What a salt-laden wind actually does to a plot

If your garden sits within a few hundred metres of the shore, you are gardening in a place that feels generous for eight months of the year and punishing for four. The upside is real: light is abundant, hard frosts are rare, and the growing season often runs a fortnight longer than it does ten miles inland. The downside arrives sideways, in the form of wind carrying salt.

Salt spray draws moisture out of leaves and buds, which is why the windward side of a hedge turns brown while the leeward side stays green. Wind itself increases transpiration, so plants lose water faster than thin, free-draining coastal soil can replace it. Nutrients leach away with every heavy rain, and roots are rocked loose in gales. Everything below is really about managing those three problems: salt, wind and hungry ground.

Shelter that filters wind rather than blocking it

Solid fences are the classic mistake. Wind hitting a solid barrier is forced over the top and comes down again with added turbulence, sometimes worse than no barrier at all. What you want is a permeable windbreak — roughly 50 per cent open — that slows the wind and lets a little through.

• Woven hazel or willow hurdles, larch lap with gaps, or 50 per cent shade netting on sturdy posts all work well.
• Height matters less than proportion. A windbreak protects a distance roughly ten times its height downwind, so a 2 m hurdle shelters about 20 m of garden.
• Living hedges earn their keep: escallonia, griselinia, tamarisk, rosa rugosa and sea buckthorn all tolerate salt. Sea buckthorn suckers freely, so give it room or sink a root barrier.
• Two staggered rows beat one thick one. Plant the taller, tougher species on the seaward side and something softer behind.

Even a low 60 cm barrier around a bed makes a noticeable difference to kale and herbs, taking the sting out of ground-level wind.

Raised beds that hold water and nutrients

On thin coastal soil over rock, shingle or sand, raised beds are close to essential. They give you depth, control over drainage and a chance to build something that holds moisture rather than shedding it.

• Aim for 25–30 cm of growing depth. Roughly equal parts topsoil, well-rotted compost and leaf mould, with a couple of handfuls of horticultural grit per barrowload if drainage is poor.
• Line the base with cardboard rather than membranes — it suppresses weeds, then rots away and feeds worms.
• Mulch every bed with 5 cm of compost, straw or gravel. Mulch is the single best defence against wind-driven moisture loss.
• Water deeply but less often. Little and often encourages shallow roots, which is exactly what you don't want on an exposed site.

Seaweed gathered from the strandline makes an excellent mulch and soil conditioner. Rinse it first if you can, and check local rules before collecting.

Crops that earn their place in salty air

Choose plants with thick, waxy or hairy leaves and tough stems. These are the ones that shrug off spray instead of shrivelling.

• Kale is the coastal gardener's best friend. 'Red Russian', 'Nero di Toscana' and curly winter types all crop through gales and improve after frost. Pick outer leaves and the plant keeps going for months.
• Chard and perpetual spinach crop almost year-round in mild maritime conditions.
• Sea beet and samphire are natives here; they genuinely prefer your conditions to a sheltered allotment.
• Herbs: rosemary, thyme, sage, winter savory, fennel and lovage all thrive, especially in a gravel-mulched bed against a south-facing wall.
• Berries: blackcurrant, redcurrant, gooseberry, jostaberry and honeyberry crop reliably. Strawberries scorch and gritty fruit is spoiled by sand, so grow them in troughs or under fleece.

Blueberries need acid soil, so grow them in pots of ericaceous compost topped up with rainwater.

Small habits that make a real difference

After a gale, take a watering can of fresh water and rinse the foliage of anything that looks grey or scorched. This washes salt off the leaves before it does lasting damage, and it takes ten minutes.

Harvest ahead of forecast storms where you can, and stake or tie in anything tall before autumn gales arrive rather than afterwards. A few slug-free, frost-free weeks in autumn are a gift — use them to sow winter salad and overwintering broad beans.

Finally, accept the site you have. A coastal plot will never grow the fat, cosseted vegetables of an inland kitchen garden, but it will give you kale in January, rosemary that scents the whole path, and berries picked with sea light on them. That is a fair trade.