lavender – either
became rampant, or too big and woody. Paths disappeared
and crops rampaged about in a happy jumble. It looked
wonderful in June, but by July I had to cut my way in and
out of a glorious jungle. We installed raised beds, I tamed
my expectations and the plants tried their best to stay within
their confines. Raised beds don’t have to be rectangular – they
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