Help~ Veggie patch/pots for kids - Start from the basic...

[Return2thebasic]

Calling green-fingers for help.

We've just cleaned up the garden and made it usable the 1st time in so many years. DS became increasingly interested in growing his own plants. So we agreed to hand him the sunniest part of the garden for a veggie patch.

I've never done any gardening before and so we just started looking at the kids books for ideas. DS chose the following veggies:

• Pumpkins
• Potatoes
• Peppers
• Strawberries
• Blueberries
• Lettuce
• Tomatos
• Sunflowers

I do wonder if these are too many types to start with. But then I expect maybe half of them may not work out. So good to start with a wider selection.

Then according to this book , everything grows in pots/containers. I do realise this helps drainage and water level. Maybe easier for pet control too. But wonder if it's necessary and a better way than growing on ground.

Next question is how easy to start by sowing seeds for these plants? Obviously, I would love to encourage him to see the process of life sprouting out from the little seeds. However, if they all become disappointing experiences with little coming out, I'd rather try to get the baby plants as the starting point.

On top of the above, I'm also utterly confused with all kinds of compost. There seem to be lots different types. Do we need to get all of them?

• Seed compost
• General-purpose compost
• Grow-bag compost (for peppers)
• Peat-based compost

Thank you.

• Potatoes: you can get grow bags in the pound shop. Or, use a deep plant pot. They're fun and easy to grow. Get a seed potato, put it in the pot, cover it in soil. After about 2 weeks green leaves will appear. Cover with soil and repeat this process 3 times. I then leave them and harvest them at the Wimbledon final!

• Lettuce work well in a raised bed. Sow the seeds now, then in a few weeks when they start to appear, thin them out.

• Tomatoes: i get ours as plants. They like sun and get some tomato feed too. You'll also need to use cains to support the stems when they grow. They can grow out in every direction. When a stem starts to grow between two other stems, pinch it off.

• Sunflowers. We plant ours in toilet roll tubes which are rolled up at the end. Leave it on the window sill for a few weeks or just put the toilet roll straight in the ground and it will degrade over time.

I just use multi purpose compost! Also, if you want something nice a simple to grow, herbs are easy. They will spread quickly though so put them in pots to contain them.

I think it's a great mix - blueberries and strawberries will produce year after year, lettuce will grow quickly, so you will have results sooner than the tomatoes, pumpkins, etc. Good luck!

Blueberries like ericaceous (acidic) compost. I bought two small bushes and put them in large pots with some water crystals to keep them moist. So far they've been the only fruit and veg I've managed to grow that haven't been destroyed by pests.

Blueberries are unlikely to produce fruit the first year unless you get very advanced shrubs which will be expensive.

If you don't have enough windowsill space for seedlings, get a mini plastic greenhouse. Otherwise you don't need much kit - use yoghurt pots, toilet rolls, etc for pots.

Not a fan of cucumbers? They're easy to grow and you can get mini varieties. I find peppers hard to grow without a proper greenhouse. I prefer growing in the ground as I know the plant roots can spread out far and wide to get nutrients & water. Pumpkins need a lot of space though but look amazing. The big ones for carving are grown for that purpose, not eating so pick accordingly. Strawberries may be safer in a container to start with: cover with net to deter birds and place straw around them to protect fruits from going mushy in the dirt (hence their name).

Definitely start some from seed: sunflowers and tomatoes are easy. A multi-purpose compost is fine but sieve it first or make sure it is fine if planting seeds as they might not get through lumps and bumps. Love eating cherry toms straight off the plant like sweets!

Potatoes are usually grown in the ground. In general plants in the ground will grow better as they have more of a root run. Reasons for growing in pots include lack of space, wanting to give extra cover x eg peppers and tomatoes are often grown in a greenhouse.

Peppers are the ones most wanting heat, from your list

Definitely do not buy peat based compost. Peat bogs are better at carbon capture than forest, yet we’ve got rid of most of our peat bogs. We’re now trying to bring back to life the few remnants that we have. I can’t see any justification in using composts containing peat in recreational gardening.

