Growing your own veg

Basically recommend me some useful veg kit to look out for that is in the hundreds of pounds bracket please!

I think the faun is a bit big for what you want. I have never used one personally, but I believe they need a big headland for turning. We used to grow up to about 10 acres and used a single row harvester (sorry cannot remember the name but there are several makes) that simply lifted the whole drill and took it up a plastics covered elevator so that the soil fell through and the potatoes and haulms were dropped off the back. When I was in my teens father and I used to dig an acre a year by hand.

A seed drill that will handle the crops you intend to grow would be good. A Ferguson two row potato planter is an excellent machine, and worthwhile on even a few hundred square yards. Weeding is tricky with a cultivator type. Hand hoeing is good, but slow. Depends on how much time you will have available - and whether you will receive any help. Hand harvesting of most veg is preferable if you are direct selling - potatoes in particular are knocked about on a bigger scale, and quality always sells easily when dealing direct with the customer.

Any equipment you have to buy is going to have a long pay-back time on one hectare, and you obviously already know that.
 

The_Swede

Member
Arable Farmer
Thanks @Old McDonald , so you've lifted 10 acres with this sort of thing in the past;

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Original-...743457?hash=item41b82ba9a1:g:29YAAOSwAuZX4QEw

There's a couple of us here who don't mind a bit of graft and hoping to get kids interested, trying to strike a balance between mechnisation and expense, good exercise and toil though!

Have the Aitchison here which accepts a huge range of seeds - obviously not a precision planter though.

Thinking about making a small hoe type machine on the quad bike too.
 
Out of interest does anyone use 1. biochar compost (in part seedling) 2. rock dust. Big fan of Charles Dowding and went to a talk at the Landworkers Alliance.

I noticed you did not receive any responses. I looked at biochar a few years ago (prompted by the Centre for Alternative Technology) and remember Charles Dowding was not keen on it. I agreed with his reasoning at the time. Has he changed his mind?

I am also a little concerned that there is quite a loss of carbon from the wood in the form of CO2 during the process. Another drawback was making it on a reasonable scale.

Again, I only looked at rock dust, never used it, but I doubted the claims made for it. It is after all exactly what it is called. It is necessary to change the minerals (whichever ones are in the sample) into a plant useable form, and I did not see this happening in a reasonable timescale merely by adding it to the soil.
 
Jason, Yes, and I have remembered the manufacturer of the one we had - JF. I particularly liked the fact that the elevator was plastics covered. We grew Arran Pilot and Pentland Javelin both of which were popular with customers, and the careful handling kept the skins good when lifting before they were ripe.

For a seed drill on a small commercial scale I like the Earthway. A video here

They should be available in the UK. They are not really a precision seeder, but you can vary the seed rate a wee bit. In the video the narrator mentions tipping the drill slightly to one side to ensure the seeds go into the holes. Doing this increases the seed flow, usually beyond the optimum, meaning a lot of thinning. I prefer to keep a reasonable level of seed in the small hopper and either keep it level or even tip it away from the plate. This way it is possible to reduce the number of seeds sown and get some way towards precision spacing, but not quite. An experiment on concrete or similar will let you see how much seed is being sown at different angles.
 

KMA

Member
Location
Dumfriesshire
An old Webb seeder is the way I'd go, got a load of spacing wheels kicking around somewhere. Picked them up at a farm sale but some other git outbid me for the machine.
 

12 bore

Member
I started my allotment plot this year and had good success with potatoes, marrows, peas, leeks, onions. Carrots refused to even emerge and the purple sprouting broccoli was ruined by caterpillars, they were reduced to skeletons of stalks! Main problem I have had is with mares tail any tips on how to get rid/control the bloody stuff without spraying there is one side of allotment that it just keeps popping up on even though when I pull it I try remove all the root.
 

KMA

Member
Location
Dumfriesshire
In my admittedly limited experience carrots and beetroot were a bit iffy to germinate last year though variety made a difference, especially early on. Brassicas were a complete waste of time and got munched by slugs, flees and caterpillars.

