How to Create a New Vegetable Garden Producing a Beautiful and Fruitful Garden from Scratch

This book is about how to make a new garden, however unpromising the starting point may seem. While it is mostly about growing vegetables, it covers ornamental plants too – and challenges any idea that a veg garden may not also be a beautiful garden. There is advice on cutting, clearing, levelling and mulching to have clean soil for planting – quickly and easily sometimes; more slowly at other times – according to what you are starting with and what you want to achieve. I have gone through this process myself several times over the last three decades, and draw on this experience to describe a range of short cuts that can be used for clearing ground: particularly the use of lightexcluding mulches to kill persistent weeds, and leaving the soil undisturbed. You can see how the different ways of mulching work from the photos in this book, which show the transformation of my new garden of Homeacres over the course of its first year. As well as giving detailed accounts of these methods so that beginners can apply them easily, I explain the underlying principles, in order that experienced gardeners can work with them in varied situations. There are several overlapping themes running through the book: l Labour-saving methods for clearing weedy spaces. l Ways to make the soil more fertile, for healthier growth in a smaller space and fewer weeds. l Specific advice on vegetable growing, including propagation, sowing times and harvesting – for growing outside, in polytunnels or greenhouses, and in hot beds. l How to make and maintain a beautiful garden, including when it is mainly for food. A key principle underpinning the methods described in this book is that you don’t need to dig and cultivate soil. As well as being quicker initially, this reduces the subsequent workload, because undisturbed soil germinates fewer weed seeds.