What could I plant?

[PNomintrude]

Hello,

I’m not much of a gardener and in fact have only recently moved from a flat to a house with a small garden. I’m looking for some ideas for fast growing, easy edible stuff to plant. Thought I’d post on preppers as I’ve lurked on here over the past couple of months and I’m very impressed by all the knowledge and support.

I’d like to start growing stuff anyway but if we do end up quarantined for any length of time I thought it would be a good activity for DS to help with and add in some nutritional value if we don’t have access to the same fresh fruits and veg in shops. Can you give me any pointers? Thanks.

You would probably still need to get them growing indoors right now as still the odd frost but here's a link to some quick edible options

www.growthis.com/12-fastest-growing-vegetables/

Lettuce grows quickly, as does radish and pea shoots too.

I'm a veg gardener and I've been doing seed sowings for a couple of weeks now. I also put some onions in the ground.

I always grow tumbling tomatoes, regular tomatoes and cucumbers. I also grow rainbow chard, cabbages, Brussel sprouts and loads more.

I've done some bedding plants too from seed in case we can't get the the garden centre!

I've had good luck with mangetout peas (I am very much a novice with a crummy little garden).

Perpetual spinach. Baby leaves are great in salad or sandwiches. Or as hidden veg. Hard to kill. Cut and come again. Works on window ledge in pots. And hey, it's spinach.

Also Rainbow leaf Swiss chard. Kids love growing that.

Rocket is great

We're fans of peas and beans here. Not now because of frost. But soon. They have lots of nutritional value and don't take a lot of space.

Tumbler cherry tomatoes in a pot on the patio or in a hanging basket. Don't take up much space. Most garden centres seem to have little plants. Take a look.

Thank you for the ideas everyone

Strawberries. Tough little frostproof plants that create more plants if well fed and watered.

I am a bit spooked as all the good plantpots and planters are sold out on amazon. They are usually plentiful. Lots of items by third party sellers in China but my trusted brands are gone. Either the factories are closed or supply is cut off or people panic buying. Anyone notice this too?

Sutton’s you can still buy plug plants or potted plants, these are still being shipped and will be at the same height as if you had planted them from seed last month.

Container wise use anything you can out the house. I think the whole nation has had a panic about growing their own food. Also a lot of manufacturing being diverted to PPE

Hi, one of our lockdown projects was to clear the patch of wild jungle behind our house that used to be a garden. Once we are down to ground level (and we can get to garden centres again) I plan to redesign and plant. I would like to grow some veggies but not sure what is suitable for a normal garden. Any suggestions would be helpful, I’m not very green fingered however so it would need to be pretty hardy plants.

Spring onions and salad leaves are pretty easy for most people to grow, and useful for most houses. Get the "cut and come again" type salad mixes, as you can pull a few outer leaves from the plants and the inside leaves will keep growing, meaning you can have salad for months on end. Spinach, to do the same (picking outer leave) as baby leaves, is also good.

Tomatoes, especially if you get plants rather than seed, are also good for beginners and tend to give a good crop.

Peas are also good, and think about ones with edible pods like Mange tout or sugar snaps.

Beans - I think broad beans are easiest for beginners - they just grow up from the soil and can support themselves. Dwarf French beans (dwarf meaning they don't grow very tall so don't need supporting on bamboo canes) are also good, for soil or for window-box type pots. And you can now get other kinds of beans in dwarf form, like borlotti beans, which are lovely and colourful as well as being good to eat the internal bean. And possibly runner beans - runner beans and French beans are the only ones that you eat the "pod", the rest need to mature enough to eat the bean inside and not the pod. But even french and runner ones, if you let them grow "too long", you can peel off the pod and just eat the beans inside. (And the same thing for the peas that you eat the pod - if you let them grow too big and the pods aren't nice anymore, just pod them as if they were ordinary peas and just eat the round peas from inside).

For beginners, "dwarf" types of peas and beans are useful as they don't need much support because they don't grow that tall - maybe 1-2 feet. Whereas other types can grow between 4 and 6-8 feet and need canes or netting to support the plants.

Radishes are quick to grow - sow a few (maybe a row about a foot long) every week or so, and you will have them all summer long.

Have a look at companies such as Suttons Seeds and THompson and Morgan, in their children's seeds sections, to see what they think are easy and fun to grow. They tend to be good pointers for beginners.

Someone mentioned Suttons for plug plants - T&M were also doing these last week (but not shipping to Ireland). Very useful for starting off!!

I'm no gardener but found anything that that needed a bamboo wig-wam would grow really well (peas, runner beans, tomatoes).

Also courgettes in a cut out grow bag-

I've done the opposite and moved from a house to a flat (unfortunately!) so am trying a little window box experiment with some lovely little seed pots that M&S were giving out free for the kids-

(I'm also considering a bit of stealth herb planting on a small patch outside!)