You need general or multi purpose compost, Erica eons compost for the blueberry, and possibly seed compost, but with your small quantities I’d suggest just using general purpose.

I saw a brilliant thing where you get a pepper, but it in half and fill with soil. I also dry chillis until they rattle and sow the seeds. I also grow lettuce stems (mostly for my own amusement as they don’t yield much!) - just sit the stem of a used lettuce in some water (chance each day) and watch it grow.

We’re setting up to grow our own veg this year too. I’ve found this really useful website with plenty of tips for a total beginner! www.quickcrop.co.uk/learning/plants

Re potatoes, a colleague of mine told me how her mum grows hers to save on space - car tyres! Fill one car tyre with soil and plant seed potatoes. When the green leaves appear through the soil place another car tyre stacked on top and fill that with soil. Repeat two or three more times and you will end up with columns of potatoes in your tyre stack. Not the most attractive way to do it, though I guess you could paint the tyres to make it more aesthetically pleasing!

Thanks to all, ladies! Some fairly great first hand experiences.

I really need to get my head down to study each line and revise my list...

Everything is easier in the ground I find. Less watering! Biggest thing to remember is water and feed and weed. 10 minutes weeding a day rather than 4 hours at the weekend when they’ve got out of control.

Great list but unless you in the v v sunny south you’ll need greenhouse for peppers. Also butternut squash is hard so choose a pumpkin pumpkin...get started inside now.

Tomatoes don’t work for me outside but I’m in north west.

Pumpkins

• Potatoes
• Peppers
• Strawberries
• Blueberries
• Lettuce
• Tomatos
• Sunflowers

Blueberries need ericacous compost in a pot. “ Blueberry plants need acidic soil to thrive; the ideal soil pH for blueberries is between 4.5 and 4.8. (Soil pH is a measure of how acidic or alkaline soil is.). Azaleas also need acid soil to thrive, so if azaleas grow well in your area, blueberries should fare well, too.”

Other easy things, rhubarb, raspberries, plum tree.

Radish is easy for beginners and satisfyingly quick...also rocket.

I love growing peas, they are so delicious fresh from the pod.

I've started growing this year (thanks to people who gave me advice here!) and my tomato seedlings, sugarsnap peas and mini cucumbers are doing really well. Sunflowers also. I did some tomatoes from packet seed but also did some using seeds squeezed out of some cherry tomatoes. I'm a complete novice but just put stuff on my windowsill and watered everyday and they have grown nicely.

Oh forgot to say radish too! I am in Yorkshire and have a back yard so can only grow in pots, and the radishes have grown really well in a pot out the back.

For a child, I would grow the potatoes in potato bag that have a flap on the side for harvesting. It will be easier than digging them up and it's fun to check on them and be able to see what's happening "underground".

How big is the plot? And how much will you eat of each crop? Things like tomatoes can be made into sauces and soups then frozen but you might not want a glut of lettuces. It might be better to buy some cut and come again salad leaves seeds or rocket to grow in pots unless you want salad every day.

I would second growing something like dix huit radishes that are ready to crop in 18 days just for the fun of seeing the fruition of your hard work so quickly. Self supporting dwarf peas are good too, quick to harvest (fresh peas are a thousand times better than ones from the supermarket, so sweet) and you can also grow some as pea shoots to eat in salad (another quick crop).

If you only have a small space, although it's great to grow things from seed, you will only need a fraction of the packet. It might be good to buy some things as plants, some seeds and have a wider variety eg instead of buying one packet of tomato seeds, you could get 3 or 4 different types of tomato plant (cherry, plum, beef, yellow, black, orange, stripey). This place is great, you can get a mixed box of 60 veg plants for £29.99 or buy small amounts of different veg individually:

propagationplace.co.uk/vegetable/summer-garden-in-a-box/

I would also look into companion planting (plants that grow well together or protect your crop from pests) with your DS:

www.growveg.co.uk/guides/companion-planting-for-vegetable-gardens/
www.worcswildlifetrust.co.uk/actions/how-do-companion-planting?gclid=CjwKCAjwj6SEBhAOEiwAvFRuKN1VWay0WPWagpU-TkEUYqlo8MI4nAegYJeZOhJOiuJLZ_RFmhlYkhoCB78QAvD_BwE

I did gardening for the first time last year and got a little carried away.

