January 2025 marks the start of my third year of veg gardening, so I wanted to take some time to share my journey to far. In 2023, I was really struggling with my health. I had withdrawn from almost everyone around me and was finding life really hard. I came across a book that would start me on my gardening journey – Veg In One Bed by Huw Richards. In the book, and on his Youtube Channel, Huw did a great job of making me feel like growing my own veg was achievable.
So, I decided to start a garden. I could begin here to ramble and bore you all with the known health and wellbeing benefits of gardening but I won’t. I took a small section of my back garden’s lawn and built two raised beds and used left over scrap wood and planter boxes to add a couple of smaller beds. These beds could easily be removed if I needed to remove them, but I was very happy with how they looked!
I was all set then, all I needed were seeds and some time and I could start growing. I won’t lie, that first year wasn’t without its difficulties, but I had some support from friends and family and you know what? By the summer, that hard work really paid off.
By August I had a herb planter that I was a single step from my kitchen door, I had potatoes, peas, salads, mint and a whole lot more veg within easy reach. I installed a small pre-formed wildlife pond that had frogs visiting it. I had created for myself an island of wild green in the middle of the crazy world. We were seeing ladybirds, and butterflies and all sorts of birds that had never before ventured into our garden. I was incredibly proud of myself.
Then, the winter came, and 2024 began. The hellebore was blooming, and I had an expansion plan!
I’d had a good deal of success with the garden right? So it shouldn’t be too difficult to expand. Imagine if I could grow even more veg. After all, I had a year’s experience now and I’d learnt a lot of lessons. *sigh*
I had seeds starting in trays in the greenhouse, and on the dining-room windsills. I had a plan and I was so excited to get started and see just how well it would all work out. As it turns out I hadn’t appreciated just how significantly bad weather can affect a growing season in the garden. As plants began to grow the weather in 2024 wasn’t that great, I found myself constantly trying to replant and resow veg as the wet weather brought with it a barrage of slugs, aphids, Cabbage Whites and other ‘pests’.
The thing is though, 2024 actually allowed me to grow over 50kg of vegetables for me and my family. My first thought reflecting on the year is how bad the pests were, but if I take a moment to look through my photos from 2024 – it was an incredible year as well. I managed to grow so much of my own food. I got out into fresh air, and got my hands dirty. Where it would have been so easy to just let the depression take over and withdraw, the garden gave me space to breathe and to give me small, occasional victories.
So, I’m looking forward to 2025! My third year of growing vegetables in my back garden. I have lots that I want to grow, lots that I’ve decided not to grow, and plenty of hopes. My next garden blog post will be about my plans for 2025. For now though, thanks for reading and here’s some of the better pictures of my garden in 2024.
