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 suppose my toilet rolls were/are out in the greenhouse/on the patio. One or two went a wee bit moldy by the time that they were planted (but my plants never tend not to suffer from being "under" watered ) - but by that time there was a good root system on them and they were more than ready to go into the ground (yesterday, when I planted the potatoes), cardboard inner and all!

I have some purple podded peas currently in loo rolls in the greenhouse, propped up in a re-used plastic tray.

Getting hold of pots without breaking the bank
Household waste centre / the dump - will always have some going cheap
Ask on freecycle / facebay / free ads
Small pots - most big garden centres have swap crates outside (Haskins certainly do)
Ask any local gardening society branches if anybody has spares
Charity shops can be good

but basically plastic plant pots last about 15 years so you just need to find the person with a stash they want rid of

talk that’s what we’re doing re pots. I see no point buying brand new if there’s life in old.

Dm said today we can have a rummage in their garage and take what we want. And dsis said she bought some for her school garden we can have as they’re unused. Yay.

To start with we used milk cartons, yoghurt pots, etc for planting.

So I tried the citrus to deter the cat from the veg patch and just stood here and watched him joyfully bopping bits of lemon peel around the garden.

All in all I'm not sure it's had the effect I was hoping for. 😂

Maybe I need to cut it up smaller.

LOL !
Your cat has no sense of smell

I use satsuma peel - stand in the veg garden and eat them and lob the peel

I’d heard orange peel was a good cat deterrent. Never just citrus.

I used satsuma and lemon. I read somewhere that if you cut them up a bit smaller it releases the smell more, and I guess they won't be as fun to play with so I'll try that. He is a bit of a terror, bless him.

Oranges don't agree with my digestive system so I don't have any orange peel. Maybe I can persuade dd to eat some for me.

I have various sections of chicken wire that get laid over the raised beds until the plants come up to keep the cats off and/or cut up twigs/old raspberry canes, garden implements laid across the raised beds to deter them. The asparagus bed has the chicken wire in permanently as the spears can grow up through it and it's easily lifted to cut the spears.

I have loads of twigs! That's a great idea. I might give that a go. Thanks pretty

What's more important for tomato seedlings, light or warmth?

My options are 1.) indoors, but it's not light enough, they get leggy... (I've just repotted and fixed the legginess) or 2.) outdoors where there's obviously plenty of light, in an unheated but frost-proof mini greenhouse/cloche type thing?

I'm in London and the forecast for the next two weeks is great, daytime temps over 15C every day with nights about 8-10C.

I would say light - and you'll be surprised at how warm even an unheated mini greenhouse can get now!

I’ve just put in some runner beans (think I’ve just timed that right as also in London) and have some carrots to do. Also have strawberries dotted around the garden.
Would the carrots benefit from mixing a bit of sand in with the multi purpose compost ? I read they didn’t like too rich soil ?
Must get eating some oranges too- thanks for the idea
I was also thinking of putting some courgettes in as it’s my first proper year starting vegetables and I’m looking for moral boosting results (as is my 2 year old assistant gardener)

My little plastic greeenhouse thing gets surprisingly toasty viccat and my tomatoes seem to be doing pretty well in there, even during the cold spell last week they were fine.

Once they have germinated and have their first leaves - rather than just the Cotyledons, LIGHT
cooler but brighter and a good wiggle every day to keep them stout
will give you good crops

At last some sunshine here!! Given all the plants a good water as we are off to visit a friend in hospital later, so won't be back till quite late. Also just taken advantage of this:

www.thompson-morgan.com/p/summer-plant-lucky-dip/t45224TM

I threw in some of the large appleblossom geraniums at checkout too as I do like a geranium

Have you thought of tomatoes too limpingparrot? As they can be picked when small, good for impatient young ones! Not as small as DS2 used to pick them though, when they still looked like little green peas!

I was whinging to dh that nothing that I've sown recently has come up yet

By recently, I mean since 9th April

I'm currently on a programme to try to sow something a day but given the number of seed packets I bought yesterday, I may need to scale up to 2 or 3 a day to get them sown soon enough

Hello! Is a few years since I grew veg and have moved house since then. I have a lot of lawn and little 'bed' so have done things in pots. But I wondered about growing beans up beanpoles in a wigwam on the lawn. Would that work or is it madness and they'll need to be in proper compost?

Prettybird: we have a mange-y fox here, I wonder if we live close. It's a big black one. There are a couple of others as well bit this one is huge.
I'd hate them without having chickens but now I'm seriously considering some kind of pest control.

The other day one of them puked up a massive amount of worms onto my patio... nice to have to deal with that before the school run.

They can also destroy plants, they tore down my sunflowers one year.

I converted one of my old chicken runs into my veg patch, no birds, foxes, cats, dog can enter. Only bees allowed.

Hello Hebe Not sure what nutrients would be available for your beans in a lawn, but when I dug up part of my lawn a few years ago to put in a small fibreglass pond, I thought it would take me a fortnight of afternoons to do... in fact it was less than two. Once I was through the top 3", the soil was lovely and very easy to remove. I don't know whether that would be an indication of available food supply for your beans though, but I would be quite hopeful

Thank you GeistohneGrenzen . I might give it a go! Worst that can happen is a few holes in the lawn I guess!

LazyFace - don't think you're from my part of the world - inner(ish) city Glasgow (albeit nice and leafy where I am ).

Our mangy fox with the bony stick like tail is a small brown one. We have seen healthy larger ones too, as well as whole families.

Hebe I suppose in the cause of science or summat you could experiment and have two wigwams, one with compost dug into the underlying soil and one without? Then you'd know for sure...

Hebe - you can also put wigwams or supports into pots.

I may be a bit keen but the tomatoes and courgettes have gone outside today just because they are getting too big for their pots and my limited inside space. Now fingers crossed we don't get a late cold spell.