Sandy & Len’s Open Garden

In Transition St Albans we want to encourage the growing of food at home.

To help others get started, several people kindly offered to show their kitchen gardens to people interested. See and learn!

The first garden shown, June’s, was a success and Sandy and Len then invited everybody to visit their garden in Sopwell ward on Saturday 12th June, 3 – 5pm.

Sandy’s description of her garden:

Vegetables and fruit are grown mainly in the back garden. In the front we are growing tomatoes as it faces south west and hopefully will escape the blight.

The back garden is approximately 27m long and 10 metres wide and is divided into several ‘rooms’. Starting from the top: there is a an area of decking with a pond; the flower and shrub garden plus gravel area and a small lawn with a mature King of the Pippin apple tree (this garden is also home to three chickens); through an apple arch to the soft fruit area (raspberries, gooseberries, blackcurrants and jostaberries) with greenhouse and patio plus an espalier apple and pear and two cordon pears; the vegetable garden with 5 raised beds; and finally another patio area with more small fruit trees.

We collect rain water from the house roof and bring it down to the bottom of the garden via a hose to 4 barrels next to the vegetable garden. We have an Aerobin compost bin with a tap to draw off excess liquid and another plastic compost bin.

We grow onions, potatoes, courgettes, runner beans, broad beans, squash, sweet corn, asparagus, lettuce, tomatoes (in grow bags, hanging baskets and wall planter), cucumbers, chilli peppers, radish and Swiss chard and leeks in the vegetable garden. We also grow basil, sage, rosemary, coriander, mint and parsley.

Click here for pictures of the event

Other events in this series