Article submitted by Kevin

We don't have a big garden only 60' x 24'; I know to some that may seem large as I have in the past had even less to work with but to me it is still small as I have also had much larger the largest being 135' x 40' in fact in that house my front garden was larger than my current back garden.

My problem with the garden we have now isn't so much the size but all the things it has to cater for, our patio is not large & being in the shade a good deal of the time not really the greatest place to spend a sunny day so I have built a decked area on the south side of the garden this takes up an area around 18' x 8', our shed & storage area to its rear take up an area around 9' x 10' & the greenhouse compost making/storage bins a similar area.

In the summer the kids still at home & the grandchildren who visit almost daily like to have a pool, it has to be a decent size so this takes up a 15' diameter area we seldom get any time to really relax in the garden together but when we do my better half & I like to be close so I have built a double size garden recliner with side tables this takes up an area around 8' x 7'.

On top of all this she who must be obey decided a short while ago we are going to get some chickens, only two or three but they will take up an area at least 4' x 8' just for a reasonable sized coop & run.

As you can imagine all this does not exactly leave huge spaces for fruit & vegetable plots & to tell the truth  with two very active grandsons & a new grand daughter who promises to be the same I don't think anything planted in the ground would last too long.

For the last two summers since we gave up our pub I have been growing in containers, instead of tulips & daffodils our patio & decking tubs contain tomatoes & peppers our hanging baskets are for strawberries & herbs a large quantity of buckets our local mini market used to display their cut flowers in are now on some re-purposed garage racking & are home to onions & runner beans, another 3 tier section of racking has trays that started life as large cat litter boxes which we use for more herbs & to bring seedlings up to a potable size, we have also made good use of the plastic cake boxes many supermarkets sell cream cakes in, they are perfect for mini propagators we have used them in the greenhouse on the racking & on window sills around the house to great success.

Even the roof of our newly acquired chicken coop has been pressed into service for shallow planters full of herbs, the shed is in need of a new roof so this Spring the old apex roof will be going & well drained flat green roof designed for planting will go up in its place, Just to make sure that every possible bit of space is getting used we are also putting planters of wild strawberries & courgettes on the flat roof of the storm porch over our front door, our neighbours put tubs of daffs, crocuses & dwarf conifers up on theirs so why not?

Timber salvaged from old pallets has been used for 3' x 3' raised planting areas, these are great for kids to grow their first planting projects & are well protected from small feet & footballs as well,

Another advantage of container gardening is that it has helped solve a real problem we had with slugs & snails, we were plagued with them when I first started planting but using a combination of copper tape around tubs & planters, eggshells which are first baked then crushed & coffee grounds we have pretty much eradicated them from the garden, another good tip for slugs is planting Rosemary in problem areas I have no idea why but they don't like it, every planter we have this year will have at least one Rosemary plant in it.

We may not be able to grow the quantity of fruit & veg we could if we turned the garden over to it but we have made a happy compromise & have less problems with pests than ground planting so we are happy with it.

Never be afraid to experiment with places to plant if you are a bit pushed for space, I have seen strawberries & herbs grown in shoe storage hangers, tomatoes grown in a column of old water fountain bottles even on one allotment onions & courgettes grown in racking rescued from an old record shop formerly used to display hundreds of 12” records below it were the owners irrigation system through which he distributed water and fertiliser to two plots this way he got to use the space twice.

I hope I have given some ideas to people & am always very happy to hear ideas from others for making the most of garden space.