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?

I did some gardening today. Peas are coming up, broadbeans too and my first sowing of salad leaves. I planted my potatoes in a big dustbin. Rhubarb is doing well. Noted I need some more strawberry plants. I nibbled on some leaves that I thought were chives. They are.

My land cress is flowering.

Are those teeny tiny violas edible?

Morning all! We have beautiful sunshine today so I've been about already. I've planted out the rest of the first wave of spinach so will see how that goes. I've also potted up the courgettes I planted far to early, but they are looking lovely so fingers crossed they'll do alright.

I also have some Poundland plants Ruby. I got two raspberries and a gooseberry. The gooseberry looks good but I'm pretty sure at least one of the raspberries is dead as a dead thing. Still, as you said, it's hard to complain for a pound a pop.

My marigold seeds are just starting to show. I want to plant some more but am running out of windowsill. I mind need to get a little cold frame or something soon as I appear to be getting a little ambitious.

The soil is warming. Outdoor seeds are germinating. Lawn got mowed yesterday. Spuds go in this week
ITS SPRING

It's springlike here too, the washing is out on the line and we have sunshine!!

Ah I didn't go for a gooseberry plant Bigly, maybe I should try that one! I live in a fairly small town with a fairly small Poundland so I wonder if we only get the end of stock? Both 'plant your own garlic' plants have been mouldy will keep an eye on the others though and report back, they're all out in pots. If I'm feeling brave I'll ask DS1 to water them later.....!

We may have a mouse in the house so I've ordered some peppermint essential oil, apparently mice (and ants) hate the smell, I can do cleaning with that from now on. The pest control chap has had a look and thinks it's a one off that the cat's brought in (but hasn't caught again!) - if needs be he'll come back to deal with it. I was looking for ideas on how else to use the essential oils - cleaning/ skincare/ etc - but haven't found any decent websites so far, any recommendations gratefully received!

RubySlippers77

I still have nearly a full bottle from years ago as a deterrent against spiders, and assiduously wiped the window frames with it in summer to stop them coming in. I remember waking one morning to find a massive spider patiently waiting in the bottom of an empty water glass next to the bed; I took the hint and gently dropped him out the window when I awoke. I don't mind the few house spiders that show up in autumn but didn't want an influx of the real giants from the ivy on the outside I shall be interested to see if you do find other uses!

Thank you for this. My garden is quite big. I have a veg plot up the top, with a narrow border for berries, 3 beds each about 15 x10 and a greenhouse. Bought the house 7 years ago for the garden. Turns out I’m crap at growing veg, too disorganised, improvise forget to label only ever manage the 1st row of successional sowing. . My autumn and summer raspberries aren5 labelled so I don’t know which to prune. All sorts of stuff is growing but mostly weeds. I feel overwhelmed.
Should I start by sorting the shed and greenhouse, or sow seeds, or clear the beds. Am I going to spend hours up there again for 3 small beetroot and some undersized tomatoes?
I did do quite well with salad leaves over the winter, should I rip up those plants now.?

3dogs2cats
those beds are huge .... divide each in to 4 and start with 1/4 of one of them.
Broad beans and peas
then in a second quarter, carrots and radishes
next week spinach into the third quarter

greenhouse - blitz it and do tomatoes and peppers and aubergines (buy the seedlings in)

and for the fourth quarter of the single bed, buy a 99p live lettuce at the shop, soak it in a bowl of water and pull it apart into 16 pieces and plant each of them out.

THe other two beds, leave covered while you are doing the above.

Raspberries. Cut of any stem that does not have buds bursting on it and wait for summer :-)

Thank you. It’s a plan

Well, the advice gave me a starting point. Found my beds are 20 ftx6ft, so thought better to divide into thirds. So in one 6x6 plot I have made a small seed bed for leeks, and sown them, then covered the area with 4 rows, and sown Little gem in the outside rows and radish in the inside rows, and sown courgette x2 equidistant from each other.
Now that does all seem a bit crowded and complicated, but my thinking was that the radish and lettuce are fast growing and expendable, and will stop the bed getting overtaken by weeds while the courgettes grow.
The next third is fairly clear of weeds and leeks can move on to there. The last third is a weedy mess, but I will sort it.
The other big bed has young strawberries that I saved when scrapping my old plants last year, but also lots of bolted salad, grass,weedsand cornflowers and forgetmeknots and cosmos. So I thought I would clear the weeds, and maybe get some Strulch for round the strawbs.
The berry border is a horrifying mess, but all the canes have sprouted, just need to weed, eliminate brambles and again strulch.
I seem to be relying quite heavily on strulch, I’ve never used it, but I really have to keep the weeds down. Has anyone used it?
Thanks so much for helping me get started, and yes I know that I haven’t exactly followed the advice. , but I am very grateful.

