A Gardening Novice in Norwood

On this blog, I will be posting about my relationship with my garden. I am pretty new to gardening so am learning lots along the way. Much of my gardening will be about growing veggies as I am also passionate about cooking good food. Here's a bit of background:

The garden

My garden is in Norwood in South East London. It is pretty small but in London, one is lucky to have a garden at all. My partner and I bought our house in November 2004 and one of my main considerations in buying a place was that it have a garden. At first this was because I wanted us to be able to sit out in the summer sipping aperitifs and eating great food. Once we moved in though, I realised that I wanted far more from our garden and I knew that it had the potential to become a little piece of the country in London, a sanctuary.

The garden itself is three-tiered. The upper and lower tiers are both paved over and have tables on. The upper tier has a breakfast table because it gets the sun mid-morning. The lower has a bigger table on for entertaining in the evening. It is more sheltered as it's next to the house. The middle tier was lawn, but my partner and I removed all that last year. The garden is north-west facing but because it is higher up than the house for the most part, it gets the sun from mid-morning onwards. The soil is heavy South London clay.

Garden plans

Last year I bought a book on garden design. I made all sorts of plans for the garden. I didn't carry through most of these plans. I bought a few climbers and stuck some bulbs in the borders but that was about it (more about my plants later). I felt a bit dispondent as I think the three-tier structure is restricting. With two patioed tiers, that only leaves the middle section to play around with. I don't have lots of money for re-development or landscaping so I can't afford to play around with the structure too much.

Anyway, just after Christmas, I hit upon an idea for the middle section. I was on the web, googling on recycling (something to which I'm trying to become more committed) and I found some forums on ethical and creative living, namely:

http://www.downsizer.net/
http://www.mrsl.forumsplace.com/
http://forum.rivercottage.net/index.php

I was wowed by the amount of helpful information and food for thought on these forums. And I suddenly knew what I could do in the garden. I love cooking and am committed to using good quality ingredients. I like to know what is in my food and can't abide eating lots of pre-packaged or processed foods. We've been getting a weekly organic veg box for the past couple of years (http://www.abel-cole.co.uk), but it hadn't occured to me that I could grow my own veggies. Armed with my new plans, I set about educating myself and preparing the garden for the forthcoming year.

Next steps

The following posts will detail everything I do in the garden and all that I learn as I go along. It will be something to look back on next year to see what I have achieved (or not!), an indication of things to avoid in the future and maybe, it will even inspire one or two people to get out into their garden and get growing themselves. So, my journal will contain:

• how I prepared the garden
• what research I did and books, magazines, articles I read to help me
• week-by-week posts on what work I have done in the garden, what I have sewed, planted, harvested
• success and failures - what I can do better next year
• info on things I've done in the rest of the garden - although my focus is primarily on growing veg, I have plans for flower beds and container gardening too
• posts on other gardening-related issues (organic gardening, composting, recycling etc.)

Hopefully, I can get some comments from other people too who can offer support and advice for a novice like me.