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?

Thank you for a really interesting thread, TalkinPeece!

The most I've done before is a few herbs in yoghurt pots, but this year I'm making a concerted effort to try to grow more fruit & veg. We have a small back garden and the lawn is needed for the toddlers to ruin play on, but I've got some bargain large pots via Facebook, just waiting for the warmer weather to start planting things out. The pound shop has also been great for cheap plants

There's a massive waiting list for allotments round here, I've put my name down on the grounds that I should have more of an idea of what I'm doing by the time I get offered one!!

I just bought two packets of seeds in Sainsburys (the display rack is by the prepared veg)
cress and mixed leaves
both will be grown on my kitchen windowsill in Indian takeaway boxes with 4 layers of kitchen towelling in the bottom.
As soon as they are taller than the sides of the box I'll start snipping bits to go in sandwiches and salads and omelettes

ANYBODY can grow a bit of food
and doing so helps you get more of an awareness of the supply chain

Think I suggested it on another thread, but the squash / courgette called Tromba d'Albenga is brilliant as you can cut a chunk off, it seals again and keeps for weeks in a cool place. We got the seeds from Franchi, but now save the seeds from the previous year. If anyone is wanting organic seeds we find Tamar Organics very good.
We have just over half an acre with 36 raised beds, greenhouse, potting shed, soft fruits and fruit trees. We are in rural France.

Obviously we are not facing the same challenges as UK residents, but the produce from our garden is pretty important to us as the pound slides. We started growing our own about 45 years ago inspired by the first series of The Good Life. 😀
One lovely thing we have round here are twice yearly seed and plant swaps.

That courgette sounds interesting! I've bought some seeds today of some that can be grown in a pot. Midnight F1 Though in typing that, I just realised I could do with a couple of more large cheap pots. Either that, or I could do my tomatoes in grow bags, I've not done that before.

I've sown tomatoes and nasturtiums indoors today. The nasturtiums cos you can do their flower buds like capers and they can hide in the flower patch. I've also done a pot of mixed salad leaves outside in a fit of optimism.

We do tomatoes in raised beds and also in grow bags and pots but the watering is demanding. We have a big problem with field mice eating stuff from underneath; last year they took all the globe artichoke plants from below.

kitten
Nasturtuim leaves and flowers are both edible in salads - they are slighly peppery but yummy

missclimpson
Ah, mice are less of a problem for me as I have cats
and my garden is smaller than yours so over the years I have set up several irrigation systems that run on timers in the summer

I also have 750 gallons of rainwater storage just for fun.

@TalkinPeece thankyou!

I grew a cucumber in my bedroom last year and have tomato and basil seedlings on the go now.

Oh, and I use water from the local well for my plants - available year round! Mineral water straight from the source.

We have the neighbours' cats but there are fields on three sides and mice and moles everywhere! We do have a village mole catcher though. 😀
The field mice also like living in our compost bins and get very upset when the compost gets turned.
We have a lot of water storage dotted around but would love an irrigation system.

That's why I'm growing them as well Talkin :)

but I like the buds best!

I'd like to put in an irrigation system of some kind, but our garden isn't set up very well for it.
I'm also mindful about costs at the moment, it's been an expensive couple of months prepping

Right. I've got seeds for two types of tomato, cucumber and bell peppers which I'm hoping to grow in the greenhouse. Spinach and mangetout to go outside.

All the packets say they can be sown in March or earlier so I guess I'll get started now on the greenhouse stuff and do the outdoor stuff in a week or two.

After reading the sowing instructions on the seed packets I have a bunch of questions:

What does sow under glass mean? Can I just keep seeds in my greenhouse
Do I need lots of teeny seedling pots?
What is/do I need a propagator?
What is/do I need sowing compost
What do I do while I wait for seedlings to appear - how often should I water?

I am vastly encouraged to read that one of our posters is growing veg in their bedroom, because yesterday I suddenly thought 'what about the bathroom?!' Now, my garden is tiny and faces North and has evolved into a shady wild life habitat, whereas my bathroom is a decent size with a large wide window, and faces South... and as far as I know, also slug and woodmouse free

Bearing that in mind I've just ordered a couple of neat looking 'LANGRIA 2-Tier Entrance Hall Coat Rack Organiser Metal Multi-Purpose Storage' from Amazon, with thoughts of using a PP's idea of hanging plastic milk bottles on the rail to grow lettuce in, and possibly a tray of wild rocket on one of the two shelves at the base; if the rocket doesn't work it can take a chance in the garden along with the perpetual spinach (if I can find the space).

