The best place to garden in the UK?

[sue-the-recycler]

While dreaming about what we would do if we won the lottery, conversation turned to property and where we would buy the home of our dreams. For me it would involve a home with a devine garden where I could have the perfect vegetable plot. So where would you guys go? where in the uk has the best soil and climate to persue the 'good life'?
(We acutally only won a tenner this weekend but hey - on a grey wet February afternoon it made for a pleasant daydream)

[oldherbaceous]

Hello Sue, bet you were hoping i wouldn't still be here.
I really don't think i would want to live anywhere apart from where i live now.
It might be nice to buy some places round here for some of my freinds though.

And the soil on my allotments is getting better by the season.

[Compo]

I like it where I am, the soil is good, light clay, very fertile, but would move my house to the middle of the field that it backs onto, and that field would be my allotment, but the farmer ain't budging, shame cos the field is fallow this year. I would have a some chickens and a donkey to help with fertiliser production.

But the walk up to my allotment is only five mins, so I try not to fantasise about what I probably won't get.

On that note got my mortgage statement today, only 11 years and 11 months to pay it off!!

Compo

[Geoff]

I also think I'll stay put - just starting to get it sorted after 20+ years.

[Alison]

Geoff, that is really lovely. Thank you so much for the lovely photos. Alison.

[alan refail]

Like the others, I think where I am is perfect. The ground is full of granite boulders, it rains a lot, but it's fairly warm and there's no crime and we love it







Looking forward to all your wonderful pictures.

Alan

[oldherbaceous]

May i just say those pictures are absoulutely wonderful, but of course there is one big let down for you all, and that is you haven't got me as a neighbour.

[Monika]

Although, like all you folks to date, I am perfectly happy where we are now in the Yorkshire Dales, I think for vegetable gardening I would choose the Lea Valley in deepest Hertfordshire. I once had a garden there, right next to the river Lea where it is just a trickle, and, by golly, did I grow some veggies there. Outdoor gardening started in mid-February (instead of mid-April here) and we seemed to have lots more sunshine as well as beautiful black fertile soil.

[Jenny Green]

I'd like to move further west and south. It can be very dry here in the East Midlands. We had nearly two months of near drought last year.
Monika, I used to go to school close to the origin of the River Lea. It's at a site of tower blocks called Five Springs. Apparently the river used to be much higher until Vauxhall started abstracting water from the ground.
The way I feel at the moment I'd like to emigrate. So many things going wrong with the country.

[sue-the-recycler]

WOW Geoff, Thats a beauty and so is that cockrel Alan! I am so envious. Where I am is lovely I have to say - in 'Bridgemere Garden World' Country so I cant complain. The soil is heavy clay with the added 'bonus' that the garden is on what must have been a domestic dump for the farm and the 3 remote cottages where we are before the days of wheelie bins so I find bucketfulls of old glass and crockery everytime I dig more than an inch down. We have a private water supply (so no hosepipe bans or water rates) Carry on posting those photos!

[always_mowing]

We live in SE England by the sea, just moved from Scotland and we find it very warm here and everything seems to grow quicker!!!! We thinks this is the best place in UK to grow anything!

[Gerry]

Why restrict it to the UK?

I love it where I am in West Cork.
My soil never gets waterloged.
We never get snow.
Have the benefit of the Gulf Stream.
Spring starts on Feb 1st.
Don't have water rates or hose pipe bans but do get plenty of rain.

Yes, on the down side I don't have OH as a neighbour.
But I do have J.L. and she knows a good place to garden.
Regards Gerry.