Newbie veg gardener! MERGED

Shelle wrote:

Garden is east facing, not sure what type of soil. Ideally would like to grow the following (in no particular order): garlic, potatos, turnip, sweetcorn, beetroot and peas. No idea if this is realistic or too many to start with, and when to start with each. Thought I could maybe boost space with growbags?

Lets see if we can make a start then Garlic you can plant now :j you will find packets of three garlic bulbs in garden centres or wilkinsons, maybe other shops too, now, what you do is break open the bulbs into the little segments, these are the corms, you plant these individually, about 3" deep with the flat bit at the bottom.

Around June / July the plant above ground will start to wilt, thats when they are ready, each corm will have produced a bulb itself. :T

Potatoes take alot of room in the garden, but you can get small bags of seed potatoes in wilkinsons, about 10 seeds for 1.99, these look like potatoes themselves and can be planted in pots or a dustbin. You can use the plastic pots you buy at wilkinsons.

Never grown Turnip so can't help there.

Sweetcorn, we are going to have a go at this, but you need alot of room, somthing like a 3' square bed

Beetroot, you can plant in the ground on in pots, you can get minature plants for growing in pots if you want to do that.

Pea's you need room to make a wigwam or row of canes for the plants to grow up. Although thinking about it, I bet you could use trellis and grow them against a fence.

You don't need a greenhouse for most things unles we're talking exotic fruits. Remember you have windowsills which are behind glass, thus you have a green house for starting plants off as seeds.

Best of luck and let us know how you get on.

yes i watched that one too was very interesting but she had a lovely crop of sweetcorn,straight from the plant to the pot,yummy

Might be worth checking out Sarah Raven's new series of articles just starting in the Daily Telegraph, the 'Veg Patch'. It's also available online!!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/main.jhtml?xml=/gardening/2007/02/10/gveg10.xml

I know what you mean. I have bought so many seeds this year. My first year of trying to grow from seed and grow more than just tomatoes and chilli peppers ! And I feel I am going to end up with a house full of plants as my garden is too small for a greehouse
But my neighbour has offered her part of out concreted back garden to grow plants. So I may have a little cottage industry going by the summer.
Good luck with your garden

Everyone on here is so nice ,and the advice is what would have been passed down from generations ( I was not too interested in hearing about plants etc when I was ten years old , good job my mum can pass on family tips and hints) :T

we have not a bad size garden got a tiny plastic greenhouse cheap and hopefully cheerful im going to grow in pots cant be doing with beasts esp slugs eurgh !

tattooedhoney what a lovely kind neighbour you have.

angelavdavis when you say raised beds do you mean like planters ? we had our patio done late last summer and me not wanting a flat pation got some platers done also i'll use them for my flowers tried to grow ellie's sunfower last year and the blackfly had a good meal :mad: so i will be prepared to wash or squash them this time

lisa