My experiences

[tattercoats]

Hi Ali - (I owe you pm re your knitting site, I know!)

I've enjoyed re-reading this thread too. Your comments about front gardens particularly prompt me to ask what you grow in yours? We have toomuch drive, and will one of these days take it up, but I wonder what kind of useful/edible planting is best suited to a front garden where (a) there are traffic fumes, up to a point, and (b) the produce there will be liable to nicking if it looks tasty!

I need to figure out what our next steps here are...

[aliwood]

Hi Ali - (I owe you pm re your knitting site, I know!)

no problem.

what you grow in yours?

Herbs - rosemary, oregano, chives, babbington leeks, gooseberries, red and black currants, sloes, plums, roses a bay tree, strawberries, potatoes, blackberries.

r what kind of useful/edible planting is best suited to a front garden where (a) there are traffic fumes, up to a point, and (b) the produce there will be liable to nicking if it looks tasty!..

Ah, ignorance is bliss, the kids round here think chips grow in polystyrene boxes and that milk is made in cartons. I grow lots of flowers and grass as well. At first I tried to remove these, but now I see that it helps to hide the veg. I occasionally get people round asking if they can do a spot of gardening for me. I usually point at a potato plant and ask what they would do with it. I can't think of one person who actually recognised it.

I would go for herbs - these are particularly good as they look quite boring mostly and people don't tend to realise you can eat them, also they are very human proof and they tend to cope with pollution well, onions are quite slim and easy to hide, gooseberries and blackberries come with built in thorns. I recommend the pfaf website for edibles that aren't obvious. Read up on cottage gardening as well, where you try to fit in as many different things without all the rows and the hoeing and the bad backs.

Most of my gardening is whack it in and let it grow, this is much more efficient than constantly having to look after it. I grow the obvious stuff e.g tomatoes, runner beans etc, round the back out of sight of almost everyone.

Also, make sure you know what grows well in your soil, the best way to tell is to take a quick walk around the neighbourhood and see what other people grow.