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Gardening

Find tips and tricks to make your garden or allotment flourish on our Gardening forum.

Original poster

Foolproof, can't go wrong, minimal input, easy to grow veg

65 replies

hmc · 10/04/2011 18:37

Tried to grow veg the summers of 2008 and 2009. Yields so poor relative to time and money invested that I was thoroughly pissed off by whole thing and did diddly squat last year. Feel I ought to do something this year but need to build my low confidence with something foolproof and easy. I am going to do tomatoes in hanging baskets since those were successful when I tried them - can you suggest anything else that is idiot proof?

OP posts:
bullet234 · 10/04/2011 18:40

Lettuce.

HarrietJones · 10/04/2011 19:14

Courgettes. Only have one. Stick in a grow bag. Water lots. Pick courgettes before they turn into marrows and fill your garden, street,town ....

GeorgeEliot · 10/04/2011 19:14

radishes.

rocket.

Broad beans if you want to be a bit more adventurous.

sethstarkaddersmackerel · 10/04/2011 19:19

if you do lettuce, make it one that slugs won't eat - I found red salad bowl was good.

lamb's lettuce (=corn salad)
land cress (just like watercress)

herbs: parsley, thyme, chives, marjoram/oregano

HarrietJones · 10/04/2011 19:29

Peas are easy but you need something for them to grow up.

TheMonster · 10/04/2011 19:30

We did runner beans last year. It was very easy and they were very tasty!

coastgirl · 10/04/2011 19:43

Spinach - ours is still knocking around from last year and just growed and growed!

Lettuce and rocket yes. I was self-sufficient in lettuce for two months last year for about five minutes' work.

Potatoes quite easy. More effort to get started but look after themselves from then on.

SoundTheOctoalert · 10/04/2011 19:45

Courgette. I had so many I ended up making my (now famous!) chocolate cake! Lettuce was great, saved us £1.50 a week on a bag of lettuce for about 10 weeks. Going to try strawberries this year as friend did them last year in a pot with great success. She also reckons peppers are good. I am not doing carrots, peas or green beans, big disaster last year!

Paschaelina · 10/04/2011 19:50

I killed a courgette through overwatering. Sad

Runner beans are easy, and potatoes.

ColonelBrandonsBiggestGroupie · 10/04/2011 19:52

Dp grew stuff for the first time last year. His biggest successes were:
lettuce
rocket
spring onions
parsley
mint
rosemary
thyme

KnickersOnOnesHead · 10/04/2011 19:53

Pumpkins, marrow, tomatoes, lettuce, sprouts and beetroot!

KnickersOnOnesHead · 10/04/2011 19:53

oh and carrots and leeks.

LifeOfKate · 10/04/2011 20:28

Courgettes/cucumber/squashes are good.

Herbs wise, I have had massive success with coriander (took over the patch, could have kept Pataks in stock) and chives which were quite good last year and have sprung up again this year which was a nice surprise :o

sethstarkaddersmackerel · 10/04/2011 20:31

chives look so pretty too because of the flowers

BornToYolk · 10/04/2011 20:34

My chives are indescructable! I have them in a pot, planted them years ago and every year they just come back. The pot was covered in snow over winter, and I thought that must have done for them, but nope, they are back.

Last year, I found rocket to be the most easy thing. Just sow, water and away it goes. But it does go to seed quite quickly.

sethstarkaddersmackerel · 10/04/2011 20:36

it does indeed. but then it self-seeds and you don't even have to bother planting it the next year.

oldsilver · 10/04/2011 20:45

We do toms, carrots, spring ons, lettuce and potatoes. Apart from the tomatoes the rest are really low maintenance. Love having thinned out carrots, raw in salads - yum!!

goldenticket · 10/04/2011 20:48

Rhubarb definitely Smile

goldenticket · 10/04/2011 20:48

Although not veg Grin

oldsilver · 10/04/2011 20:55

Ooh and strawberries - very easy, lovely to just pick a few to go with icecream during the summer You only need a couple of plants to start off with, give it a few years and you can start giving plants away Smile

diggingforvictory · 10/04/2011 20:57

Mange tout. Bung seeds in the ground, put a few sticks for them to grow up and that's about it. Plus they're really expensive in the shops so you can feel all smug picking armfuls every evening.

Original poster
hmc · 10/04/2011 20:58

Brilliant advice - thanks all. Easter hols trip to garden centre with the dc tomorrow!

OP posts:
niminypiminy · 10/04/2011 21:03

Dwarf French beans. Easier than either peas or runner beans as you don't need to support them. Start off indoors and then do a second sowing in early June, you will have green beans all summer. The only thing is to make sure the slugs don't get them when you first put them in. You can get organic slug pellets nowadays (don't kill birds hedgehogs etc), I would use those.

Can't stress how easy and reliable French beans are.

TrillianAstra · 10/04/2011 21:05

Basil.

Buy a living basil from the supermarket

Put it in a bigger pot

Keep it on your windowsill

When it starts to look droopy, give it loks of water

When you want some basil, chop off the tops on stems - don't pick leave, chop stems, every time you chop a stem two grow back (not an old wives' tale like grey hairs, reallly true)

Hulababy · 10/04/2011 21:07

Spring onions - they were our biggest success last year.

Courgettes and cucumbers appeared to be going well until one morning, just before I was ready to harvest them, I came down to discover something had eaten huge chunks out of pretty much all of them.

Tomatoes - none of mine turned red.

Mint and parsley - all grew well.

Strawberries - my plant is on its third year and has already survived two very very heavy snows.

Carrots - got some form of bug and all died very quickly.