No Dig Garden Planting ideas

3. Potatoes:

A high-yielding, budget-friendly crop, worth planting at least twice a year and across a few different spots — never the same patch two years running, with a 2 to 3 year break before reusing one. Potatoes also store well long-term in a cold spot like a cellar, kept unwashed with the soil still on.

4. Some Tropical Seeds:

A few special heirlooms saved from previous years — bitter melon, chilies, and okra — went in this year too, with fingers crossed they’d survive a relatively cold spring. Not many made it through the first stage, but a couple pulled through and are thriving. These need warmth, so some were planted inside the greenhouse.

5. Onions and Garlic Bulbs:

A cheap way to bulk out garden produce, and both store for a long time without refrigeration. Garlic from the previous autumn’s harvest lasted right through to early spring this year, with some replanted for the next round.

6. Salads:

A galvanized iron vegetable bed handles most of the salad and leafy greens, and helps keep slugs out — though not entirely; slugs seem to have a sixth sense for freshly planted greens, so a snail cap and some watchfulness are still needed. An assortment of different salad varieties went in, plus salad radishes, with a couple left to flower and seed for next year’s planting.

7. Greenhouse Planting Ideas:

With such a short growing season in Northern Europe, the greenhouse helps stretch it — this year with more heirloom chilies, eggplants, and Indian vegetables like bitter melon and snake gourd. Chilies bulk up especially well; any surplus gets frozen, pickled, or dried, with freezing the usual choice to make the harvest last until next season, since this particular organic green chili variety isn’t easy to find.

8. Different Varieties of Squash:

Pumpkins, zucchini, and cucumbers all suit the space well. Pumpkins harvest right through late autumn and store well into late spring — the last of a butternut squash was still good in the cellar this year. Cucumbers are great for salads and pickling, and heirloom seed saved over the past 3 years means no need to buy new seed at all.

9. Summer Vegetables:

The usual European seasonal lineup — eggplants, cucumbers, bell peppers, beans, Swiss chard, spinach, and more. Autumn garden prep starts by August to stretch the season further, and heirloom seed collected over the years keeps the cost of buying new seed out of the equation almost entirely.

10. Herb Garden:

No vegetable garden feels complete without a herb garden — 2 raised beds are set aside for it here. Most herbs are perennial: chives, rosemary, thyme, and oregano have all survived harsh winters and come back for a third year running. Sage was lost this year and needs replanting. Mint, being invasive, is better kept in a large pot rather than the ground — a mistake made early on that’s now being corrected by re-potting it out of the soil.