At last my very own vegetable bed

For the first time I finally have something vaguely resembling a vegetable plot.  I would like to say that it has evolved organically over time, but it hasn’t.  I had a need for space and I had to be ruthless.  Several plants lost their lives in the making of my plot and several more are shadows of their former selves.  Luckily none of these plants were mine. 

I tried to grow veg at the beginning without a specifically prepared area, runner beans were wedged in a small bare space about a foot square between a camellia and a couple of peonies.   By the time they had grown up the netting and become interwoven with a Clematis already hanging out there the individual plants had become matted into one huge knot closely resembling my morning hair.   It resulted in big and woody beans as I couldn’t spot them.  I also tried growing courgettes just in spaces in the bed but kept finding them gently rotting under other plants.

I needed a decent sized space, nice and sunny and easy to access.  I settled on an area at the front of the border at the bottom left hand side of the garden.  Unfortunately it was full of bushes.  My parents are big fans of a good bush, once you’ve got it in there is not much else to do.  They are also on the whole incredibly boring, or at least these ones were.  I quickly convinced the mother that they were not worthy of the space they were inhabiting and had them out in a flash, no problem.  Next I started waging a war against a euonymus.  I don’t have a problem with it per se, in fact its quite attractive with its new yellow leaves each year but it was in the middle of my plot so It had to shift.  Full on removal was not an option, the mother was too attached but it could be drastically resized and pushed to the back of the border were its roots actually were rather than hogging the entire bed.  You’ve got to hate a hogger.  Last weekend I sawed off the last branch and got the mother to shift the last plant and at finally, I have bare bare earth. 

I say bare bare earth, what I really mean is a bed of weeds.  I guess I could keep on top of it during the winter but I prefer to ignore it, let them grow thick and lush and then attack it with vengeance and a large fork in spring.  Why is weed removal so satisfying?!  I find that digging out a huge dandelion is like squeezing a good spot.

Anyway now it’s a bare bed- ish.  I started weeks ago but had to get a move on as the sugar snap peas started to yellow so Im working from left to right as needed.  Somehow my mother snuck in an allium right smack in the middle, you just can’t win.

Veg Bed Before Commencing weeding- notice the sneaky Allium on the right

Veg Bed Post weeding- sugar snap peas at the ready!