And if my high rise experiment fails altogether, well, I can always allocate the units to their original purpose...

our options for growing are:

option one: windowsil that gets up to 40 degrees + in summer and dark when I shut the blinds. there are other lighter windowsils in the flat.

I once grew rampent tomato plants which did not get side shoots pricked out in time and turned into a jungle. and I could not work out which was side shoot or not. No need for blinds that year.

aubergines, (5 years ago. ) got three little fruits.

I had a paintbrush that I used for tickling the flowers with kept for each type of plant. If the first flower does not take the next ones will.

I murder coriander and mint. ex's window sil is better suited for them as is in shade from late morning onwatds.

Option two. Slabbed yard. Growing in pots. possibbly at the mercy of ex h who is not good at watering. (tends to drown stuff, but he has not murdered so many plants on the windowsil so who am I to talk?) partial sun. marauding neighbours. (one jumped over the wall and cut down the ash tree) He does not look the sort to eat veg though.

Option 3. good vegetable patch but only visited once every 6 weeks in school holidays. in danger of being weeded out by gardeners. whatever is planted here will have to grow on it's own, possibly until harvest. marauding boy who is likely to play foot ball over the patch.

I would like to grow runner beans (they grew locally abandonned in a pot in a school yard, not sure if anyone watered them. they must have done I suppose)

red onions (onions used to grow well in the veg garden)

potatoes (on the basis that they grew well before and possibly can be abandoned.

courgettes, (gorgeous roasted)

tomatoes.

thoughts are to plant potatoes in a potato grow bag in the yard: charlottes? and in the veg garden.

runner beans onions and courgettes in veg garden and pots in yard. Kids are keen to try.

@GeistohneGrenzen

This is my bedroom window - the massive tub to left is where the cucumber was. Must get another tub for some beans.

@ SneakyGremlins I envy you your window! Think my bathroom one must be equivalent to about three of the sections in yours, but it does get so much good light during the day and clean air as I live at the top of a hill.

For several years I grew peppers on my narrow kitchen windowsil from saved seeds and they reached up as far as the top of the glass, though I had to deal with red spider mite. I didn't need any curtains or blinds while they were there and they gave fantastic crops - which is why I think the bathroom will be ideal for salads as it's directly above the kitchen.

Sometimes I think I like to do this sort of thing just for the hell of it.

I blame a Montessori education, myself

should really clear out the dead plants

I have some pepper seeds I have saved from a wonky peppers bag from Morrisons I'll sow soon.

The cucumber plant was about eight foot long you could see it taking up half the window from the street outside - and I'm on the third floor!

The bedroom window gets a solid 9 hours of sunight a day, weather permitting.

zigzag
Your best bet is to pick up one of the books I linked up thread - every Oxfam bookshop will have a copy
"under glass" means properly frost free - I have a mini greenhouse inside my polytunnel
"seeding compost" is just finer than normal - I run normal PEAT FREE through a garden sieve to take out the big lumps
propogators are useful as they are steady heat, but Geof Hamilton used to do placcy bags around small seed trays

Hello fellow growers - so pleased to find you just at that point of the year where my thoughts are turning to summer crops. I don't have lots of space but have established raspberry, blackberry and red currant bushes. I also grow french beans and mangetout every year in among the bushes - we cannot even look at a runner bean now after the glut of 2014 and 2015
We grow strawberries, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, cucumbers, beetroot, salad and rocket, cucamelons, peppers and pine berries in containers.
Small space but big tums!! Might try the cress on the window ledge also. Harder now we have a cat as we used to start the salad off in a big old flatish storage box but that might look like a lovely fresh indoor bed for him to use - so.....

Im going to go outside and eye up my bushes to see if there is anything I could grow french beans up.

Right. I'm in. I'm sticking mostly to containers this year because I've got a terrible bindweed problem, so my main garden plan is pretty much to dig up everything that isn't firmly established, mulch the flower beds, put in some perennial shrubs and just not let anything else peek it's little head above the soil.

But I've got a lovely south facing sheltered suntrap of a patio which is great for tomatoes in containers and I think I'll grow some cut and come again salads, peppers, and some strawberries, and I fancy some cavolo Nero, because I eat it a lot.

I have bought this totally amazing £10 thingy from Ikea yesterday. I was going to have it as beauty storage but once I put it together I realised how amazing it would be as a lettuce grower on my terrace.

I'm going to 'line' the holey bits with coir basket liners and then pop soil and seeds on it. I've actually got enough room for a couple more.

That looks fab!
How are you going to secure it against wind?