By Clodagh and Dick Handscombe who are totally self sufficient in vegetables and authors of Growing Healthy Vegetables in Spain and Apartment Gardening Mediterranean Style . The latter includes a substantial chapter on small scale veggie growing.

Although there are conflicts between the advice given in the dozens of diet plans now available and added to monthly one thing they all agree on is that vegetables are good for you especially if eaten raw or lightly cooked when fresh and uncontaminated by agricultural or packing station chemicals. And many diets that recommend anything between five and nine portions of fruit and vegetables a day place the emphasis on vegetables rather than fruit.

As explained and illustrated in the above mentioned books one only needs one square metre of space and three large tree tubs to start growing interesting mixes and quantities of vegetables and obviously anything over that small area is a bonus. Bigger and more diverse ranges of vegetables being possible on a raised bed, a raised terrace, a strip bed along the fence or between rows of trees in the orchard or a traditional oblong or square veggie plot.

With the hottest months now passed it is a good time to start to plant up autumn, winter and over wintered spring crops such as onions, garlic, carrots, parsnips, radishes, lettuces, cabbages, broccoli, peas, broad beans etc. More complete lists of what can be grown are given in the tables in our books. If you have frosts most winters don’t worry too much as when we had air frosts of minus 15centigrade in February 2005 we only lost a small row of beans from seeds from Mali. The trick as explained in the book is to grow your crops at a natural rate to maximise beneficial vitamins and trace minerals rather than constantly watering and feeding to achieve water filled giants. Recognise that these are often not the most flavoursome or good keeping and in Spain there are no annual shows giving prizes for size!!

Get going now and you will even have harvests of new potatoes and Brussels sprouts for Christmas.

If you live inland and get frosts cover potatoes with plastic from November. Incidentally the reflected heat from the walls of an apartment terrace allows one to start spring tomatoes much earlier than in the open garden especially if living inland. It can make three months difference in the timing of your first harvests.

One thing we are careful to explain in the books is that buying ready grown plantlets is not a sin and is a good way of maximising the productivity of small growing spaces and avoids the process of raising everything from seeds if you don’t have previous experience.

So start now and enjoy your first home grown crops within a month.

© Clodagh and Dick Handscombe www.gardeninginspain.com September 2010.