These are my lessons that i learnt:

Bush tomatoes rather than ones you cane are best in hanging baskets or pots. They blow over less are much less faff and more child friendly. Plant up with some nasturtiums.

If you are doing pumpkins or courgettes be mindful they will take over your garden unless you buy a compact variety or you train them upwards. I swore never again with pumpkins after last year because they went wild. Some places sell these at an inflated price as a result. The trick is to note the variety and see if you can get hold of them on premierseeds.com direct instead. (postage is cheap and virtually everything you can get for £1 each).

Spring onions are great in pots in a sunny location. If you can get a variety of onion that is good for both full sized onion and spring onion it doesn't really matter if they don't get huge!

Peppers / chillis tend to do better in really warm conditions (greenhouse or windowsill). Again its worth checking the variety you get because some are more tolerant of the British climate outdoors than others. (read the blurb!).

Herbs are dead easy and satisfying. Salad type are good too. I liked doing mustard last year to add a bit of zing. I grew lettuce you can pick leaves from but still leave growing. I had 6 in pots but realistically only needed 3 (we had salad for lunch most days during the summer). You dont need a lot. These were bought as cheap seedlings but this year ive grown from seed.

Blueberries need to be in a pot unless you have very acidic soil. And they take a number of years to fruit if growing from seed. Its far easier to buy a bush but not necessarily cheap. I like blueberries. Easy but need pruning in Feb and need watering as in pots.

I did strawberries in pots last year. I had 1 each of three varieties which came as seedling and i got very little off them. Certainly not enough to do much but pick and eat immediately. They did produce a lot of runners though so i now have about 20 plants and they are doing much better and flowering better this year and look like they do well for fruit. But these only flower/fruit once a year.

I also did two types of alpine strawberry from seed in raised beds. One is a variety with runners which went mental and thankfully is contained in a bed otherwise it would have taken over the garden. That one didn't fruit last year. The other was a variety which doesn't produce runners and behaved itself much better. This one fruited prolifically. They are much smaller than normal strawberries but they fruit throughout the summer. Last year i had fruit growing all the way until November. This year it started flowering in early March so i should have fruit relatively soon. These were really easy and a lot less work than any of the other strawberry i did.

This year im doing beans and peas which are supposed to be easy too which are the thing missing from your list which are a good idea to do.

As for compost? Genuinely if you aren't doing from seed just a standard compost is fine. Tbh ive done most of my seeds with general compost this year rather than specialist stuff. It worked. The other thing you want to think about if doing peppers and tomatoes is feed for them.

@RedToothBrush Pumpkins do need a lot of space but they are stunning in the autumn right through to end of Oct or longer if you don't take them for Halloween. You can restrict them to about 3feet each if you spiral the stems around the point where they emerge from the ground. And if you only grow them for Jack O'Lanterns for the kids you only need to grow one per child plus 1 or 2 for insurance. Other tips are to build up a mound of soil to plant in the ground to plant each established seedling in, bury a used plastic water bottle or similar in the ground next to the planting spot with lid end cut off and holes made in the bottom to use to get water deep down next to the roots, water well for good sized fruits and when fruit appears raise it up on a brick to stop it mushing into the ground.

Good point about tomatoes but I'm too paranoid I'd not water them enough in pots or baskets and at least in the ground they have half a chance to get their own water if I forget! I quite like making structures out of old branches to tie them on although it does look rather "rustic"

I'm literally noting down every point to get ready for a trip to the garden centre this weekend! Thanks again!

I think I also found a solution for the greenhouse (peppers). To use cut plastic bottles. It sounds like a simple but effective idea when we are not going to plant a huge volume this year.

@HauntedDishcloth, funny. I was just posting about using cut plastic bottles to create mini-greenhouses. Great tips about using them to establish seedlings too.

