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Advice please. My daughter has just moved into a house with a small vegetable plot and she’s itching to get started on growing things. Was talking about buying some fertiliser later in the week and I’m saying not to, but don’t actually know what I should tell her to do. Which plants should be grown next to each other to keep away nasties; is there anything really bomb proof that the 3 year old can plant? What flowers can be grown amongst the veggies to keep the bugs at bay? How does she deter the slugs? Any advice gratefully received, especially the most basic stuff that we should know already!
There was this thread from last year Moe:
https://theracingforum.co.uk/horse-r … 81126.html
A good beginners’ book, available from bookshops too, is:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vegetable-Herb- … 0903505460
A good forum is:
http://www.allotment.org.uk/index.php
For the young ‘un I’d recommend Sunflowers, Courgettes and Pumpkins – all quick growing, big and showy plants
French Marigolds are the best flowers to grow amongst veggies
There’s no particular urgency to get going, April and May are the months to start putting stuff out and seeds in the ground
Tell your daughter to spend a couple of weeks preparing the land by forking it over and raking to form a fine, friable surface. Add fertilizer (Growmore brand) while raking and use too little rather than too much
Broad Beans and Potatoes are very forgiving so they can go in as soon as you like. In addition to dedicated garden centres places like Homebase and ‘pound shops’ have spuds for planting
Good luck, enjoy…you will
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Dear Mr. Drone, as you seem to know your shallots from your onions could you advise me please? I bought some seed potatoes two months ago and I kept them in a dark larder cupboard for a fortnight but then they started to chit, sooner than expected.
I then moved them to a greenhouse though it was light and very cold and the chits seemed to die off. Then I panicked and covered them up under black material but after two weeks the chits did not return so I decided to plant them out in the vegetable garden. That was two weeks ago since when it’s not rained and nothing has sprouted.
Should I dig one or two up to see what’s happening? Should I water them? Do you think anything will happen or should I write them off please? It was 3kg. each of earlys, lates and Charlottes.Thankyou if you can help.
Dear Mr Winkler,
Two mistakes:
1) Seed potatoes should be chitted in light (in eggboxes by a north-facing window is ideal) so they produce short green sprouts rather than long white ones
2) Greenhouses in the early spring sunshine we’ve had recently tend to get hot by day and cold by night. Your chits would appear to have been killed by frost, and in all likelihood the spuds too
Earlies planted in March take about a month to peek through the surface, but it seems likely yours are dead. Try digging a couple up to see if there’s any growth but I suspect you’ll be greeted by the repellant pong of rotten potato
Plenty of time to start again so buy some more. No need to chit them now, plant them straight away. Don’t water until the foliage is fully developed around mid-May
I know my swedes from my turnips but my fellow Tykes don’t – a tunnup is a tunnup is a tunnup
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Dear Mr Drone,
I’m pleased to report that several potatoe shoots are now beginning to emerge from the soil so hopefully those yet to see the light of day are okay as well. Thank you for your help.
Not sure you’ll have the answer to this but it’s an organic dilemma. My ‘partner’ in crime is averse to insecticides and she’s been advised that a little fencing, a sort of firewall, around the likes of carrots will prevent the little buggers from attacking said vegetables as they prefer to attack from low-level. Is there any truth to this please or are carrot-fly not unlike stealth bombers and equally adept at lethal strikes regardless of the ‘organic’ defences?
Sorry if this sounds somewhat war-like but I sense that hostile forces are just around the corner and I fear the collateral damage.Thanks, in anticipation.
A foot+ high ‘box’ around carrots will help deter carrot fly as it’s true they generally buzz around near ground level, but it won’t prevent all damage as wind can waft the blighters up, over and onto the crop. A better method is to grow carrots under a cover of horticultural fleece, making sure they are completely sealed in.
If there’s a Poundland in your parts get on down there as they currently have rolls of 10x1m fleece for er…a pound, which is vg value
Alternatively wait until June before sowing carrots, as by then the carrot fly has completed its life cycle and its grubs shouldn’t be around to cause damage, though again that isn’t wholly certain
Bit of a faff carrots, though a necessary part of the diet for the devotee of early-season evening racing
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Thanks for that Drone. Bit of a journey to get to Poundland though at the price you quote I can’t resist the value so I’ll get there pronto. I think the fleece will also come in handy for the fruit bushes next Winter.
Last year, my most successful crops were leeks and runner beans. The former were surprisingly easy to grow but the mistake I made with the runner beans was to plant too many around a wigwam and trying to penetrate the foliage to harvest the inner crop was not without problems. This season I’m sticking to straight lines with individual supporting canes. Broccoli and lettuce were decimated by little green crawly things.
My most enjoyable and tasty surprise was the rhubarb that had been immersed in weeds and debris and had not seen daylight for years. A complete removal of waste and some good manuring saw a plentiful supply. So far this year I’ve given the rhubarb patch a lot more love and attention and have already enjoyed several desserts. I believe the actual plants are some thirty years old. Left it too late to separate them this year but will hopefully get at least twice the number next.
Last year my strawberry plants were brand new and the crop was minimal but from an initial twelve plants, the runners have produced in excess of sixty new plants so I’m hopeful that at some stage over the next year or two we might reap a decent supply.
Sorry if I’ve mixed fruit with the veggie thread.
My daughter seems to be too busy decorating the new house to do the veggies this year, so it has become a place for my grandson to play on the stepping stones that the previous owner scattered among the plot [looking for the buried treasure that grandma/pirate has hidden]. However, I know for a fact that there is rhubarb [ooh argh Jim lad] because someone has offered to help build a fence in exchange for some of the plants that he spotted there. I shall investigate.
But that lucky old sun got nothin’ to do
But roll around heaven all day.
Jack ‘o’ the Green
Here comes the Summer
Let’s float upstreamLet the girl and her little boy wander and wonder
it doesn’t get better than this
I too consume vast quantities of rhubarb during April, though the digestive system pleads for mercy come Beltane
Stewed Rhubarb with Molasses and lashings of Ambrosia Devon Custard and/or Carnation Evaporated Milk is indeed ambrosiac
Even nicer is Stewed Forced Rhubarb
Put a dustbin over a dormant crown in January to exclude all light and you’ll be presented with tender three-foot pink stems come mid-March
The forcing sheds of the ‘Wakefield Triangle’ are as famous oop ‘ere as the now defunct Liquorice Fields Of Pontefract once were
Jamie Oliver (I think) has been responsible for the revival of rhubarb, and increasing quantities of the forced stuff is heading south to Covent Garden for sale at exorbitant prices to trendy London eateries
Strangely enough I was going to ask about forced rhubarb because last year, within the space of a few weeks I read a book that mentioned it and then saw a programme on the telly. Sounds like something that would give a vegan nightmares! Images of masked people searching for said rhubarb under cover of darkness and setting them free….
Just want to bump this up to the top of page one so’s I can access it better..going to the garden centre tomorrow; bit late but we’re raring to go now!
My runner beans are looking poorly/yellow, I’ve tried liver salts [nitrate] from the allotments shop, rain washing it away any thought?
I’ve recently started growing my own vegetables, didn’t really have a clue what I was doing, so thank god I read this thread, definitely pointed me in the right direction.
I’ve recently started growing my own vegetables, didn’t really have a clue what I was doing, so thank god I read this thread, definitely pointed me in the right direction.
Check out ‘Suttons’ get some late season ‘Maris Peer’ potato and fertiliser
let them grow, but leave some in just in time for Xmas.
Cheers for the link to the sutton website and the tip! Is there anything else that you would recommend me plant which would be good for this time of year or in the autumn?
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