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?

Thanks Pesty - I couldn't be cross with him as he beamed at me thinking he'd been really helpful! My carrot and brussels seedlings may not survive, but I may get plenty of sunflower and freesias coming through..... he'd been looking at the freesia bulbs and told me proudly that he'd planted onions

I'll start some more tomorrow; I have the space, just ran out of time!

My courgettes did not like that frost :( I forgot to cover them up last night. I'll have to start some more. They looked so healthy too.

I just had to order more potting compost and I am holding you all responsible.

I'm hoping I'll have enough in the current bag to pot up my peppers today a bit as they have had a sudden spurt and add looking a bit cramped now. I also want to dig out the new bed, so glad we have a nice day for it.

Rubyslippers
Have you got DS some carrot tops to grow on his windowsill ?
And a tray of cress that he can watch each day

badbad
Yup, it was cold last night. We had to cover all the citrus up with fleece.
Check to see if the stems are sound - put them back under cover for a day
but I'll sow mine this coming weekend

Morning all! So happy to find you! I'll admit this is the first time I've ventured into the Gardening pages of Mumsnet. I've started growing after years of wanting to but not getting round to it. I've started off a bit ambitious and am mostly following the plans in Veg In One Bed book. But that can only help so far. I have questions and I hope someone here can help me!

I got carried away walking around B&Q and also bought a tomato starter kit. Basically a big terracotta pot, some compost and some seeds. All 10 seeds have germinated in the one pot. I've decided to keep 3 and from my googling it seems this type can grow in containers nicely. My question is how and when should I thin and transplant the seedlings? Do I get rid of 7 of the seedlings now? (Such a horrible thought) How do I move them into new pots without shocking them? Should I move them straight into big pots or should I try smaller pots first? What about all this I'm reading about burying them deep and true leaves etc?

More questions than I thought!

Welcome Sickrose
Tomatoes grow much better spread out and seven plants is wonderful - you can never have too many tomatoes admits to over 100 in my polytunnel of which I'll take around 20 to fruiting size

Get hold of some 10cm pots
water the plants really well and then with your fingers on the compost between the seedlings, gently tip them sideways and the compost will start to fall away from them and they will come apart enough for you to pot each one up into its own pot
hold them ONLY by the leaves or the stem just below the leaves

not the roots
they are INCREDIBLY fragile
once each is potted up, see which ones grow most strongly
you can plant out all seven
or give some away

have fun

Pumpkins, courgettes and beans sown.

Three cucumbers have germinated already (excited).

Potted up the PSB today and will be tackling the kale tomorrow.

The chard continues to grow like crazy. Jack in the hedge, wild garlic and three cornered leeks are all being harvested. The hungry gap really is stewed random greens with dried beans and the last few pumpkins.

Something has eaten my cucumber plants!

eaten or damped off - they are notorious for damping off ....

I've potted up more aubergines and peppers and tomatoes
and sown courgettes and first runner beans

but have now run out of pots
and its too cold to sow anything outdoors

Eaten I'm fairly sure! One of the two pots has been dug up!

If they were not under cover, it will be pigeons

all of my seedlings are in the polytunnel because its much too cold to have them outside yet
and birds LOVE seedlings

I've been sent directed here by TiP

I have 16 asparagus spears showing from the 8 crowns that I put into my raised bed last year (and didn't crop [angel]) there were 17 but dh broke one with the flex of the lawn mower I will take a few spears this year from the most robust looking plants but they are showing signs of minor nibbling. Can't decide if it's slugs (I haven't seen any in the bed but there are plenty in the garden) or ants (which I have seen in the bed. I have carefully spread some ant powder around the edge of the wood (keeping it away from the crowns) and have sprinkled with slug pellets (I try to be organic but draw the line at slugs ). The earth isn't warm enough yet for nematodes (I'm in Scotland)

