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?

Those are nor Solanums. Therefore weeds

My "cut & come again" salad leaves should be ready to cut and come again in about a week They were sown on 18 April, so should be cropping already, but the cold snap really slowed them down.

(bigger plant at back is a rainbow chard that over wintered)

I've put some salad leaves in too prettybird, am impressed by yours! I picked snails off some plants this evening. Must get some more eggshells out.....

I let DTS2 pull up one of our onions to see how it was doing. He was so pleased with this that he pulled them all up

We started some more seeds indoors today. Hopefully will do some garden planting over the weekend!

I'm on my 3rd sowing of Defender (Green) courgettes. If these ones don't come up, I'll give up. They've had 3 days so far . All my other squashes/pumpkins have come up: 3 out of 3 Atena (yellow) courgettes, 2 ex 2 yellow summer squashes (party pans - like frilly flying saucers), 2 ex 2 Black Beauty (dark green) courgettes and 2 ex 2 Italian pumpkins (can't remember its name). I'm not counting the winter squash that was 5 years beyond its "Use by" date

We are trying again with pumpkins pretty! The DC are desperate to have some for Halloween!!

Check out my magnificent and very keen cucumber

My gb (gardening buddy) has a cucumber like that: the cucumber is so precocious, it's as big as the plant itself

That is very impressive Badgers!

I'm thinking of planting my 4 biggest tomato plants and cucumbers out next weekend... They have been in those plastic greenhouses which I unzip for the day and have been taking the plants out of them as well so hopefully they are ready! I certainly need the space now the 72 plug plant perennial collection from Thompson & Morgan arrived and will need growing on!

I saw this on active threads and misread "Grow your own" as being under the pregnancy topic!

So no useful contributions but thanks for the laugh OP. :)

I've had my tomatoes out for ages viccat.They are doing really well so far.

I only have two cucumber plants and they are staying indoors on a windowsill.

Fantastic and fascinating thread 🙂.
Hope I’m ok to join?

I’m still in bed reading the posts, and I’m normally downstairs by 8am.

I have a sunny windowsill in the back bedroom (which is small, so the room is constantly warm). This is where I start my seeds, as things thrive on there (up to now). My tomato and strawberry plants are currently on there, until I feel confident they’ll be ok in the unheated greenhouse.
I also have a heated propagator which I have used once or twice.
I need to get up now, but I’ll be back soon as I need some advice.

Welcome chocolate!

The two tomato plants I bought at yesterday's school fair didn't survive the journey home squashed underneath the new dinosaurs DS1 bought... sigh. And then I went to Poundland for more compost and found that they are phasing out their gardening stuff! got some poppy seeds and some freesia bulbs before everything goes.

The garden is being well watered by frequent showers but also scoffed a lot by snails

@RubySlippers77, thank you 😊.

Those bloody snails ! They’ll eat anything. And everything. Grrr.

Sorry your tomato plants didn’t make the journey home.

Shame about Poundland phasing out their gardening stuff, have you got a Wilko near you?

I’ve decided to put my strawberry plants in a container in the greenhouse. There are three, so will fit in ok.
My tomato plants are going to stay on the bedroom windowsill until the day before I go away. Then they will go into the greenhouse, as my friend is watering them for me while I’m away.

Snails are my blooming nemesis. I've found coffee grounds and egg shells liberally laid down around everything seems to be doing the job so far.

My early spinach has started bolting after that bit of sun and rain so I'm going to harvest the rest of that today rather than try and stop the inevitable. I realised I completely forgot to sow another lot (whoops) so will do that today as well. Luckily the stuff I harvest today should keep me going for a while if I freeze it.

On further inspection I think most of it can stay out for a bit longer. It's just the stuff I foolishly planted in direct sunlight rather than a bit of a dappled shade and then ignored because it's further from the backdoor, that has given in. Lesson learnt.

How are you all getting along?

First four of my tomato plants planted out (in containers) this week, followed by two cucumber plants today (I specifically chose a variety that can be grown outdoors in a container). I have lots more tomatoes still waiting to grow a bit bigger to go out of the mini greenhouse but everything is finally growing at a good pace and I'm feeling optimistic!

I found slugs crawling across my eggshells last night too my tomato plants will live to fight another day though!!

All going well here, lots of sun + plenty of rain = happy plants

Still need to plant out some seedlings but dread DS1 'helping' and/ or having massive tantrums when I won't let him do something...

Oh no, poor TiP - hope she's back soon!

One of my courgettes has finally 'hatched'.

It's a travesty about TiP :(

Egg shells are useless against slugs, really. I tried wool pellets but it's rather expensive as I'm on my second bucket.
I'll get some proper poison very soon.

Thanks for this very inspiring and enjoyable thread!

DH and I recently bought a house with a very promising fruit and veg patch, which we'd like to get the most out of.

I'm a total novice when it comes to gardening (DH less so) but keen to learn more.

We're taking it easy the first year, having planted a couple of raspberry bushes (which always used to do well on the balcony of our old place) and then just seeing what comes up elsewhere in the garden: so far, rhubarb, all sorts of herbs, and strawberries.

Some beautiful ripe strawberries so far - but with chunks taken out of them when you lift them up . Something is eating them from underneath. I'm guessing slugs? I did see one small dark one yesterday. Thought I might give coffee grounds a try (we have lots of those) in an attempt to save the unripe ones. Has that strategy worked for anyone?

Also keen to give cut and come again lettuce a try as we do waste a lot of the bagged stuff. Would that be best in a pot on the patio/a windowsill or in this greenhouse type thing we have in the garden that is built into the ground? I think the previous owner used to grow herbs in it?

Oh, here is a photo of the greenhouse type thing! What would be worth growing in it, do you think? The garden faces due south.

Hi user1473069303 - as far as I know, the lettuce should do well in most places? Depends where you can keep those pesky slugs away from!! I haven't tried the coffee grounds yet but will give it a go after my eggshell failure

(I do also go out after dark sometimes on a slug and snail hunt to get rid of some of them, which has helped a bit!)

DS1 pulled up all my carrot seedlings yesterday and gave them to me as 'flowers for Mummy' - I couldn't be cross at him..... him and DS2 had a great time filling a pot with compost, planting some onion bulbs, then uncovering them all again and being thrilled to find bulbs. The joy of being three, eh?!