Advice is there to give you a thinking framework - glad it helped

Look up Huw's Nursery on YouTube. He's a nice guy who started his channel when he was about 12. Just got a book out called Veg in one bed.

My purple carrot seeds have arrived. Now I just have t work out where I'm going to put them. :o

I may have also accidently brought some woad and weld seeds to grow for dyeing. In my defence I love hand dyeing with natural dyes and both are really expensive to buy. I'm going to give them a corner at the bottom of the garden to go a bit wild in. I'm already growing marigolds for dyeing as well so should be able to collect my own dye stuff this year and next. Very exciting.

I'm just sneaking in to mark place so I can find you all again. We moved last year, and our garden has one bed which is a mess with a half dead bush and random weeds. Lots of trees and bushes around the edges of the lawn (mainly conifers).
I'm toying with getting a small greenhouse and digging up and planting the bed. I've already planted strawberries indoors in a pot/tin.
I'm in Scotland and the weather is unpredictable so any tips on what's hardy would be great.

Remember to water seeds by the way - its not rained here for a few days ....

Welcome anne
There is a cool planting calendar thingy linked up thread that adjusts depending on where you live
have a play with that

Talkin that calendar is fab - thank you!

Went to B&Q yesterday with DS1 and bought some half price flowers for a bit of colour. He enjoys picking them out and watering them, just a bit too enthusiastically!

I have quite a few seedlings which could go outside - just waiting for it to be a bit warmer - nights are still quite chilly.

Anne I love your username

Thank you Ruby I loved the Anne books when I was a child

Me too!! And I recently read 'The Blue Castle' thanks to a MN recommendation. Also enjoyable but probably more as an adult!

Been unpacking a box of fruit bushes I ordered weeks ago which arrived early March. Unfortunately the instructions were buried at the bottom underneath the very prickly gooseberry branches so I hadn't seen them let alone read them! And the box arrived in the middle of all the dreadful weather when I wasn't doing any outdoor gardening. I thought it would all be roots like my Poundland stuff but apparently some of these should have been watered ASAP oh well, we'll see if any survive!

Hello,
Did a bi5 yesterday and got my raspberry border weeded,, and canes tied in. Need to mulch now.. just about to plant some peas and broad beans. Bit confused by this, TalkinPaece, I should plant an area with broad beans and peas together? Do you mean that I should plant a row of peas between two double row of broad beans?.. I’m going to do it because I have the seeds, but my only experience of broadbeans involved a lot of black fly. I love peas, but don’t properly understand the twiggy stick thing, do I put twigs in upright or at an angle?.

I succumbed in Robert Dyers yesterday and got one of those mini 4 tier plastic greenhouse things as I'm running out of windowsill and my tomatoes are getting too big for the little propagator. It was only £10 so not too much spent. I have also given a couple of my courgette's to my dad to free up more space as his have done nothing at all apparently, while mine seem to have shot up every time I glance at them.

I'm planning on planting some beans and my deep purple carrots next week.

Hello gardeners! I'm new. We finally got an allotment over winter and I'm really looking forward to growing our own food for the first time. I'm sure I'll make plenty of mistakes along the way but I'm ready to learn.

I'm probably early as it's all very exciting but I've sown garlic, beetroot and cauliflower already. I'm hoping to start brussels and pumpkins off soon. I'm very much in the camp of 'try loads of things and see what works' but the calendar linked above looks like a brilliant place to start!

A new allotment sounds very exciting BeefTomato. I know my dad just started his beetroot off so if you're down south than hopefully not too soon. I've done loads of things far too early but will just hang on in there and hope for the best.

Hello! I've read through most of this thread and picked up lots of good tips, so thank you!

I have a very small London garden with two beds that are mostly planted with perennials so I will be planting up lots of containers with annual flowers and veg. I feel more excited about the growing than eating to be honest but I'm looking forward to some great home grown salad veg too.

So far I have cherry toms, dwarf beans and sweet peppers on the go from seed on the window sill. Waiting for some flower plug plants to arrive in April (probably over-ordered and will have way too many!). I have some more seeds to plant as well but waiting for slightly warmer weather so they can be grown in the mini greenhouse in the garden... It's gorgeously sunny now but next week's forecast is back to 10C and rain so I'm guessing that would not be good for seedlings in one of those PVC plastic greenhouses?

BiglyBadgers that's good to know. I'm in the South East so hopefully I'll be okay. Purple carrots sound amazing!