I've just planted out my chitted potatoes into another raised bed, which I'd been waiting for dh to repair, which also has broad beans down the side and middle, which were sown about a month or so ago (forgot to take record). Half of them were sown direct and half into empty loo rolls so that they could go in once the bed was repaired. I'll now cover it with fleece to protect from late frosts and the cats

I've spent the last week gradually sowing seeds from a Brexit Survival Pack that a friend gave me for my birthday last Saturday: so far I've sown pumpkins, cima di rapa (flowering broccoli/turnip head), lambs lettuce, America spinach, dwarf borlotti, dwark french beans and tomatoes as well as some yellow and green courgettes (seeds left over from last year) and purple podded peas (seeds collected from last year). And some pretty scented sweet peas.

Just about to go and sow some runner beans (seeds collected from last year).

Then I'd better go and clear up some of the rest of the overgrown garden!

Should have mentioned: this year I do have a greenhouse, as dh rebuilt his dad's old one in our garden, but it's the first time I've been able to use one to bring on plants. (it was completed about June last year).

I've never grown asparagus (DH hates it and it hates our soil) but the most likely damage is snails or slugs.
So long as you can be certain that hedgehogs will not get there, slug pellets are OK
(I use hanging basket frames to keep mammals off and then slug pellet inside them)

Hello. I'm just in from a productive couple of hours in the garden. Broad beans and corgettes are just starting to germinate in the greenhouse, the veg patch is nice and tidy with few rows of seeds out to see how they do. Next weekends job is to prick out the tiny tomatoes into small pots.

I use the slug pellets sparingly and haven't ever seen hedgehogs in this garden - but don't think that they'd climb into the raised bed anyway. Plus there is chicken wire over the bed to stop the cats crapping there - works quite well with the asparagus which can grow up through it

Must go back and read the whole thread to see if there are any tips/advice I can use. I'm a non-dedicated gardener so tend to do it in fits and bursts

Hedgehogs are good climbers pretty. My parents found one upstairs in their house one winter....

No slug pellets here, we have cats and small children as well as visiting hedgehogs.

First harvest of the year though! Crumble is now in the oven

I still think the chicken wire will be sufficient - it is set above the bed so that the cats can't/won't go onto the earth - so I don't see how a hedgehog would either. Never seen a hedgehog here though - although I have seen them in previous gardens.

I will use nematodes as soon as the earth temperature warrants it - especially as elsewhere in the garden (and in a whole load of planters), I have loads of hostas, which the slugs love

We do have lots of urban foxes - one at the moment looks like it has a severe case of sarcoptic mange (so severe I had to look it up to see why it had a bald back, legs and a non-brushy tail which looked really weird and stick like ).

We used to get hedgehogs in the kitchen - they would eat from the cats' food bowls LOUDLY
and I've caught the fox in my polytunnel before !

We've seen (healthy) young foxes playing with a ginger cat in our back garden (we think they thought it was another adolescent fox - we've even got it in video.

This current fox is very sad looking - to the extent that if I see it again, I'll think about trying to catch it for the vets to PTS. (we saw it a week ago during the day when it seemed to be marking the garden but was also falling over - and was escorted out of the garden by one of the cats . This week I saw it again, sitting scratching in the garden during the day - which was when I saw how much fur it had lost )

Don't think that hedgehogs would venture into our kitchen - they'd have to climb two flights of stairs to get there

Is anyone else getting major poly tunnel envy here?!?!

prettybird have you seen these people? www.nfws.org.uk/mange/treatment01.htm
They send out free mange treatment for foxes, or will trap and treat them if they are very badly affected.

I love my polytunnel.
I put all corks onto the path now as they make a brilliant non slip weed free surface

Not plant related but I made another thread to advertise Wickes doing BOGOF on exterior woodcare this weekend.

It includes Cuprinol Garden Shades which is rarely on reduced to BOGOF

@TalkinPaece so jelly right now. Can't even properly look at your gardening porn photo.