Upside so far, I've got some Autumn carrots still growing nicely in the greenhouse and all the early purple garlic I planted in October are already up through.

Horsetail - if it was me I'd just bite the bullet and give it a good dose of glyphos, don't think there's any other realistic way of sorting it out.
 

12 bore

Member
I thought that may be the awnser, I probably didn't help when I ploughed that part last year as it would of broken all the plants that were there pre emergence and spread them!
 

Shutesy

Moderator
Arable Farmer
I started my allotment plot this year and had good success with potatoes, marrows, peas, leeks, onions. Carrots refused to even emerge and the purple sprouting broccoli was ruined by caterpillars, they were reduced to skeletons of stalks! Main problem I have had is with mares tail any tips on how to get rid/control the bloody stuff without spraying there is one side of allotment that it just keeps popping up on even though when I pull it I try remove all the root.
Marestail is killed well by a combination of 2-4d and Glypho in a product called Kyleo. Works very well but cans are 15l which might be a bit much though you can always use up the rest in years to come, you cant buy the 2 active ingredients products on there own to then mix them as it won't work as apparently its been specially formulated. I believe others have had success by rolling the weed a few times then spraying straight away onto the bruised plant so the glypho gets in whether that is possible in your scenario or not.
 

12 bore

Member
That is possible thanks very much for the help I will look in to buying that, I can roll first no problem area I grow veg on big enough to be worked on by my fergie got a set of rolls for the back so won't be a problem
 
For Christmas day we had broccoli, sprouts, parnsips (summer and frozen), leeks all from the garden so easy Ive got to say. With our prawn starter I grow all the salad so had fresh rocket, mitzuma & chinese cabbage. Due to my poor to low production which needs to be taken up a huge level we could of had spuds, carrots and cauli. We eat all the peas in the summer. It was pleasing to serve my own veg at Christmas dinner.
 

New Puritan

Member
Location
East Sussex
@Jason - how will you manage irrigation on the outlying piece of land where you will grow the vegetables, or is that not an issue where you are? I'd be interested in hearing how you get on with this project, are you just doing it for your own family's needs or are you selling locally? I'm trying to get my daughter interested in farming but I haven't had loads of success with that.
I bought a Ransomes potato spinner for £50, and I've also got a Ferguson potato ridger, and an old bed former I got for £7. The sort of kit needed for growing relatively small areas of veg isn't usually expensive, especially the tractor mounted stuff as it seems to fall into a gap between larger commercial operations who need massive stuff, and allotmenteers who don't have tractors. The main use for this type of kit these days is as garden ornaments as far as I can tell! I've got a Jalo wheel hoe as well, a hand pushed thing which has various attachments for inter-row cultivations.
 

The_Swede

Member
Arable Farmer
Ha ha, lets just say I don't envisage a lack of moisture being an issue on this particular field and wider soil type / geology! Dad and Uncle used to grow commercial scale spuds in locality 30 years ago, recent climate change excepted it is therefore possible. This will only be own use come very small local sales to villagers etc.

Hoping to make some headway in next month or so but a few other things on between now and then... hectic life at moment!
 

Treemover

Member
Location
Offaly
I'm growing veg as a small enterprise supplying my brother shop. My aim is to grow what's easy.
Sowed 1.5 acres of spuds; earlies and main crop.
I'm lucky in that I am well mechanised. I bought a ransomes potato lifter/Hoover and it's fantastic. I wouldnt agree on needing a big headland. I think mine is about 15 ft.
I'm going to try carrots this year; along with some other crops; possibly leek and soft fruits.
Great thread.
I'll be digging some records after lunch so will pop up a photo.
 
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Treemover

Member
Location
Offaly
IMG_7826.JPG
 

5312

Member
Location
South Wales
This may be a dumb question :). I have finally built a big polytunnel for the sheep last year and have 120 ewes in it now.

By the time they go out in March I expect there will be a foot of dirty bedding in there.

Will any plants grow direct in that? There is soil underneath. I think I saw a video once of someone planting direct into chicken litter in a polytunnel.
 

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

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