I want to grow veg!

[Sunnyoh]

I’ve just moved to a property with several large raised beds and a greenhouse in the garden. It’s all very overgrown.
I need a book or course to tell me what to do, as an idiot who’s only ever grown in pots.
Nothing too ambitious. I like the look of no-dig gardening and permaculture methods.

Get your gardening gloves on and start with weeding the beds.
If you can, cover the weeded beds with black polythene so attract warmth.

Sow the seeds according to the packet instructions.

Start with things that are easy to grow. Potatoes, courgettes, runner beans are good bets. Sow things that are quite expensive but easy-peasy to grow - I like swiss chard bright lights, spinach (tends to bolt), pack choi, spinach beet, rocket, salad. Rocket and mustard - lets say you only need to sow them once.

in the meantime, sow little trays or pots with tomato, pepper, chilli and put them in the greenhouse as they benefit from a long season.

A year-round gardening book is probably your best bet.

Bear in mind that it will be winter, so sow things you can harvest through the winter - kale and purple sprouting broccoli are good. Squashes will keep well in a cool place. I ate the last of the autumn harvest today.

Grow some herbs. Also comfrey for making comfrey tea, which you can use to improve the soil.

Grow squashes on uprights or they take over the place.

Most veg are easy to row. I've had very little success with peppers or aubergines or butternut squash or asparagus.

Some take up a lot of space - looking at you globe artichoke. Root veg take a long time, and carrot fly usually gets the better of me.

Jerusalem artichokes have pretty flowers.

if something is an invader you will need to contain it. Mint and horseradish are examples. Herbs are good because they usually keep going for years, dying back in the winter. They are usually invasive

Try fruits - strawberries, blackcurrants etc.

Bear in mind where you are in the country when you sow or plant outside.

If the raised bed is in partial shade, you can grow things that would otherwise bolt there in the summer.

Top tip is grow what you like to eat!

Weed the beds, get some manure or spent mushroom compost delivered and lay on top, you don’t need to dig 8n. Look up no dig garden8ng.

Start a compost heap.

If there are lots of beds cover some of them up so yo7 don’t get outfaced. Or sow them with green manure.

Potatoes are easy and low maintenance, depending where you are they can go oin soon. I do first and second earlies, just means you dig them up earlier and they are less likely to get blight.

I love fresh peas. Check on the back of the packe5 for ones to sow now.

Broad beans are lovely and can be down now.

Pumpkins and things need the soil to be Warner.

Think about a flower cutting patch.

Hello I've just started so no idea what I am talking about at all but I've enjoyed getting everything ready and the two year old helping.
I've bough a gooseberry and some raspberry canes to try not to murder.
My sister is a keen veg grower said carrots are a nightmare but does really well with beans /peas generally.

Cucumber were the eye-opener for me. I thought they’d be difficult but they are really easy and the taste is noticeably better than shop bought ones.

Soft fruit is where you can really make a profit (if you forget you’d never buy as many strawberries as you’re eating). Easy to grow, and expensive to buy.

You’re all so helpful, thank you. I’m taking notes.

I never thought of growing cucumbers. Melons are easy enough.

I have strawberries. They were here already and are rampaging weeds. Rarely do I eat one, but they are easy to share and according to young people taste jammy. Alpine strawberries are delightful.

Plants that you can buy in a pound shop will be easy to grow and easy to propagate. Ask around if you are after things like herbs and strawberries. Someone will probably have something to offer.

Definitely grow what you like to eat. I love salad, so I grow it. It's fresh and tasty.

Sow things every few weeks so that you have a steady supply of things like spinach and salads. About 3 weeks is a good gap.

The hardest part is the watering in high summer.

You need to plan where the plants will go.
Where you have tall things are best at the back of the bed, not shading other plants.
Plants that you cut and come again are better where you can access them easily. Short lived crops can be grown in the gaps where root crops go.

You can grow some plants together - 3 sister plants are one example.

Ooh @MereDintofPandiculation please tell me.more about growing cucumbers! I have cucumber and also cucamelon seedlings on my windowsill at the moment but I'm not entirely sure where I'm planning on putting them! Pots only garden
Will I need vertical support? Have also read about putting them in with sunflower and using those as natural trellis...

Anyway, fingers crossed they are easy!

I'd second growing what you like to eat.

Soft fruits are a real money saver, I have blueberries, strawberries and this year for the first time raspberries too.

I sowed spinach, rocket, salad leaves and beetroot in one of my raised beds today. All of these are easy to grow.

I've also got tomatoes, peppers, aubergines and chillies in propogators and peas and green beans in the greenhouse.

My biggest problem is knowing where to stop!

There are lots of gardening books that take you through the year month by month. Why don't you see if you can borrow a couple from the library to begin with?

I’ve found a book called Veg Journal which is an all-year guide, so I’ll try that to start
@KirstenBlest see it’s this kind of planning that I’m totally clueless about. I need really basic instruction, preferably with diagrams😄

Have cleared out and sown some herbs in a sunny bed near the house, so that’s a start.

