The Vegetable Patch

[MereDintofPandiculation]

Now bookbook has sadly left us, and stirred into action by @DobbleDobble, I think it’s time to start a general thread for those of us who try to grow edible produce, fruit, veg, herbs, to share successes, failures, questions and answers

Ah ha that explains it! Is it useless then to try and grow beans up with squashes vertically? I grew a lot of winter squashes vertically this year, but the sugar snaps seemed to be decimated by slugs. So I stuck some extra Thunbergia plugs that I'd grown on, but I've love to have beans in the mix esp if the flowers are nice colours [grin}

I am in! Keen veg grower. Had my first greenhouse last summer. Peppers, chillies, melons and tomatoes. The melons were amazing! The chillies and peppers were damaged by white or greenfly. I have looked into getting some ladybird eggs to hatch via mail order! Apparently it works?
I am also keen to try and grow some soya beans this year.

@lulalalala

Ah ha that explains it! Is it useless then to try and grow beans up with squashes vertically? I grew a lot of winter squashes vertically this year, but the sugar snaps seemed to be decimated by slugs. So I stuck some extra Thunbergia plugs that I'd grown on, but I've love to have beans in the mix esp if the flowers are nice colours [grin}

No the beans get to the top long before the corn is tall enough, and again it just doesn't hit the heady heights of the hot states of the USA. It is meant to be sown, and left til autumn.

Get canes or hazel for beans and squashes to grow up. Much easier.

@Shedmistress

I have sowed seeds this week: Broad Beans, lots of differnet varieties Mixed radish, lettuce, carrot [all my old packs that I bung into a jam jar] radish and carrot [named vareties]

Into trays inside:
lettuce, beetroot, claytonia, celtuce, coriander, parsley, onions, pak choi, tatsoi, kohl rabi and flowers: agastache, cornflowers, gypsophilia, salvias, stocks, verbascum, borage, angelica and some old wild flowers.

Whereabouts are you? We have two months at least of frosts and general cold wetness ahead of us (400ft above sea level in Yorks, in a frost hollow). My broad beans won’t go in for weeks, and I won’t be sowing indoors until February as it will be too cold to transfer seedlings even to the greenhouse. Am I being over conscious or are you in a warmer part of the country?

recommendations for beans if anyone has some What sort of beans do you like? I don’t find a lot of difference between runner beans so I choose anything heavy cropping and stringless, then go on the basis of what flower colour I fancy that year.

French beans I go for climbing, they have a better chance against the slugs. For flavour, Blue Lake or Cobra.

Broad beans aren’t great in pots, but Robin Hood does reasonably well. Red flowered broad beans look special!

@rainydogday

I am in! Keen veg grower. Had my first greenhouse last summer. Peppers, chillies, melons and tomatoes. The melons were amazing! The chillies and peppers were damaged by white or greenfly. I have looked into getting some ladybird eggs to hatch via mail order! Apparently it works? I am also keen to try and grow some soya beans this year.

Not sure ladybirds eat whitefly? There is another parasitic control for whitefly, the wasp Encarsia. Probably good to decide first whether your problem was whitefly or greenfly

Off to buy seeds with a Xmas voucher today ready for the months ahead:-)
Plastic Greenhouse blew over on allotment so have had to bring home - but handier to start seeds off here anyhow.
I’ll order a Polytunnel or potting shed and erect.
Has anyone left weed membrane down and planted through it before? I’m thinking of cutting squares into the membrane and treating like a bed, rather than buy wood for raised beds.

@MereDintofPandiculation thanks I think I will Blue Lake a go this year then!

@DobbleDobble I use cardboard boxes as membrane in my veg patch. It's free & organic!

www.gardeningknowhow.com/special/organic/reusing-cardboard-in-gardens.htm

Whereabouts are you? We have two months at least of frosts and general cold wetness ahead of us (400ft above sea level in Yorks, in a frost hollow).

I'm now in France, but sowing what I'd be sowing same as when I was in Derbyshire. Last new year's day I sowed radish and carrots in the polytunnel, and inside I sowed a fair amount of flowers and early brassicas in the unheated greenhouse. I also started chillis and a few bush tomatoes in a heated propagator in mid Jan. All these I've sown already are hardy once germinated. I'm currently following the same sowing plan as I ever followed.

I think everyone has to take into consideration their local area. What someone sows outside in Cornwall isn't going to be what someone sows outside in Edinburgh.

@Shedmistress Looks like I could start nudging things a bit earlier, then.

One reason for being later is that we start using the unheated porch/conservatory in Feb, so there’s less chance of my forgetting to water the propagator.

It might be worth looking up Steve's Seaside Allotment on you tube, he has a full range of what he grows when in his north west allotment. I used to use it as a guide as if he do it there, I could do it further south.

Thanks for that reference. He’ll be warmer there than i will be further east

@Shedmistress I’m also originally from Derbyshire and living in France 😊
Just been going through my seeds so that I know what to sow when. I think I’ll start this year’s planting with some micro greens on the kitchen windowsill.

Yesterday I managed to sow sweet peas in the green house in half toilet rolls.just going to wait till feb now which looks like the beginnings of the veg and flower seed sowing times.

Hi, does anyone have any tips for growing coriander for leaf? I've tried both outdoors and in a greenhouse but have failed miserably over the past couple of years.

Picked up some rhubarb crowns from wilko for £2 each so will hopefully have great rhubarb next year.Am actually going to start them off in potato bags first till raised before finished at allotment

@Bumblebeefriend

Hi, does anyone have any tips for growing coriander for leaf? I've tried both outdoors and in a greenhouse but have failed miserably over the past couple of years.

What sort of failure? No growth, or going straight to seed?

