Growing vegetables: The First Year

As I sit here looking out of the window on a rainy winter’s afternoon during another Covid-19 national lockdown, it is almost a year since I started out on my journey of growing vegetables. Little did I know a year ago that a global pandemic was going to change lives so dramatically for so many, causing such loss, sadness and pain.

However feeling extremely fortunate, photos on my phone remind me that a real positive arrived in my life back in early 2020- my vegetable patch was born. I really didn’t know what I was doing when I started (and feel pretty much the same now a year later), but with the help of many YouTube videos, I have managed to successfully grow a variety of veg whilst also making lots of mistakes along the way.

The ‘before’ photo: February 2020

Ready for planting the week before our first national Covid-19 lockdown: March 2020

Confidence boosting

Last summer my husband declared to friends that he hadn’t expected me to do so well and was now happily sampling my various offerings, even if they were small or wonky.

My two teenagers actually acknowledge that it has been ‘good for me’ despite sniggering when I have declared ‘look at my lovely cabbages!’ or rolling their eyes when they have seen me sweating on the treadmill whilst watching a YouTube video on ‘How to grow radish’ or ‘The benefits of a cold frame’. Mind you, that didn’t stop them refusing to eat most of my produce on the basis that it was green and potentially healthy. I guess you can’t win them all.

By June lots of green things were growing

If you’ve seen the film Peter Rabbit, I actually felt like Mr McGregor one morning when I discovered a trail of half eaten veg across my grass all the way to the fence where the perpetrators had clearly burrowed underneath for their escape. They pulled up all of my lovely beetroot, kale and lettuce and made such a mess! My daughter has two mini lop rabbits, so being animal lovers, we could only laugh at how much fun the wild rabbits must have had that night.

Oh and apologies to any of my friends who I sent vegetable photos to on WhatsApp during lockdown, not the most exciting content ever but somehow it did make me feel a little bit proud of what I had achieved in only a few months.

Onwards and upwards

Well I’m about to start year two with just a little bit more confidence and buoyed by the friendliness of the gardening community on YouTube. In particular, thank you to Ben@GrowVeg for taking the time to reply to my complimentary comment on one of your vlogs. That really was a big moment for me as he has over 250k subscribers and bothered to send little old me a message!

So this year it will be more of my trusty faithful veg (well those that grew well for the first time last year) such as lettuce, potatoes, onions, radish, leeks and spinach (which just wouldn’t stop growing). And then there will be some new varieties, maybe squash, parsnips, cucumbers, peas, and perhaps something a little more racy, who knows.

But for now while it’s pouring with rain outside, it’s back to getting ideas from You Tube and enjoying making notes in my little journal book. Roll on year 2 of my vegetable growing journey!

Leeks: one of my biggest year one successes