Middle-Aged Kingdom: The Rise of Middle-Aged Kingdom

This is the first year that my husband, Andy, and I have decided to cultivate a kitchen garden even though we’ve both longed to for many years. He comes from a biology background, so his interest stems from a geeky passion for wildlife. I’m Singaporean Chinese, with a double dose of appetite that those nationalities imply, so obviously I just want to know if I can eat everything!

To be honest, I don’t know a great deal about plants, so two years into having bought our own house, I’m still trying to figure out what was planted in our garden by the sweet old lady who used to live here. It’s mostly low-growing flowers, tulips, daffs and primroses in the spring, poppies in the summer and a few ornamental shrubs.

We’d had a few experiments in the past. There was the year that Andy’s landlord let him plant a few rows of cabbage, lettuce, beets and carrots in the mostly paved and unweeded garden in Botley, Oxfordshire. The carrots came out round and stumpy in the shallow soil, and the cabbages so overrun with caterpillars that Andy decided to sacrifice those to protect everything else. The lettuce and beets were excellent, though, as they have been in our garden this year.

We enjoyed a series of serendipitous discoveries whilst housesitting for our friends John and Kelly in a sweet little cottage near Stratford-upon-Avon. They’ve now moved permanently to Washington D.C., but Kels had a penchant for strewing seeds and putting plants in unexpected places. So, mint grew out of the drainholes all year round, cornflowers sprouted from the pebbled backyard, there was a little herb pit, and, one year, we were delighted to find a fragrant blackcurrant bush hidden under the other shrubs. That garden also had the best apple tree in the world. I wish I’d known what sort it was.

Back to the present, our garden is pretty tiny, but it’s all ours! Try to imagine a manageable size that a lady in her 80s could keep under control and you’ve got the right idea.

That's it.

Oh, and this corridor...but we even have spare room!
Check out the empty basket tower...

Yet, the number of different herbs and veggies we’ve managed to fit in this year has been staggering! I scribbled everything down while on the train the other day, and here’s the list I came up with:

Herbs - Basil, Borage, Coriander, Chocolate Mint, Chives, Mint, Olive herb, Oregano, Sage, Sorrel and Tarragon

Fruit & veggies - Cox Apples, Beets, Chilli, Courgettes, Lettuce, Peas, Potatoes, Pumpkins and Strawberries

We’ve also got tiny quinces and roses poking through from next door, and an avocado seedling that I’ve been experimenting with, but I guess they don’t really count.

I wouldn’t say we’ve had abundant harvests or anything, but we approached all this with only the desire to see what would happen. Above all, this really proves that you don’t need a lot of space to grow your own food. You don’t need a lot of time either, but having the patience to keep everything well watered during dry spells will go a long way. Really, for the effort that’s gone into our crops this year, the joy we’ve had from it has been immeasurable. But, if you’re reading this and considering a kitchen garden yourself, then you probably know that already.

We started in May, which is quite late, so it remains to be seen which crops can reach their full maturity. But we’re still looking forward to our apples and beets which are coming along nicely, we have 1 weeny pumpkin and 2 weenier ones on the way, our third courgette is swelling to a nice size, the herbs are still going and we’ve been self-sufficient with lettuce for about 2 months now. And there’s little to do except watering on dry days. Not bad for a patch the size of a cosy living room!

A brief glimpse at my current line-up: