Brexit Cupboard : Grow your own

[BrexitGarden]

Share your tips, from window sill herb pots to crop rotation and champion planting.

Bit of a weird suggestion but...

If you like a beer of an evening...
If you also like unusual tastes like kombucha...

Water kefir grains make a nice fermented drink.
They multiply over time so you can end up with extra which can go in a smoothie for probiotic and b vitamin content.
The drink needs 60g of sugar and some cooled boiled water. You can also add half a lemon and some raisins if you have them - both sugar and raisins are good brexit cupboard ingredients.you can add other things for flavour once it's had a first fermentation.
Anyway the drink has a very low alcohol content after the first fermentation -0.5% like ginger beer.
But if you then put it in a closed bottle (I have lots of kilner ones for rosehip syrup) it will then become more alcoholic without the presence of oxygen. And fizzy.
It tastes like it's about 7% after a day.
It does need to keep going though like sourdough starter.

We used to be self-sufficient in veg for half the year.

What's worth growing depends on where you are, soil etc. Some things are a lot of effort for not much return (carrots, most brassicas except cabbage and purple sprouting). The things I would definitely grow if suitable for soil/climate are

• Courgettes are great if you have a sunny spot and choose an F1 variety. Huge yield for almost no work
• leeks, don't need much attention and one of the few veg that you can harvest all winter
• peas just because they are so much nicer (but use a lot of space for a low yield)
• broad beans because they are early croppers (but not everyone likes them) and good for your soil
• dwarf French beans, easy and high yielding
• lettuces
• herbs
• beetroot

Leo peas 45p from Asda and Tesco are great for sprouting
kitchencounterculture121.wordpress.com/2013/09/29/a-love-song-to-leo-dried-peas

I'm limited to mostly pots now - all my veggie growing area is taken up by fruiting stuff like currants and rhubarb.

What can I grow in pots that would work? Obviously tomatoes and salad are good in pots. Could I grow courgettes in them?

What can I grow amongst my flowers? I'd rather not dig them up just yet.

This year I grew in pots...
Broad beans
'Patio' tomatoes
Leeks
Beetroot
Cabbage
Herbs

My first earliest are chitting as I type. Will try carrots this year too I think

spinach is fine in pots, spring onions too, strawberries, peppers, aubergines. courgettes will also be ok in a big pot but they can get pretty big.

I put onions in last autumn - anyone know if they’ll mature earlier than spring planted? I want to know when bed will be free.

great, thanks! I'll try some of those.
I do have some peas that I've overwintered that are showing their little sprouts now.

I don't know who said carrots were easy but I agree with whoever said they are fuckers.

Broccoli is easy. Spuds are easy. Garlic and onions are easy. Courgettes and cucumbers are easy. Tomatoes are easy. Beans and peas are easy. Rocket and lettuce are easy. Basil is easy.

Carrots are fuckers and carrot fly are also fuckers and they ignore any garlic or onions or marigolds I put around the carrots.

Ooh placemarking, we are about to order topsoil for our 4 beds, we turned over the front garden that was a sloping mess with a massive privet hedge, it's now got 4 glorious raised beds and the other side is for herbs and our grapes. Our prissy gossipy neighbour hates it, she voted for this mess and says we won't be able to grow anything as we are incomers and not country people.. I can't wait to show her, I might even be dropping round extra veg to rub her nose in it.
Gets full sun all day. No idea where to start though, probably start with spuds and some seeds on the windowsill.

I grew ( well tried to grow) carrots in a tiny plot surrounded by flowers and nested within other suburban gardens, no crops for miles. And yet still the carrot fly found those young plants. Incredible!

Im a bad gardener really but even I manage :

Cut and come again lettuce - always good. Radish - super easy and even the first shoot thinnings are a tasty topping or garnish.
Herbs work well, rosemary year-round. Parsley I plant out the windowsill pots when the frosts are over.

I have grown garlic among flowers. You can eat the thinnings like spring onion too, very tasty.

I have four very long completely empty beds surrounding my new patio full of compost. They were supposed to be filled with flowers this spring. I think I might put the space aside for veg and fruit instead this year. Will look a bit odd but hey ho

To prevent precious seedlings going thin and reedy when growing on a window sill, get a shoe box or similar, line with crumpled tin foil, tip up on one end with long side down - back to inside room - and place seedtray in it to face window. It makes best use of thin winter sun.
Look at Project Diaries on YouTube.

Cloudtree, veg and fruit can look very ornamental if you choose carefully and arrange them for visual effect. Runner beans used to be grown for their flowers. Globe artichokes look very dramatic. Blueberries are very decorative particularly in autumn. Japanese wineberries and chilean guavas are tasty and look good. And you can try more ornamental varieties of normal fruit and veg plants - cultivars to explore are chard bright lights, raspberry groovy, strawberry just add cream, kale emerald ice. Searching for "edible landscaping" should give you lots of ideas.

Perhaps I'll permanently have it filled with attractive edibles!

Its an enormous planting area. Over 50m in length by 50cm wide. Stepped raised beds. It does seem silly not to put it to good use.

I think cabbages are beautiful.
I'm growing leeks down my ornamental border just now. They seem happy and they add height to a display.
Also we eat them a lot. I find them easier than onions.

Poundstretcher has 2 packs of seeds for £1.

They had the rondo carrots that are fine in clay soil, lots of radishes, tomatoes that are happier outside, greyhound cabbages which I'm hoping will grow quick enough that cabbage whites won't find them (they got in through the netting last year), beetroot and little strawberries which like pots.
Also the kids range is quite good to sew direct outdoors and they had peas. So I will try peas for the first time.
And leeks again obviously.

Still on the lookout for yellow courgette and some kind of squash I think.

If you know anyone who gets salads from subway the boxes are quite decent for propogation

Definitely look to reusing veg or fruit tray packaging for seed trays. Also pierce some holes in the lid of a plastic bottle to make a little "watering can" that sits on the window ledge next to any seeds. Fill bottle with water, put the lid on and water away. I have a few Innocent smoothie bottles collected from various meal deal indulgences that do this. Or ask a colleague to donate one if you see them using one.

Apparently carrot fly can only fly up 2 feet in height so if you put up a barrier of very fine mesh or net curtain it will keep them out as does growing them in pots up on a table, Allegedly,

Thought I hated marrows but found they keep fairlynwell and good for bulking out things like spag Bol.

Shallots are good as you get a few for each set you plant unlike onions. Plastic food trays make great mini propagators for seed sowing.

Perpetual spinach great for shadier corner as less tendency to bolt so keeps going longer.

Think we all say we’ll do it but successional seed sowing so you stagger the harvest.

Don’t think you need to water daily in a heatwave. My plot got a good soaking twice a week and did just as well as the daily watering crew.

Gumtree is a good source of topsoil in the spring when people landscape their gardens.

Marketmore cucumbers don’t need a greenhouse and fairly prolific. Skins can be a bit tough but peeled mg sorts it.

We got a water butt in lidl last year which took care of our water needs. We don't have a hose so before that I was having to go back and forth to my upstairs kitchen with bags full of bottles of water. It was quite an effort.

I like watering first thing in the morning.

I mulched with rinsed mussel shells from the beach and that seemed to affect the amount of water required.

Carrots are easy.The trick is to start them off.Carve a v shaped groove about 4"deep,water well.Sow your carrot seeds thinly.cover and fill with compost.Water gently.Scatter your slug protection of choice,I use egg shells.Cover in a fine meshing tunnel.Water when dry
I don't bother thinning.The advantage of putting compost down is that it is weed free so you only need to water there and hoe any weeks that grow in-between.