Growing your own veg

[KMA]

Just treated Nell to lunch at the garden centre, came out with pots that will fit my recycled cloches perfectly (need to transplant those beans), 10 planters to make my Strawberry 'trees' and a large non heated propagator to start hardening things off while leaving the heated one free to germinate things.

 

[Old McDonald]

KMA, I think you need to take up angling. That will teach you patience.

There is no point in sowing seeds if you cannot plant them out where they need to be (due to climatic constraints) when they are ready to be planted out. You have to attempt to gauge future temperatures before you sow - not afterwards. At the very least you need a max/min and soil thermometers. You will learn that a cold Nov/Dec/Jan/Feb means it will take longer for the air and soil temps to increase to the levels needed for your plants. A warm (relatively) 4 months means the soil temp will be up, but there is still the risk of an overnight low that will kill off your plants - even under cloches.

Using propagators, cloches, etc. makes your vegetables expensive. Patience. Sow later, avoid the cost of these "aids" and enjoy things in their proper season according to where you live in the world. I am presently overwhelmed with asparagus, but in the far north would not be expecting to harvest anything by now.

 

[Old Boar]

The soil here, heavy blue clay, is far to cold to plant or even dig yet. It turns from soup to concrete overnight though, so I do try to get on it when it is at the crumbly soup stage. The polytunnel helps steal a few weeks though, trays of all sorts of stuff growing now, including some white mullein that I am looking forward to seeing in flower.
I had three upright freezers with glass doors for the meat unit. I have tipped them over, shot through the back for drainage, filled them first with polystyrene, then pig muck, then soil, and a final layer of compost. One is flowers, one is mixed and one is veg. The glass doors now slide over to warm the soil or keep a frost off. They work well.
Cleaning the fruit cage today, trying to untangle the net is a task that needs a lot of patience, so only half done. Glad to go and lamb a ewe to stop trying to see invisible net!

 

[KMA]

I think it's seeing all the hot-house grown seedlings in the garden centres that are making me twitchy, not to mention the gardening programmes (usually darn sarf) and the local peasantry are chucking NPK around. Soil temp is around 10/11 so still too chilly outside for most things. The way this spring has gone I'm not expecting any more frosts.

Transferred the 2 beans into bigger pots and moved them to the kitchen windowsill last night as they were touching the lid of the propagator, they'll get their cloches today. TBF I wasn't expecting to see anything begin to emerge until next weekend but these 2 were up in 3 days as is one of the courgettes.

With the digger booked for Tuesday I'm really hoping to have at least the first raised bed in by the end of the month. Still can't make up my mind about the slope down from the gate, terraced raised beds, terraced cold frames or level out and use as a soft fruit area its 30' long 6'6" at the top and 8'6" at the bottom and the slope levels out towards the wider/lower end. I need to find a permanent place for my soft fruit and but cold frames would be really handy, though I could make covers to turn the raised beds into temporary cold frames. Whatever I decide there's a fair bit of clearing up and digging involved.

Also found the stobs I planned to use for my strawberry 'trees' are 1" too narrow

Old Boar the thought of you standing over the freezers with a 12 gauge loaded with 32grams of BBs, actually you've answered one of my questions as I was wondering about insulating cold frames and whether it was worthwhile.

Flowers are those the coloured smelly things right? I'm slowly coming round the idea that flowers might be a good thing if only to encourage the pollinators in.

 

[SoilMan]

Love this thread and so far has been very helpful with my and my mates own endeavours.

Recently taken over an old allotment after previous tenant passed it into us. We have been extremely lucky to have this well tended plot after both spending a whole year fighting weeds on our respective older previously abandoned plots

Planted some asparagus crowns a week ago. They looked battered and dried up however to our amazement all have green shoots appearing above ground.

What should we do now? Do we mound up soil around them as they grow? Or just leave them too it?

We won't "harvest" them this year so do you just make sure they become as well established as possible this year?

 

[Old Boar]

Leave them - dont even look at them. Very gently remove any weeds by slicing carefully with a knife at soil level - they hate being disturbed in any way. They will shoot the most beautiful ferny leaves, which when the dew is on them, is a wonderful sight. Dont even pick them next year, (OK, just one or two spears per plant, just for quality control ). Third year when nothing else is growing, you will suddenly see lots of spears. You have to cut every day to keep up with them. Buy butter.

 

[KMA]

Just finished creating something I had the idea for a couple of weeks or so back, took some pics into the local garden centre and was asked if I'd send some pics to put on their website

 

[KMA]

Here we go another of my daft ideas

 

[KMA]

Strawberry tree is already taken so I reckon Strawberry Tower.

Off the ground so slugs deterred and cage will keep the birds off.