Can I join? We've just had an offer accepted on a new house that has an actual garden rather than the big paved area we currently have out the back. I'd love to creat a wee vegetable patch with my DD (she's only 2). The garden is big(ISH) but not huge and south east facing. How big a patch do I need? And any suggestions on what grows well up near Glasgow - definitely not in the sunny south for peppers 😂🙈

@Onebabyandamadcat

Can I join? We've just had an offer accepted on a new house that has an actual garden rather than the big paved area we currently have out the back. I'd love to creat a wee vegetable patch with my DD (she's only 2). The garden is big(ISH) but not huge and south east facing. How big a patch do I need? And any suggestions on what grows well up near Glasgow - definitely not in the sunny south for peppers 😂🙈

I have a window box of violas and wild strawberries. Violas are edible and flower nearly all year and wild strawberries are incredibly easy to grow.

I grow herbs in pots which are nice and easy.

Gooseberries, I have lots of patio fruit trees which are easy too

Actually, just read your DD is two.
Don’t grow gooseberries, they have vicious thorns!
Dwarf sunflowers and cornflowers and nasturtiums and nigella are all edible aswell and very colourful.

I must admit I don’t grow much veg, I’m more into fruit.
Blueberries are super easy, they need to be in a large pot with ericaceous compost, I grow cranberries under my blueberries.

@DiddlyWiddly Thornless gooseberries are available now! I bought some last year but must check they haven't sneakily developped thorns over the winter!

With strawberries and blueberries, you can get varieties that produce fruit at different times: early summer, middle summer and late summer. The ideal set up is to have plants of all three varieties so you get a continuous supply of fruits throughout the season.

Furthermore with strawberries, the ultimate way to grow is to have a patch of three or four sections: the first section is for new plants that are runners from previous year's plants or new plants brought in & you won't get much fruit from them (or on purpose don't pick from them to ensure a more abundant crop next year), the second secton is for last year's plants that should give a reasonable crop, the third section is for three year old plants that give the best crop and if you use a fourth these would be for four year old plants which should still be good as well. You then rotate the sections each year, replenish the first page with runners from sections two/three/four and then do away with the oldest plants from section four. I am working towards this, on year two using raised beds.

Facebook market place can be a good place to secure reasonably priced plants, or even ask on your local noticeboard type groups.

With strawberries and blueberries, you can get varieties that produce fruit at different times: early summer, middle summer and late summer. The ideal set up is to have plants of all three varieties so you get a continuous supply of fruits throughout the season
Yes, my blueberries are ‘eliott’ Which is a late variety.
My strawberries are a mix of wild strawberry (fragaria vesca) and ‘buddy’ strawberry which is an ever bearer.

Furthermore with strawberries, the ultimate way to grow is to have a patch of three or four sections
I prefer wild strawberries for this very reason.
You can just plant them anywhere and forget about them 😊
I do have conventional strawberries too (buddy), the fruits on the wilds are very, very small, like thumbnail size, but kids like that!

Thanks everyone and @returntothebasic sorry for hijacking! What about size? Is there a minimum size of patch I need? Is it better to be straight into the ground or in planters?

@DiddlyWiddly Yes, I have the alpine strawberries growing wild in my borders but they're too fiddly for me to bother with picking from!

@Onebabyandamadcat Size depends on what you want to grow. There is a method for compact gardening called Square Foot gardening where you have a square patch, usually in a raised bed, in a 4x4 arrangement of 16 square foot sections.

Read the thread for input on ground vs containers.

@Onebabyandamadcat

Thanks everyone and *@returntothebasic* sorry for hijacking! What about size? Is there a minimum size of patch I need? Is it better to be straight into the ground or in planters?

Actually, after some research, so far I decided we will go mainly for container/grow bags this year.

From what I read so far, plants in container would have lots of benefits (except for space), e.g. prevent pest, weed, drainage, soil type control and etc. Ideally, I think raised bed would be the preferred choice. But we are just starting, so I don't want to over-commit.

Obviously the pumpkin has to be managed in some way on the ground, like some posts above wisely advised. Or I will try to get a smaller/compact variant this year.