Ardersier garden share project features in new TV series after report for BBC Scotland's Beechgrove Garden
A GARDEN share project involving a family from Ardersier growing its own vegetables on someone else’s patch is to be spotlighted in a TV gardening programme.
Mari Reid, a former winner in the Inverness Courier’s Garden of the Year competition, struck the agreement with a nearby resident who was unable to cope with her own large garden.
Mrs Reid grows a broad range of vegetables for herself, husband, Kevin, and their two children in the garden owned by Rosemarie Sharp.
In return, Mrs Sharp also enjoys produce as well as having a well-maintained plot.
Their special arrangement is now being filmed as part of a series, Vegetable Garden On A Budget, after it came to the attention of the popular BBC Scotland programme, The Beechgrove Garden.
Romanian-born Mrs Reid is a self-confessed plant addict whose own garden in Stuart Avenue is packed with flowers.
“My garden isn’t really big enough to grow vegetables,” Mrs Reid said.
Her previous attempts to grow edible produce had also been thwarted by neighbourhood cats.
A trained horticulturalist, she looks after gardens for other people including Mrs Sharp whose plot on the water’s edge overlooking the Moray Firth.
The idea of the garden share came to her one day last year when she was looking at an unused area of the garden covered by plastic to keep the weeds at bay.
“Rosemarie doesn’t have the time or energy to be in the garden much,” Mrs Reid said.
“I suggested to her last year that I could grow vegetables in that corner.”
Despite the challenging location and conditions, she managed to grow a range of produce including potatoes, beetroot, carrots, garlic and salad crops in the first season.
She said it was win-win arrangement.
“We help ourselves and Rosemarie helps herself to things,” she said.
There are also economic benefits. Reseach shows that a family of four can save about £1500 a year by growing its own produce.
“There are are definitely savings to be made if you grow your own,” Mrs Reid said.
Her children, for example, enjoy helping themselves to fruit such as raspberries and strawberries. She also made 40 jars of jam plus sorbets from the fruit.
Carole Baxter, a presenter with The Beechgrove Garden, heard about Mrs Reid’s gardening exploits while judging the Courier’s Garden of the Year last year.
“She thought it was a lovely idea to grow things in someone else’s garden and share the produce,” she said.
As part of the programme, Ms Baxter and Mrs Reid are also teaching another local young family to grow their own on a very tight budget, saving seeds, sharing plants, recycling and upcycling to create a vegetable garden which is pretty and productive and which has cost them virtually nothing but some time.
Mrs Reid grew up on a farm in Romania where the family was virtually self-sufficient. After studying horticulture in Romania, she moved to the UK in 2007.
She won the Courier’s Garden of the Year competition in the medium sized category in 2015 and was runner-up last year.
- Vegetable Garden on a Budget will feature in Thursday’s episode of The Beechgrove Garden.
