edible gardening help!

[Kveta]

I have my first garden, and this will be the first full year we've owned it, so I want to start as I mean to go on, and make it a predominantly edible garden over time!

I have 3 small beds prepared for this year, and several gardening books, but somehow still can't work out the basics! I have been googling, but to no avail...

So if anyone can help with some amateur questions, I would greatly appreciate it :)

1. Rhubarb - when do you plant it? I keep seeing stuff about forcing it, but never saw plants for sale last year (was looking from May onwards, when we acquired the house + garden), so I'm not sure when you can get new plants and get them into the ground! everything I read suggests it should be in by now, and I don't know how!!

1. Potatoes - where do you get decent seed potatoes from? I just planted some I found reduced in Homebase last year, and they were ok, but would love to try some different ones which we can't get in the shops (except Pink Fur Apples, which I do not see the point of, after years of my parents forcing them on us)

1. Raspberries - how many canes would be needed at a minimum to feed 3 people? Do canes last from one year to the next, or do you need to replace them yearly? Where do you get them from?

1. Strawberries - can these be planted from seed, and is there any point in doing so? Which varieties are nice, and worth getting? Again, do they last from one year to the next? And where do you get them from?

1. Onions - is there any point in growing them in a small space?

1. Apart from courgettes, which I had 2 plants of last year (and got over 60 vegetables in total...), which fruit and veg would you say are the absolute must have for a veg garden, which never fail, and are actually worth the effort?

(I have a blueberry plant, a small fig twig, and a plum tree already in place - all planted last year - but so far, that is it! Last year we got some carrots, and some potatoes, but lost a lot of plants to cats, so we are preparing our arsenal for this year to try and actually get some crops!!)

Thanks in advance for any answers! :)

You are not too late for rhubarb, don't worry. If you look at the good gardening catalogues for kitchen gardens eg Marshalls, Dobies, D H Brown. One of these (can't remember which sorry) has four or five varieties of rhubarb in. It needs lots of feeding and lots of water (a very greedy plant) but it is dead easy to grow. You can also pick up rhubarb crowns in places like Wilco if you have one near you.

Seed potatoes, same catalogues as above, or Thompson and Morgan have a good range. Wilco again, or any garden centres will have them. You will see them called first early, second early, maincrop etc which tells you which will be ready first (and also the earlies tend to be smaller than the maincrops). Again a nice easy crop.

I wouldn't bother planting strawberries from seed although you can get good results growing the alpine type (very small berries) from seed. You normally buy runners for strawberries - same catalogues as before.

Onions are great if you have the space but they are readily available in teh shops and at the same quality, so I would say save the space for something where growing your own really makes a difference. They are a very easy and reliable crop though.

I would rate asparagus very highly on my must-have list although it's not for everyone. Once it's established it is a piece of cake and it is nothing like the shop stuff. Broad beans are good too. Sweetcorn you can really tell the difference with home-grown as well. Soft fruit - how about some raspberries? I like the autumn-fruiting ones as they are easier to manage than the earlier ones - with the autumn ones you just cut everythign down to the ground at the end of the season and that's that. You can get some really nice berries eg loganberries, great big blackberries on thornless plants.

Hope this helps a bit.

thank you so much! it's really helpful :)

Asparagus will probably have to wait for next year, as I'd like to prepare it its own bed (my parents have had great success with it in their garden), and am 5 months pg, so this year is not the time to do masses of digging!

tried some sweetcorn last year and it was crap, but may try and get some plants of it this year from a garden centre and experiment with locations - I have 1 raised, sheltered bed which is in full sunlight most of the day, 1 bed in the shade, which should not need masses of watering, and 1 bed in full sunshine, which will probably have a courgette plant and some strawberries in it. I only had the raised bed last year, and the sweetcorn and pea plants did not thrive there at all. I may have planted them too late, too!

Raspberries - they don't need full sun, do they? or rhubarb? I say this having grown up in the West of Scotland, and saw my parents had a lot of success with rhubarb and raspberries, less so with strawbs!

won't bother with onions this year, but may try them in the future if I have the space.

