29th March "Grow your own" newcomers welcome here

[TalkinPeece]

In light of lots of posts on lots of other threads I thought I'd start one for those who are looking at their gardens in a whole new light this spring.

Rule One of starting to grow your own
do not be over ambitious
A couple of growbags and pots at the start will give better results than trying to dig up the whole garden

Rule Two of starting to grow your own
grow stuff that will actually cope with your conditions
Look at where the sun shines on your garden at different times of day and what access to water you have

Rule three of starting to grow your own
grow what you will enjoy eating fresh from the garden
as the crops will be smaller but tastier

Rule Four of starting to grow your own
prepare to develop an obsession with the weather forecast

HOWEVER
Tomatoes against a wall of the house are easy in most of the UK
Herbs in small pots on windowsills are easy in most places
Lettuce / salad greens can work in pots, tubs or even hanging baskets
Spinach can be seeded soon and every few weeks from then on to keep you in greens for months
Baby carrots are quick fun and easy to grow in a tub
Beetroot ditto
Dwarf french beans later in the year are well worth growing even in a tiny garden

If we assume that the biggest newcomer plot is 2m by 1m (or 8 feet by 4 feet in old money)

How much yummy veg can Mumsnetters produce?

PS am on here as I've done three hours of veg bed digging so am having a cuppa.
Back out to the sunshine soon

TalkinPeece I noticed true leaves appearing on my tomatoes earlier! They're still tiny though.

Yes we have done the summer coriander TalkinPeece (though it has bolted sometimes 😀), just the over-wintering that seems to go wrong. We have the beds ready now, the onion, garlic and broad beans are up and we are just about to start seeds. We have an old stone building where we replaced part of the roof with corrugated plastic. We use it as a potting shed in spring and for indoor tomatoes later on. In summer in the raised beds we do a lot of aubergines, tomatoes, peppers (espelette do particularly well), courgettes and squash, plus beans, salad etc. Oh and achocha which DH loves and me not so much.
We belong to HDRA and usually do a few heritage varieties. We have a few beds of strawberries and raspberries, but last year was so hot, it was the Mediterranean stuff that did best.

I just lifted, trimmed removed bindweed roots and replanted my whole strawberry bed ...
hopefully lots of fruit this year

Following as I want to try this year

The strawberries started brilliantly last year, but then it was too hot. Gariguette are our favourite. Forgot to say we also do potatoes. Mostly charlotte and grown in raised beds under straw. Our French neighbours all thought we were mad, but quite a lot of them do it now too.

First outdoor veg sown .... broad beans and peas and then carrots, spinach and parsnips.
Seeds in the polytunnel not yet showing their faces
but cress on the kitchen windowsill is coming along

Digging veg beds = one of the best all body workout I know

I'm seriously considering doing some sweet peas outside right now - it says March to May and we're very close to March with 18 degree temperatures in London over the next few days.

But remember last year .... the Beast from the East was on the 6th of March .... this is unseasonal weather and the day length is still very short

I feel incredibly behind with my seeds, I've not planted any yet. All my packets say march onwards. I've got my propagater trays ready though

To be fair all I've sown are things staying indoors, so a cold snap won't matter.

Aph
You are not behind.
Remember, I am on the south coast and know my local microclimate well
AND
if there is a late frost that whumps what is outside, I have the time and space to re sow

for beginners its always best to be a bit late rather than a bit early

We don't dig our raised beds, but turning the (five) compost bins is a good workout. 😀

climpson
Ah yes, compost bins, DH did that the other week.

I did my raised beds because we have an ongoing bindweed incursion issue so a once a year clear out does the trick.

Aph I haven't started yet. Things generally catch up and i've seen late frosts decimate a whole allotment worth of bean plants.

Am transporting home a 99p chicken coop, like the houses we buy it 'has potential'..

I've stolen the idea of a poster upthread who got a bathroom shelf unit from ikea. I'm planning on lining the baskets with coir matting for cut and come again salad veg.
I have an indoor ganging basket of herbs for the kitchen which I can move outside if needed.
I now have 3 bags for growing peas and beans, if successful I'll also have a go at saving them for seeds next year. Plus 3 varieties of tomatoes because I use them a lot.

