How I Grow So Much Food in a 15m² Kitchen Garden | Small Vegetable Garden Tour
Hello everyone and welcome back. In today's video I wanted to show you everything that is growing right now in my small kitchen garden. It is only about 15 square metres, tucked away behind the garage wall, roughly 3 metres wide and 5 metres long, and yet it is packed with food. My hope is that if you have a small space too, this gives you a few ideas.
The tiny lean-to greenhouse
Straight away on the garage wall I have a very small lean-to greenhouse. It is only about 70 cm deep and 185 cm long, just big enough to fit nine large pots inside. This was the very first thing I set up when I started gardening four years ago, and it still earns its place every summer.
This year I have 10 tomato plants in pots. Nine of them fit inside the greenhouse and one is sitting on the naughty step outside. With the beautiful summer weather we have had in the UK, that one outside might actually be in better condition. These are a mixture of bigger varieties, beefsteak and pear shaped types, and they all seem to be doing well.
The U-shaped raised bed
When you come into the garden there is a large U-shaped raised bed that my husband and I built two years ago, so this is the second season I have grown in it. Before that I had six much smaller beds at about half this height, which gave me far less growing space.
On the left side I have cucumbers and tomatoes. I grow two cucumber plants of a variety called Merlin, my favourite, sweet and perfect for slicing into sandwiches and salads. We are already harvesting from them. There are two more cucumbers on the other side of the trellis, a variety called Femspot, and one of those has decided to grow along the back border so I have trained it up the fence instead.
Growing upwards to save space
The whole idea in a small garden is to use the space vertically as much as you can. My cucumbers and tomatoes are all tied up the trellis. In between them I have the tomatoes, mostly cordon types like Rubylicious, Sweet Aperitif, Sungold, and a couple of beefsteak Favorita by the cucumbers.
At the bottom, in the little pots scattered around, I have my peppers. There are nine sweet peppers in the smaller pots and one chilli pepper that I bought from the garden centre after my own seedling did not make it. The pots sit right on the border so the roots can reach down into the soil for moisture, and that works well.
The bean arch, parsnips and salads
Right across the middle of the raised bed I have an arch where I grow my climbing beans, and it is filling up beautifully. I have used an arch for beans since I started, and for a small space it is brilliant. Unlike a bamboo teepee, which sits empty in the middle, an arch lets me grow underneath it too.
So under and in front of the arch I have my parsnips and a row of salads. That way the vertical space is doing one job while the ground below does another. In a small garden every bit counts.
Pumpkins up the fence
Tucked away behind the arch is a pumpkin, a small variety called Small Sugar. I did not have the ground space to let it sprawl, so like two years ago I have trained it up the fence. Even small pumpkin varieties throw out huge leaves, so growing it upwards saves a lot of room.
This one plant is already giving me two lovely pumpkins with more growth to come. It sent out a strong side shoot that snapped when I tried to tie it up, so I sellotaped it back together and it survived. I usually remove the side shoots so the plant puts its energy into the main stem and the fruit. Then, while tidying, I accidentally snapped the main stem myself. Please tell me this happens to everyone. Luckily there was no fruit on it, so no real casualties, and I am still very happy with the two pumpkins I have.
Two rows of potatoes
The remaining part of the bed is my potatoes, two rows of two varieties, Charlotte at the front and King Edward at the back. Most people would be lifting the Charlottes by now, but I was a few weeks late getting my seed potatoes in, so I am giving them more time. I had a little dig around the other day and there was quite a lot there, just still small, so I am letting them be. There is no rush.
I think I put in more than 10 seed potatoes of each variety. Even at 10 each that is 20 potato plants in this one section, which for the space is quite a lot.
You can grow a lot in a small space
So that is practically everything: four cucumber plants, a zucchini with humongous fruit I really must pick, a pumpkin, a row of salads, a few rows of parsnips, an arch of climbing beans, 10 pots of peppers, and a huge bush of potatoes. All in about 15 square metres.
Before I had this raised bed I managed with six small beds and pots dotted everywhere in between, and I still grew potatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes, garlic and carrots in those pots. There is always a way to grow something, even in a very small area.
In this video
- A full tour of a 15 square metre kitchen garden
- A tiny lean-to greenhouse holding nine pots of tomatoes
- Cucumbers and tomatoes trained up a trellis
- A bean arch with parsnips and salads growing underneath
- A Small Sugar pumpkin trained up the fence
- Two rows of Charlotte and King Edward potatoes
I hope this inspires anyone who would love to grow a few veggies but worries their space is too small. You really can grow a lot in a little garden. If you have a small plot, even smaller than mine, I would love to hear what you are growing, so do leave me a comment. Thank you so much for watching and I will see you in the next one.
You might also like
