vegetables in my Veg-Table

By Alison
2 November, 2009
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Not long ago I took possession of my very own veg-table, which is a raised vegetable bed on legs. It’s the brainchild of one of my clients – Veg-Table ltd, and after doing the website for them they let me have one to play with. It was one of those designer/client relationships that just works perfectly, since l just love to get down and dirty with the onions.

But since it was October when I got it, I was slightly at a loss as to what I could stuff it with over winter. The cat decided it made a great hidey hole, but knowing that he’s only interested in something for about 2 days in the first place, I knew that it wasn’t a good investment to use it as a cat house.

The veg-table sat in the backyard so long that I had to keep dragging it around to stop it killing the grass. As it was, I made 4 little marks in several places when I didn’t move it often enough.

There isn’t a lot that wants to grow over the cold months, but there are a few things that might be successful, so I decided to try growing shallots and potatoes. These things could be destined to fail, since the potatoes are the leftover ones from chitting that didn’t fit into the allotment and have been sitting in the shed since June, and the shallots should have been planted in May, and got left on the shelf until they started growing by themselves.

I picked the potatoes up from the allotment, there were now only about 6 of them. The mystery guest who has taken up living in shed had eaten the other 16 of them. The mystery guest has also been leaving a really horrid pissing smell in there too, so I guess I need to take steps to evict him. But anyway, that’s a job for another time. I saved the last potatoes to plant in the veg-table.

I also found some old garlic cloves that I’d gathered from a previous crop, so I tossed them in as well.

The cat approves of the finished result – he was delighted to see what was previously an interesting cat house is now a giant toilet. So clearly a cover was required! I managed to find an old and rotting trellis to use, so now he’s sitting on top of it, while the cross-struts snap one by one under his weight.

A visit to the allotment discovered that the old pea patch was now growing new pea plants throught the pile of turned dirt and old plants. So I decided to liberate them and see what happens. I’ve now added them to the veg-table as well, and am wondering if I need to construct a cloche over the top. The pea plants were growing quite happily without cover down at the allotment. But they were growing up through a lot of dead material, which could be keeping them warmer than the surrounding area. But that could work well with the veg-table as it is, since its design is supposed to retain warmth too.

I’ll just have to keep an eye on them and see if it works!