About a year ago we purchased what I have named a 'crib' but the manufacturers label as a Veg-Table. It does indeed look like a small manger, raised up to about waist height with the dimensions of a largish square coffee table. One of the ideas that sold it to me, for a quite considerable sum, is that the depth of soil will help to grow larger veg.
With this in mind, we lined it as per the instructions, filled it with shop compost and sowed lettuce 'Arctic King' in the hope of overwintering salad. We left it outside on the back patio at one end of the greenhouse, in the sun, and waited.
Alas, Arctic King failed to thrive. It was time for a rethink. First of all, wrong soil. It seemed not to contain enough nutrients for the winter period and beyond. So my long-suffering husband emptied it all out, and proceeded with his 'patent mix' of horse manure and partly broken down leaves added to the existing shop compost and turned by hand. Then it was time to man-handle a very bulky wooden structure across the lawn and on to the smaller patio next to the raspberry bushes where, as I have noted, there is summer sun from noon onwards.
I sowed four rows - rocket, mixed salad leaves, beetroot and carrot and am glad to say that they have all germinated, although not growing at quite the speed I would hope. I say this, because I go out and look at them every day. The weather has been colder than usual for the season, but here is my future salad, not at the rear of the garden where I could forget it, and not in a raised bed hidden behind the broad beans where snails play havoc. I am keeping an eye on it.
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