Can I join please? I'm planning two big raised beds to replace part of the knackered lawn which doesn't get any sun in winter. Two questions:

North West facing garden so does that limit what I can grow?
I've got loads of strawberry plants, the oldest dating back 9 years but I know they don't last that long really. They're in pots but how do I know which ones are too old to crop decently any longer? I should have paid attention last year; I just know there were very few fruits on any of them. Or chuck the lot and start again?

I'm impressed your strawberry plants lasted that long Misty!! I think mine all died after just a year, not helped by DTS2 pulling lots up by the roots 'to check how they were doing'

I would love raised beds - we only have a tiny lawn though, can't really lose any more space from it. I was offered some (and an allotment!) by a chap who'd built his own, but we only have a stony gravel bit to put them on, and I don't know if that would be suitable.

I planted my sweet peas outside yesterday, might mean the end of them but they were just too big for indoors! This may be a dim question but what is the point of the little compostable pots? Is it just that they're a bit bigger than propagators and are an 'in between' stage before planting things outside?!

Misty
Have a look at the strawberry plants, do they have a visible stem? If so, bin them and buy fresh

You say your garden is North West facing - it all comes down to how much of it gets the sun and when ....
but things like spinach cope fine in the semi shade
then reserve the sunny corners for stuff that needs it

Hello, can I join you. The nice weather and seemingly increasing chances of no deal brexit are pushing me out into the garden for therapy and potential food.

I have grown a few bits in the past but not for years and I was never really very good at it. For this reason I'm planning to just do a really small amount to start. I want to do some tomatoes and have a go at peppers because these are things we love to eat but are already quite expensive. We are down south and the garden is south facing so we get good sun in a lot of it. Today I've been clearing out a 1x1m raised bed.

I've also cracked open a makeshift compost bin/pile we haven't touched for about 3 years. I was a bit worried what I was going to find but it has some lovely compost in it, which is quite exciting. I want to get it going again so will be back for composting advice in the near future as I'd like to learn to do it properly rather than just using the pile it up and ignore it for 3 years method.

Can I just ask Talk1n what you mean by visible stems on the strawberries? Ours shoot out little baby strawberry plant shoots all over the place. Is that what you mean?

We have a strawberry bed which has been going for about 4 years or so and is pretty much left to run riot. It still somehow gives a lovely crop each year (dd loves picking them) though last year it fizzled up once the dry weather set in. I was wondering whether it's worth giving it some love or if I'd be better just digging it up.

Sorry, I realise I put a random 1 in your name TalkinPeece

Hi Bigly

(Do not worry about the variants of my name ! I change one letter every month or so because I had a problem with somebody trolling me, but its still recognisably a variant of TiP )

Strawberries - runners are fab - they are baby plants that if separated and looked after will give you three years of fruit.
The parent plant will eventually develop a brown woody stem between the leaves and the roots - once it does that, productivity will drop away so compost the parent and harvest the babies

and yippee for neglected compost heaps
this is the best time of year to dig out all the lovely stuff that is ready to use and then start using it every day and you'll have a steady supply of nutrient recycled in your garden.

So tempting to get out there and get things started. Ive just been in the garden and there are butterflies around. Its crazy. I need to keep reminding myself that its february and too early for most things.

Thanks Talking. I'll have a clear out of the strawberries then and see what we've got. I'd love to keep them going by keeping the babies as my mum gave me the originals shortly before she died. I feel sort of sentimental about them.

Dd had an inset day today and we've had a lovely day in the garden clearing the raised bed and sorting the compost heap. Hoping for another sunny day tomorrow to finish it off and tidy up so we can start adding to it and using it again properly.

It feels like summer here cloudtree. It's hard to believe we often have snow around this time of year and here we are having a picnic lunch in the garden in t-shirts

Please take a look at Project Diaries on YouTube. The latest has a suggestion for making good quality compost. The chap is Uk based and really focuses on suggestions for those on a tight budget.