Oh, and we have a huge park locally that is overwhelmed with blackberry and sloe bushes, plus a wee blackberry bush growing wild in our garden, so don't need to worry about either of those crops!

:o

Tomatoes? Couldn't live without them. Better in a greenhouse but ok in a sheltered spot.

A subscription to Which? Gardening might be a good investment too - excellent advice on the best varieties of stuff.

Some of the seed catalogues have bundles of three or so types of raspberries to take you right through the season. They are fine not in full sun, in fact probably better for it. Strawberries are fine with a bit of shade too. Rhubarb, I am convinced, will grow anywhere unless it is dry.

Yyy tomatoes - how could I have missed them off the list? They do really taste so much better straight off the plant. Only problem with growing them outside is that they are more prone to blight but some areas you will get away with it, some you won't. If you have any gardening neighbours, they will tell you.

BTW, does your town/village have a gardening club? If it does I would join straight away for advice on local growing conditions and very cheap plants/supplies!

thanks again! Have ordered some seed potatoes, rhubarb, raspberry canes, and a variety of seeds - will get strawbs nearer the time from a local shop.

I did have some gardeners delight toms last year (my mum gave me 3 plants, as well as the 2 courgette plants - I ended up with 2lbs of toms and too many courgettes, and she got nothing from hers, as Glasgow was too cold last year for them :(), and have got some more seeds on the way! They grew well in the garden, but I do have a lean-to which I will be using to get seeds started in the spring. I'd guess March would be the best time to start them off actually, eep, not long to go!

I'm getting all excited about this year in my garden now!

I will investigate gardening clubs in the future - like I said, am pg, so doubt I'll be out and about much for a year or two (going by previous experience!).

not long now until the summer (although with 10 cm of snow, it certainly doesn't feel close today!)

Peas are a must have veg crop, easy to grow and just need some twigs to scramble over. Peas fresh from the plant are so sweet and lovely too.
I'd grow shallots over onions, as they're more expensive in shops.
Purple sprouting broccoli is good too, in the ground for a year, but a very architectural plant and it just keeps cropping for ages when nothing else is.

www.growveg.com is excellent for working out spacings etc

Just to give you an idea what I'm doing as you may find you want to do similar (I'm getting really into permaculture and this is my first year in a new house too!)
Back fence - Runner beans and french beans
shady side of garden - Gooseberry, raspberry and rhubarb
Sunny side - Chard, perpetual spinach, potatoes, turnip and onions (all in amongst the flowers as these dont really need that much tending to.
Patio raised beds - radish, beetroot, toms, courgette, peas, coriander, carrotts and also using as a nursery bed for young plants

Strawberries and chamomile will be among the flowers too. Both send out tendrils and multiply by the year, so really only getting a couple of plants of each and will seperate at the end of the year ready for next year.

I got my seeds from realseeds.co.uk and they give advise on how to collect seed form your veg for the next year (no F1 Hybrids here!)

ooh, thank you all, more great tips! first seeds arrived yesterday, so I am willing the snow away and looking forward to getting planting! I got some free seeds with a seed catalogue (DH Brown maybe?) so can try parsnips this year too - first time I'll have given them a go!

What are your boundaries like? Fences or hedges? Cos if fences, you could grow peas, mange tout, climbing beans (french, runner, borlotti etc) up them taking very little space and just greening up the edges nicely, but giving you a great return in veg!! Just make sure you have support for them to climb up.

Grow cherry tomatoes (bush type plants, not cordons) in hanging baskets. I've seen others grow strawbs in hanging baskets very successfully too.

Windowboxes of mixed salad leaves are great - not too much at a go but enough for a nice handful or 2 of leaves most days.

Dwarf french beans can also go in window boxes, or round shaped carrots. I foten use radishes and spring onions to "mark out" little spaces and pop a brassica, broad bean or courgette plant into those spaces (means I can see where space is left for the large plants, and also eat the boundary treatment too!!).

Don't forget to think about the edges of the seasons - do you want things into the autumn. Or leave some space for a brussels sprout or purple sprouting brocolli plant?