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Last site update

15/03/2010

Email d.harrmston@googlemail.com
Quest for the Good life

Welcome to our fruit & vegetable pages.  Here we look at our attempts to produce enough fruits and vegetables for all of our needs.  On a quarter of an acre that is asking a lot, so we need to plan well and use space wisely.  So the first part is about planning the garden.

 

Once we have decided what we want to grow and where it all fits, we then need to decide how we are going to grow it.  As with all vegetable gardens the same crops cannot be grown in the same space year after year.  This would allow a build up of pests and diseases.  To avoid this we have to employ a system of crop rotation, the next part in this section.

 

As well as vegetables we need to grow top fruits like apples, pears and plums plus as many others as possible.  We are looking to create a small orchard, but also include some fruit bearing trees along our boundary hedge lines.  This will increase productivity considerably.  For the purpose of this section we will consider all of these as orchard fruits.

 

So we have planned the space, decided what goes where and the crop rotations we need to grow healthy plants.  In this section we are looking at the types of vegetables we want to grow.  We will also look at the definition of fruit and vegetables and how they tend to be used.  You can read more about this below.

 

With the orchard fruits and vegetables sorted, we want to grow soft fruits as well.  These include blackcurrants, raspberries and all of those delicious summer berries.

 

We don’t want to use chemicals on the plants.  This is not a desire to be organic, we simply don’t see the point in using chemicals to artificially control pests.  If we can grow healthy plants from good seed stock then the effects of pests and diseases should be reduced.  Using natural fertilisers such as Comfrey are part of this strategy.

What is the definition of a vegetable?

 

Strange, we all know what a vegetable is when we see it, but not quite so easy to define it scientifically.  Perhaps the simplest definition is “ a plant cultivated for an edible part ”.  But how does this compare to a herb?  A herb can be defined as “ a plant grown for flavouring or medicinal purposes”.  The overlap here can be demonstrated with garlic.  Commonly regarded as a vegetable along with onions, but used as a flavouring and reputed to have medical benefits as well.  Herb or vegetable?  The answer is probably both.

The herb garden usually goes hand in hand with the vegetable plot, and the two are inter-twinned in use through time.  It would be hard to separate them and perhaps not worth the effort.  So for this site we can include herbs where needed in the broad spectrum of vegetables.

 

What is the definition of fruit?

A simple definition is “ the seed bearing product of a plant”.  Perhaps slightly more accurate is “ the ripened  ovary of a flowering seed plant ”.   So you can think of a fruit as an apple, orange or tomato.  But then tomatoes are often  included in vegetable lists.  Confusing isn’t it!  Now strictly speaking  pea pods, runner beans, courgettes, marrows and pumpkins are fruit.  They are a product of a fertilised flower.  But we all tend to view them as vegetables along with carrots and swedes.

Families and Groups

So if we accept that “vegetables” can include some fruit and some herbs then how do we organise them into groups or families so we know how to cultivate and manage them.

The following families summarise it nicely:-