I’ve followed my philosophy of “little and often” religiously this year and I think I am starting to see the rewards.  By working on my garden and allotment plots, a little each day, I have started to form a habit.  It now feels strange to not be in the garden pulling up some young weeds or pinching out side shoots on my tomatoes.

I’ve found gardening this year has forced me to slow down and really appreciate the experience.  In previous years I would put in hours of work all at once and then dread the weekend coming knowing I would have to almost go over the work I had done the previous week.  It was starting to feel like a fight to keep going and not re-turf the veg patch. Taking an easier approach means I spend a small amount of time each day and now find myself able to sit back at the weekends to enjoy being around the plants.

There has been a few drawback to my new approach.  Some jobs need “big effort” but I have also tried to apply my “little and often” approach with this also.  I have chunked up the job into manageable stages but this means the job has taken several days and it has taken a while to get around to everything.  The result of this is being slightly behind on a few of my crops.  I would have hoped to have had some tomatoes ready for the salad bowl by now but they are still green, although they do look great and I’m really looking forward to picking them.  Now I know how long things are taking, I can improve my schedule of work for next year.

I’m really pleased with how my lettuce is working out.  I’m not sure how the shop bought lettuce is produced but it is not even close to the quality of my home grown crop.  I’ve found the shop bought lettuce is thin and fairly tasteless whereas my home grown Cos and Iceburg lettuce is full bodied, full of taste and with a great structure.  My kids do not normally eat lettuce but they will eat it from our garden.  With only meters and minutes between picking and plate, with no chemicals used, I don’t think there is anything better.  They are so easy to grow, I don’t know why more people do not grow their own.

With the bulk of the hard work behind me.  I can now sit back and let the plants do their thing all I have to do is just add water and keep things tidy.  Hopefully, I will have my plate filling up with home grown and organic produce soon.