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In this lesson you will cover the basics of becoming self-sufficient. How much land do you need to be self-sufficient (less than you'd think); what you'll need to get started and ways of getting more land if you don't own much yourself. You will also learn about managing your time and how to eat with the seasons to plan the perfect veg-growing year.
The secret of self-sufficiency is to keep a steady harvest of something to pick every day of the year. This lecture is all about getting the timing right, planning your sowing so you never go short, with sucessional sowing (and never have too much of a good thing, either). You'll learn how to choose your veg varieties cleverly so you get the longest possible harvest, as well as some good tricks for coaxing extra crops from your space, giving you even more to pick, with clever techniques or using the space under slower-growing crops. We'll also be looking at how to look after and boost your soil and some more advanced techniques and growing methods to keep your crops healthy and guarantee the very best results.
There's a bewildering range of vegetable varieties out there, so this is your guide through the maze of choice you'll need to make to ensure your veg garden is well stocked every day of the year. I will pass on my recommendations for really high-cropping, long-lasting vegetables no kitchen garden should be without. And you'll discover some less commonly-grown veg which give spectacular savings and liven up your dinner menu, from artichokes and asparagus to perennial onions, yacon and traditional heritage varieties. Include sweet, juicy fruit and aromatic herbs in your day-to-day harvest and your year of plenty is complete: learn which it's worth growing, and how.
Most gardeners retreat indoors with the first frost – but if you're putting something on the plate every day of the year, winter is as important a season as any. In this lecture we'll look at how to beat the cold and grow a spectacular harvest of winter crops, from gorgeous crinkly kale to fat Brussels sprouts for Christmas lunch. You'll learn how to extend the seasons at both ends so you start as early as possible and pick till the snow lies on the ground. You'll also find out how to face up to the biggest challenge the year-round veg grower faces, the Hungry Gap in early spring
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COURSE TUTOR

Sally Nex

Portrait of Sally Nex

Sally Nex started growing her own veg over 20 years ago with a few bean plants in a city garden, just to see if she could. A few years of eating astonishingly good, fresh, organic food for (nearly) free and she couldn't get enough of it: her veg-growing habit got well out of hand and after running out of space in the garden, she graduated to an allotment. Over the next six or seven years Sally became completely self-sufficient in fruit, vegetables and herbs, feeding her own family of four year-round as well as looking after several other people's fruit and veg gardens as a professional gardener.

Sally now gardens an acre of windy hillside in Somerset, south-west England, where she is gradually winning the battle of the brambles to carve out a large and slightly unruly kitchen garden. Her self-sufficiency now also extends to eggs and lamb from a gorgeous little flock of Dorset Down rare breed sheep.

Sally studied horticulture and design at Capel Manor College in London and Bicton College in Devon, and also writes extensively about all things to do with gardening, though mostly about growing things you can eat. She has regular slots in Gardeners' World magazine, The Garden, Grow Your Own magazine, and The Guardian. Her work has also appeared on the website/app intoGardens, as well as Which? Gardening, Kew Magazine and Period Living.

Sally gives regular talks all around the south-west of England (and occasionally further afield) and is a keen blogger and twitterer. As well as her rather intermittent personal blog, The Constant Gardener, she also writes about her kitchen gardening exploits for online plant retailer Crocus. And most years she spends a week or two running around behind BBC camera crews as a horticultural researcher at the RHS shows, including Chelsea and Hampton Court.

www.sallynex.com

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