The Vegetable Patch Mark 2

[MereDintofPandiculation]

A continuation of the thread for those of us growing edibles, to share triumphs and failures, swap expertise and solve problems

Hi, hoping for some advice!

I'm very new to veg but had some good success last year.

I think I've committed the cardinal sin of planting tomato seeds far too early (feb) and now they're almost 40 cm tall. (I got over excited)

Should I donate these to FIL for his greenhouse and start again for me which will be grown outdoors?

Or can I keep going in the conservatory and put outside around May time?

Thanks in advance!

An overexcited novice

Thanks for the replies. Very excited to get carrot flowers now ! I do love an umbel. That’s probably why my patch is full of flowers not crops.
I do grow lots of fruit, strawberries, raspberries gooseberries and currants . I’ve had kiwi and berries in the ground for a while but they have yet to fruit. And we have apples, cherries and plums. I will look for the other thing mentioned, if I scroll back for the name, my words will disappear.

I'd go with conservatory, if it's quite cool.

I got a message today to say I'm now top of the waiting list for an allotment at the site nearby. Now I'm having second thoughts about whether I've really got time or should just stick to the veg plot in the garden.

You could plant Perennial fruit and veg on a plot?
Its my first year with a plot and I have moved all my fruit bushes (blackcurrant, raspberry, rhubarb, red currant and gooseberry) to my plot as well as some herbs. I have also planted a plum tree. This has freed up space in my garden for flowers and salad. My plot isn’t huge, the other half of my plot will be for beans, peas and mangetout, crops that grow upwards to save space. I don’t plan on doing much work on my plot, I have done no dig which wasn’t easy but saved me digging it all up. At the moment I probably spend a hour a week on my plot, in a few weeks it will probably be 2 hours a week. Quite a few plots near mine just have fruit trees on them.

Thanks @BinturongsSmellOfPopcorn

Glad to hear, I will learn for next year!

Cooler is better? I think I will pot them on again and leave them then!

Cool and bright. Seedlings go leggy if they're trying to find more light, or if it's warm.

(Exception: cucumbers - if they get chilly they tend to collapse irretrievably.)

Tomatoes are pretty forgiving, though, and you do want some height in them because they do best if planted out deep - they grow extra roots from the stem - and then the bottom leaf or 2 nipped off to avoid soil splashes when it rains.

Goodness, are these all for you/your family? I planted 7 potatoes! (Three early, four second early.) They're in large pots, one per pot.

I'm completely new to veg growing, mainly just wanted DD to experience the fun of digging for potatoes. Clearly I'm not going for self sufficiency!

Tbh I don't think I'll have enough of anything. Is it worth it to have just one teepee of runner beans? (Also one Romano, which apparently I should be harvesting before the runner beans) And just three tomato plants. I should have two cucumber plants, outdoors.

I'm attempting loads of other stuff too but again, very small numbers of plants. I might be able to stretch to four purple broccoli plants if I dedicate an entire raised bed to them. But not sure what to grow in that bed first, which will be done by July. I can only think of lettuce and raddish.

Yes we try and grow enough potatoes, onions and tomatoes to have enough to last the year. Last year it was so hot here that the potatoes we harvested were exploding in the heat. Like unpricked jacket potatoes. So we lost half of them.

I've still got bags of tomatoes in the freezer though.

Three tomato plants and a tepee of beans will probably give you quite as much as you want - they keep going for months. Potatoes I generally reckon on growing 10 for each one I plant (might be a bit less in pots).

if you grow a lot you need a way to desl with the glut.

last year we had so many tomatos (from 4 plants!) almost into october. we made pasta sauces and stored them in glass jars. frozen some. given some to friends.

Oh that's good (on the tomato front), thanks.

I've got question. What the best way f supporting the tomato's in pots when I can't ram a stake into the ground? Would a cylinder of stock wire fencing work?

Yes I can. Check out the dude in this video

I grow in pots/balcony planers and use those spiral stakes

Broad beans. If you’d planted them 6 weeks ago

Is it worth it to have just one teepee of runner beans? I sow 8 - 12 beans. One in each corner of a 1ft (30cm) square pot. Doesn’t feed us for the year (obv) but we get enough meals for it to feel worth it.

I grow a similar number of French beans and of sugar snap peas - actually, more peas because you can probably get at least 6 in the pot.

@whichwayiwonder garden centres should have plug plants in by now if you were not able/forgot/cat sat on seeding.

and look up plant swaps for spare seedlings.

and there is always the 'shelf of doom' in the garden centre where you can pick up a bargain that in many cases only requires watering to revive.

I personally don't even grow broccoli. In the autumn, or late summer, I buy a few winter brassicas from the local nursery and put them in as my summer crops come out. I'll probably get say 12 cabbages, and a couple of brussels sprouts.

When I get them home I repot them and keep them pest free until they go out.

The summer crops are more valueable to me than giving over a whole bed to plants that are difficult to keep pest free.

Thank you so much for the advice. And further reassurance on quantities. Broad beans - perfect, annoyingly I didn't sow any despite having a half a packet. Its too late now I assume (for harvesting in July?)

So you have two square pots each with four bean plants?

I'f love to grow sugar snap peas one year. I never buy them in the supermarket despite my whole family liking them as they are nearly always from Kenya or Egypt.

https://www.sowseeds.co.uk/products/pea-sugar-snap-seeds

You can this year. I've got 3 batches of mange tout out at the moment and a batch of peas just germinated. And another batch just sown. I sow various peas regularly, until I get bored of them. I'll probably do one more round as soon as the first batch flower and then that will be it.

I've just put some broad bean seeds in water to soak overnight..if I get them started asap and am lucky with the weather I hope I'll have harvested them by August as I can leave the planting of the purple broccoli until then. 🤞

@AlisonDonut it's more an issue of space now!