Tom’s gardening tips

Tom, a tenant, from Banwen is a keen gardener and has some great tips for you.

Managing your crop
Growing your own fruit and veg is great for your health and pocket.

If growing goes well, you can end up growing more than you can eat so end up giving away your crop to friends and family.

A way to avoid this is to stagger sowing and planting, giving you food continuously during the growing months.

What to grow
I plant leeks, spring onions, lettuce and carrots in my garden. I interplant salad greens, spring onions and radish. Varieties like ‘Tom Thum’, Little Gem, any mixed baby leaf collection or ‘cut and come again’ are beautiful for making a really fresh salad which can be enjoyed all summer.

Carrots, potatoes and runner beans grow well even in pots, but the trick is to water them well.

I love tomatoes, and I stick to the tumbling cherry type as they fruit the whole season.

You pick as they ripen, and the plant continues to grow on and produce. Kale is not only a superfood but it grows all year and pests don’t like it!

You can pick off as many leaves as you like, and the plant will keep growing and produce more.

Avoiding pests
Carefully choosing what you plant and how you plant can confuse many garden pests.

Any gardener will tell you slugs are enemy number one, but I don’t use any chemical insect killers or repellents to deter them. Instead, crushed eggshells and various nutshells seem to limit slug damage.

I’ve found that copper or iron wire made into rings, placed on the soil around a plant you want to protect also seems to deter them too as does planting marigolds around the veg plot.