I'm pretty clueless, but you find things out. And if you get it wrong, you can try again. There's always next year.

There are so many books, but the one you found looks ok. I think he's on GQT.

The seed packets have instructions. You can use a bit of leeway with the sowing dates for a lot of seeds, but not for things that need a long season. A mistake I do is sow things too thickly.

I plant the end bits of spring onions, leeks, spring greens, cabbage and lettuce, and tops of root veg. They usually grow into new plants. You can sow herbs from the spice jars in the kitchen.
You can sow seeds from fruits - I've saved seeds from squashes and had successes. Squashes are promiscuous - you might get strange hybrid fruits if you have different types of squashes. They will be edible but a bit odd-looking. I think you need to exercise some caution if you are also growing gourds as the fruits are poisonous.

Some websites do a what to do in your garden this month newsletters.

If you are buying tools, you don't need many. I like a stainless steel trowel, and I love decent secateurs that fit my hand.

If your greenhouse is in a sunny place you might need shade for the midday in summer.

The soil you sow seeds in is best not too rich. Add fertilizer or feed after the seedlings are established.

You'll probably want a compost heap or bin.

Put something over the ends of bamboo canes, or wear safety glasses.

if you plant bulbs like onions, make sure they are all under soil.
Birds will help themselves otherwise.

Wilko is good for reasonably priced seeds.

Agree with all these tips & I would add - you don’t need to sow the whole packet! You don’t want to end up with 50 or so broccoli plants like I did last year.

Pick about 5 veg you want to try this year and read up on those. Next year, you’ll probably do some again and add a couple more.

This year I am doing tomatoes, cucumbers and courgettes - my regulars.

I’m adding runner beans and radish. I had a small dabble with beetroot last year and am trying that again too, more this time.

I’m planting my seeds in a couple of weeks, some direct in the ground and some in pots indoors - I have made a plan of when they’ll go out.

To a PP - Cucumbers are something I am now confident with. I always grow in my greenhouse in pots. A cane is useful, they do grow strands (dunno what the proper name is) all over the place and get tangled otherwise. I tend to grow about 6 plants and that sees us through the summer. At glut time, I make tzatziki and add to stir fries.

I had a bit if success last year with spinach and parsley, my peas started well but then I forgot about them. My carrots were teeny tiny. Today I sowed my parsley seeds as I didn't have any compost for the veg. Good luck everyone.
🥕 🥔 🍓 %🥦🌽🥒🥬🍇🍉

Potatoes are best separately contained, otherwise they take over and you need to rotate where you put them each year on. Radishes are easy, strawberries come back each year, root veg need more depth.

I found peas to be an easy way to start.

I totally went against the start small with a few things advice and bought a ton of things my first year. Some survived, some didn't, but I learned what I like growing faster because of it. Agree with potatoes in bags, you will never manage to dig the all up from the ground. I have never had a greenhouse, but tomatoes are often better off in there as it protects from blight. My tomatoes have got blight all but one year of growing them, but usually I have a crop before they succumb.

I think potatoes are better grown in the ground. If you can. I’ve done both. Watering properly is harder in a container. In the ground they naturally weed suppress and are easy to just leave and they get on with growing. Any ‘volunteers’ that are left after digging up will grown next year but you can pick the plant out easily or leave it if it isn’t doing any harm.

Potatoes are definitely better grown in the ground. Most things are.

You'll get the odd stray potato, but the soil improves when you dig them out.

Thank you all😊

The trouble with growing edible things is the little critters like to eat them too. Get yourself some pest control strategies too, or blissf acceptance of the ecosystem which you are prepared to sacrifice your veg to.

@StandardLampski I grow my cucumbers in the greenhouse but a) I'm in the north b) I don't bother to do anything about slugs but I keep the greenhouse a slug free environment.

Basically, once the seedlings have their first true leaves, rather than just their fleshy seed leaves (cotyledons) transplant them into a 7.5cm pot. Don't feed them at this stage - grow them "hard" so that the stems aren't too dlightfully soft and succulent for the slugs (although I suspect the general roughness/spininess will put them
off).

When you plant them out, you will need tall canes for them, and you'll need to start by tying them in even though they have functional tendrils. My cucumbers go up canes to the the edge of the greenhouse roof, and then along supports in the roof.

They'll start flowering very quickly (like courgette flowers but 1/10th the size) and then cucumbers will develop. Depending on variety they may be long and slender, or they may be much shorter and rough/spiny. I usually pick when the end is just beginning to get yellow stripes.

I feed my plants with tomato feed because they're in a container.

you don’t need to sow the whole packet! Definitely! And most seeds will stay viable for several years, so the rest of the packet isn't wasted. The exceptions are things in the carrot family - parsley, parsnip, dill etc- which deteriorate quickly.

I recommend sugar snap peas. They're eaten complete with pod, like mangetouts, but you pick them when the peas have formed, so you still have the lovely pea taste which is different from the pod/mangetout taste.