I live in a town house in Taunton with a couryard and parking area. The courtyard bit is all paved. It measures 5.5m by 2.5m and it is small, and at the moment very very hot. However, this year I am growing broad beans, strawberries, a grapevine, a fig, 9 varieties of tomato, a cucumber, cavalo nero, tarragon, parsley, thyme, mint, oregano, 3 kinds of lavender and a jasmine (for the bees) plus, for the allotment, bringing on leeks and brussels sprouts, and some chillies for my brother’s polytunnel. See what you can do!
Taunton Transition Town 
Hi,
My name is Lauenna and I am moving to Taunton soon and I will have a courtyard garden too. I was inspired my your photo. I used to be a market gardener so am a little underwhelmed at having such a small space (I am looking for an allotment too). I would be interested to know did you take up the patio under your raised beds? Were your strawberries in the ceramic thing, how did they do? Also thinking I might have use for one fruit tree. How does your fig produce?
Hi Lauenna, nice to hear from you. I was underwhelmed by my courtyard too so I did go and get an allotment locally, but wanted to make the courtyard more than just a space to park cars. It is south facing so gets pretty hot – tomatoes and chillies are doing pretty well this year. Underneath the raised beds was an odd bit of gravel which I think is over soil, anyway, it all drains fine. The strawberries didn’t work. It was too hard to water and feed them properly,, so next year I think I will try some herbs in there. The fig was until this year smothered by ferns which I transplanted to their own pot. We got one fig!!!! However, the little bush is very happy now without the ferns and it looks like we shall get a few more next year. It is a very small bush so I can’t expect too much from it. Picked and ate the first of the grapes this morning, lovely! When you move to Taunton get back in touch and we can talk about our community gardening stuff and where you might be able to get an allotment. All the best, Chrissie
There is an event on Saturday 19th Oct at the Albemarle Centre in Taunton which is all about local food and community growing projects. There will be a workshop there on growing in small spaces, so that might be of interest. The event is free and you can find out more about it by going to
http://www.farmgarden.org.uk/events/fcfcg-events-in-england/community-growing-gathering-taunton?view=Events
hope you can make it,
sara