Growing food in the Back Garden

curlietailz

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Sedgefield
My little back garden plot has second early and maincrop potatoes, red and white onions and shallots, spinach, parsnip, garlic at present and will shortly sow beetroot turnip cabbage broccoli and peas runner beans and tomatoes and carrots and ( anything else I can fit in)
The fruit garden has eating and cooking apples, plums, pear tree cherry tree loads of raspberries strawberries and rhubarb and blackcurrants and gooseberries

my first attempt at lockdown gardening last year and I’ve loved it
Have a proper little garden allotment going on
Lol
 
I have done for a few years and have poly tunnel which is essential for salads etc. I havent grown outside for a few years before the OH didnt plan the beds too well and its on rubbish ground even though we tipped tons of compost in. Its essential to plan it really well and get the compost. Making your own compost in vast amounts is one of the things you need to get the system on a roll.

I have a lot of fruit trees so we get plums, apples etc but the issue there is its very seasonal.

What I will do is plant lettuce but well above ground on the veranda where I can keep an eye on it. That will save me a few quid in posh salads, I also like rocket that grows very easy apart from bolting.

Potatoes are easy but storage never worked for me so you need to plan for a weekly dig up. Dont plant too many either.
 

Bogweevil

Member
For any that are starting a veg garden, I recommend Charles Dowding's "No Dig Method" just watch his youtube on how to do it, straight from grass to a veg plot without digging it over, no weeds, and if you are a livestock farm then you have all the ingredients.

Having said that, Ive got a few spuds in but nothing else yet.

Be careful if you use clopyralid - Mr Dowding had big probs with damaged crops when he composted manure, or bought composted manure, from a farm that used the stuff, and kicked up a fuss (rightly so) with CRD/HSE and now clopyralid treated material cannot be legally used for composting.
 
Be careful if you use clopyralid - Mr Dowding had big probs with damaged crops when he composted manure, or bought composted manure, from a farm that used the stuff, and kicked up a fuss (rightly so) with CRD/HSE and now clopyralid treated material cannot be legally used for composting.
Good point, we stopped using most agrochemicals a while back on our grassland, but I don't really know about straw or other bought in grass. Haven't come a cropper yet. Chillies and other capsicums are particularly susceptible I believe, but I can't remember what else.
 

primmiemoo

Member
Location
Devon
Been bringing back the little vegetable garden steadily from nettles and rampant comfrey since the first lockdown. There were already volunteer sapo potatoes from a previous effort there (it's a blight prone zone), so their bed was utilised to start a sort of rotation. Only basics of potatoes, greens, beans, and chards for now, but an in-law is trying sweet potato, and other things, and I am interested to follow progress. I'm not a natural at gardening, but it falls to me to do it.

There's an area under a thuggish buddleia that should have a raised bed in place of the bush, so that's on the list for this year. Root vegetables straight in the ground haven't been successful so far ~ extra growing depths in a raised bed will hopefully solve that. Had a little success with basic salads grown in old lick tubs. Found long-lost gooseberries, and planted a small, linear, high-line orchard that will crop next year.

Completely amateur, not very tidy, but it does yield.
 

crofteress

Member
Livestock Farmer
I grow stuff but my salad leaves haven't germinated this year even though clover I sowed in the fields have. Think my kale and carrots have. So if Ibuy another pack of salad leaves seeds hopefully all is not lost. Potatoes growing away. Been cold and wet here. My veg patch used to be a digging one very tidy now its just two year old dung and seaweed rotted down and no dig
 

MCook

Member
Trade
Location
Kent
My wife started growing various vegetables during the pandemic. The project started out with a few pots and small 'pop up' greenhouse, and has now grown into several vegetable beds, several of the greenhouses and there will soon be a whole border of the garden allocated to growing.

I think it's a great thing to do and I would love to see this sort of thing encouraged more from an early age.

The future is more locally sourced, home grown produce. It doesn't get more local than this!
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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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“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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