Not an Inch to Spare

We visit a garden where the aim is to be self-sufficient in veg and also produce enough 'perfect specimens' for the local shows.
WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY PAMELA DESCHAMPS

Jeff Jones has got a bit of everything packed into his compact vegetable garden and much of it looks too good to eat! Even his long narrow asparagus bed doubles up as a home for spare shallots, while his fruit cage is also used as a Support for climbing French bean 'Rob Roy' and inside the cage a few extra 'Fen Globe' onions have been tucked in, too. Jeff grows all his vegetables fast, timing many to be at their peak for his favourite local shows, but there is still plenty for the kitchen and to give to friends and family.

His 60ft by 22ft (18m by 7m) veg garden is tucked away behind a trellis at the bottom of the garden. Over the 19 years he has lived in South Cheam in Surrey he has incorporated yearly loads of compost.

Above: Jeff and his wife Marion pictured in front of his runner bean 'Jeff Jones'.

Above: Shallots 'Hative de Niort' and 'Showmaster' almost ready for lifting.

'We have a lorry load delivered in November and share it with our neighbours. It takes all afternoon to barrow it up the garden,' says Jeff. This and home-produced compost all ensure the soil fertility is good enough to cope with growing a huge range of show-quality veg. The originally fairly clay soil is now worked to a fine tilth, ideal for growing good root vegetables, where it is important to be able to dig up the whole plant for showing, tap root and all. In fact, Jeff and his wife Marion are not too keen on the taste of carrots but always grow a good selection for showing. He grows them between rows of onions and never gets carrot fly damage. He also grows extra long varieties in an old oil drum filled with compost.

Of the root crops, Jeff likes beetroot 'Pablo' best.

'It is nice and round and has a good tap root. It also grows to a uniform size, an important factor for showing and it tastes really sweet and gorgeous,' he says. Jeff builds up the earth around his beetroot to ensure they grow straight and true.

Right: A colourful lavatera squeezes in amongst the apples.

Everywhere you look the soil is covered, sometimes worth surprising combinations, such as the spinach he grows between rows of 'Show Perfection' peas and the spring onions growing with the marrows. The garden is in a sunny spot although shaded in early morning and he says growing crops closely together does not cause problems.

At one end his runner beans take pride of place every year. His favourite - which he has dubbed 'Jeff Jones' because he has kept it for the past 17 years - does really well for him at shows and is also a winner in the kitchen. He also grows 'Achievement', 'Scarlet Emporer' and 'Enorma Elite'.

'We get beans and beans and beans,' says Marion who has devised a good way of freezing them which she says retains the flavour.

Jeff feeds the beans with Phostrogen and Chempak and also uses grass cuttings as a mulch to hold in the moisture around their roots. Jeff has been known to pick 28lb (13kg) Of runners at one picking. Because of the weight of such a good crop, he reinforces the rows with metal supports at each end and with canes in the middle.

'Beans for showing have to be a reasonable size and straight,' he says. The beans are always grown in the same place and everything else moves from there to give him a basic crop rotation.