Reckon at least 10 planters per tower, so could get 40 in my little cage, but will stick at around 20, Surfeit of honey and all that

at the moment I've got

6 Sweetheart (early crop) (cos they come in packs of 6)

5 Cambridge Favourite (mid season)

3 Pegasus (later)

2 Florence (later)

1 Random Sonata

will add 2 more Sonatas and a couple of whatever I come across, just trying varieties to see what we like

 

[Old Boar]

I like those! May have to borrow the idea and adapt it to old tomato baskets I have hanging around, if you dont mind. Strawberries in flower in the polytunnel, and I have a large patch of wild strawbs growing on a bit of yard. Any idea where I put the copper tape?

 

[KMA]

Feel free, I'm glad you like them. I do sometimes wonder when I come up with one of my ideas whether I'm being an idiot again.

I'd originally thought of using the kind of planters I could fixed to a post and rail fence I plan to put up eventually but was going to have to buy them anyway. Mooching round my favourite garden centre at the weekend, saw the ones I'm using which are designed to go round 4" down pipes, so the light bulb went on for a 8' 4" stob driven in to 5'3 with planters fixed in a spiral. Would have been deeper but hit a stone which is'nt unheard of in the "riddlins o' creation", a certain R Burns tried to make a living farming in this parish before he decided it was a damned site easier to be a revenue man getting shot at by smugglers).

Jealous of your strawbs, even more of your polytunnel. My strawbs are pretty small at the moment except for the early Sweethearts, which when I saw them did make me wonder about the spacing on the poles but it's worked out fine. The only fault I can find with the planters is that they need a 20mm felt nail knocked in just under the integral securing strap to stop them sliding down.

I've also got a patch of feral (I use the word advisedly) strawbs lurking in the swamp but there's a trench going through there in the next couple of days. I understand any kind of copper should work so maybe mooch some copper wire from somewhere? Thanks for mentioning it though, hadn't occured to me I'll be putting copper tape round the the poles. Would about 6" up be about right?

I've found washing powder is lethal to slugs, it irritates them causing them to slime themselves out, not sure if it would work as a defensive barrier though. I'm also encouraging Blackbirds but they don't seem to be too keen on slugs, must be feeding them too well, guess it's time to set out my beer traps as well.

 

[JohnGalway]

Lots of vertical planting ideas on Pinterest.

 

[Chasingmytail]

Any helpers on growing Lisburn spring onions? Thought Id start them off in the poly in modules but absolutely no sign of anything. Whats the trick?

 

[Old McDonald]

It is Lisbon (as in Portugal). There are two completely different strains - one autumn sown and one spring sown. It is possible if you sowed the autumn strain they will not germinate now.

Onions generally require a low germination temperature 41ºF (about 5ºC) is sufficient. I recall from info form Robinson's the Mammoth Onion people that they recommend somewhat warmer to get their gigantic ones going, but still relatively low. There is a reason I cannot recall that higher temps should not be used for germination. Check out their website - I think robinsonsmammothonions is the main phrase.

 

[Chasingmytail]

Yes white Lisbon spring variety. I have germinated everything else but these have nothing. May consider the damp paper towel method.

 

[Old McDonald]

May consider the damp paper towel method.

Always a good way to check the germination potential of any seeds. I use it frequently. Like everybody else I order things "with good intentions" and 5 years afterwards wonder if the seed is still viable. I remember reading an article many years ago by some pundit who reckoned it was essential to sart French beans this way.

One of my early educational experiences was to have a teacher come into class with 3 or 4 jam jars, some blotting paper, a milk bottle with water in it and some seeds - broad beans as it turned out but at about 6 years old and not accustomed to eating them I did not know what they were.

A bit of water in the bottom of the jam jar, a "tube" of blotting paper and slide a couple of seeds into the jars. A Friday. Lo and behold on the Monday morning!! Seeds growing roots. Every mornign every kid wanted to see how the plants were growing. Fantastic education that every primary school teacher could repeat. I bet none of them does it now though.

 

[Old McDonald]

First strawberry of the season today. My wife grows these - the only edible crop she looks after, unless the Strawberry Trees (Arbutus) are also included as edible. Ornamentals are her responsibility and, apart from the strawberries, the food crops are mine. She generously insisted I ate it. Delicious.

 

[Old Boar]

They do the beans still, and not only that, they were given seed potatoes to grow, a bag and some soil in London schools (dont know about anywhere else). The children were amazed that potatoes come out of the ground with soil on them!
There is a poem somewhere about the viability of seeds, with most seeds last years, with the exception being parsnips, which need fresh seeds every year.

 

[Kidds]

Our advisor insisted that runner beans must only ever be grown from fresh seeds. I have been proving him wrong ever since.

 

[KMA]

Pretty dire germination so far with beans and lettuce 50%, courgettes 16%. Pretty sure the bags of 'FYM' I bought weren't, smell more like sewage. I'll be really glad when enough of our own stuff has had time to break down. The runner beans that have germinated are growing well and will have to go outside soon

1st early tatties got a bit of a frost nip the other day, courgette I had out under a cloche has come through ok though, watered all the outside plants for the first time today. Horseradish and all the herbs except the lemongrass have new growth as have most of the raspberry canes.