I want to be part of this thread! does anyone have any recommendations of what will be happy in pots and hanging baskets? DH has said no edible plants for the garden because we have an allotment but he didn't say anything about the wall....

Thanks @MereDintofPandiculation, outside, in raised beds my coriander simply didn't germinate. In the greenhouse I've had weak/spindly growth, only enough to garnish one curry from a whole pot. I had assumed (maybe incorrectly) that coriander would be cut and come again during the summer?

Hello can I join too?

I have a medium amount of space but an addiction to trees so there is never enough room for anything, and between my trees, the neighbours and DH's desire to have a lawn, I have hardly any light despite it being a south facing garden. I have one bed for edibles, but it's pretty much the focal point of the garden so everything has to be pretty. It's not very big so I grow for flavour / novelty rather than big crops.

Last year's successes were runner beans and broad beans (especially crimson flowered which are beautiful and I'd never be without, though half the November sowing got frosted), squash was okay, aubergines were excellent but got slugs quite severely. My garlic mostly got some kind of rust or fungus and died off in the late spring, so I haven't planted that again. I sowed some artichokes (just green globe) which puttered along a bit anaemically then died back late summer. I thought that was it, but in September they came back bigger than ever and are still up now - I didn't think that was how they were supposed to behave. I grew yellow bird squash last year and the year before. In 2020 it was tremendous in the hot sun, but it didn't like 2021 and did just okay - I had enough to use but no glut.

Trees I have (all on dwarfing or super dwarfing rootstock): Quince (Leskowacz everyone should have one), cherry, crab apple (Laura - very tiny), cordon apples: blenheim orange and St Edmund's pippin - hoping for the first year of fruit this year, pears Louise Bonne de Jersey and in a pot, Invincible (new this year). I also have two olive trees in pots by the house and a fig tree I bought as part of a cheapy bundle with some citrus, which is in a pot and has grown fruitlets. The citrus is in an unheated greenhouse and so far still survives.

@Bumblebeefriend I grow coriander but it often does the weak and spindly thing. I grow it in the ground but expect it to go to seed (which I harvest because the best method of growing leaf coriander takes loads of seeds). For leaves, I grow in very thickly sown pots packed and just make successional sowings over summer. Start harvesting when it's very small to thin a little but mostly I just hack patches out with scissors. Coriander doesn't like to be too hot (it's from the himalayas I think) so I grow it in shade in the summer, sun in the winter in SE England and it usually does okay.

This year I'm going to major on aubergine as I love them and the plants are pretty - anyone got any variety recommendations? I would love to grow hops but I can't think of anywhere I could put them in the sunshine

@Bumblebeefriend

Thanks *@MereDintofPandiculation*, outside, in raised beds my coriander simply didn't germinate. In the greenhouse I've had weak/spindly growth, only enough to garnish one curry from a whole pot. I had assumed (maybe incorrectly) that coriander would be cut and come again during the summer?

I’m no good at coriander either. Spindly growth I put down to inconsistent watering triggering the urge to go to seed.

deplorabelle, You have the same problem as me (although you dont yet have a mulberry or medlar). All my veg are either in the greenhouse or in pots. I once did a very attractive window box with green lettuce and purple dwarf French beans. Purple lettuces are attractive. Mortons Secret Lettuce Mix has an astonishing range of leaf colour and shape, including leaves with red stripes or blotches.

Alpine strawberries are great for shade. Not much good for a bowl of strawberries and cream, but powerful taste so excellent for adding to yogurt, cereal, cake filling, ice cream. And because you’re using them where texture doesn’t matter, they’re still good after freezing.

Thanks @MereDintofPandiculation - how could I forget, I grew about 30 alpine strawberries from seed last year (gave some away, about 15 went in). I agree they are absolutely lovely to eat, though at this time of year they look a bit scruffy clumping about on the otherwise bare soil. I put some purple kale in to overwinter, mostly to look pretty but I think I started it too late because it isn't really big enough and has been monstered by slugs.

I will definitely be growing more pretty salad leaves this year - I have got some Merveille de quatre saisons in which look lovely.

PS I would love a mulberry and have spent some time looking for a viable space.....

I am not allowed any more fruit trees but I still have grand plans. I've got a cooker, an egremont russet which is kind of espaliered but I'm not very good at maintaining it and an unidentified variety which has never borne fruit or even flowers so is in last chance saloon. The latter two have been in pots, the mystery one for a few years, so we'll see how they do now they are planted out. The cooker was inherited with the house and did well last year but is hard to access. I've also just bought and planted 2 cherries (stella and morello).

I've got a load of seeds arriving today or tomorrow and want to get sowing the tomatoes and chillies. I have seed trays and they'll go on sunny south facing windowsills but they're not divided seed trays - does that matter? And also, is there anything to stop me sowing directly into slightly bigger pots (the ones you buy seedlings in from the garden centre)?

Other tasks are digging out paths. I laid the bricks out ages ago to see how many I needed and started digging out one of the paths the other day but quickly gave up. I was very ineffectual in my digging! Too cold here to try again today but I'll need to crack on because I made a deal with myself that I couldn't order raised beds until the paths had been dug.

In other non vegetable related plant stuff, my money tree is a bit unhappy, it's got some yellowed leaves and has shed a few. Now I think about it, there is a tiny flying thing hanging around it and there seem to be tiny white spots on the leaves, almost like paint spots. I wonder if it is infested with something?

@tentative3 I think you can get fungal problems if you sow seedlings in too large a pot. I start seeds off in the clear plastic trays you get soft fruit in at the supermarket, then I prick out into modules (divided seed tray) once they've grown on a bit. I have used chocolate box trays as little module trays and also save yogurt pots etc as pots for slightly bigger plants. You can use toilet roll tubes to sow beans and peas.