Planting Plans For One Person

Hi Ceridwen, I'm like you, single person with outdoor space, and I got mum of 4's brilliant plan. The way she's used excel could certainly be used for us singles, but I'm still at the stage of planning to dig up the weeds, so I'm not ready yet. I certainly want to tho, and the way things are going, if you have outside space you'd be mad not to try to grow *something*. The paperwork thats trapping me inside the house will be finished by the middle of next week, then its the great house/garden tidy for Christmas/the winter. So I'll be popping back here regularly to plan and start doing this.

See, I couldn't stay away! the above means planting more than those plants, doesn't it - cos pests get some. Thats an idea tho, next year, I could just do carrots, onions and beans. I already have some herbs in pots, and a little narrow terrace. If I can do enough pruning of an area that shadows the back of my garden, I could also plant some perennial fruit. I'm wary of making plans too grandiose tho - this particular area I'm thinking of, I've already cleared it twice, but never replanted and kept it weeded, and its become overgrown again each time, which is such a shame.

Onwards and upwards

I have to admit I'm not much help on this, there are two of us and I plant waaaay more than we need!

When I was attempting to work out the minimums, I looked at how many portions we tended to eat each week, what would be available at each time, what could be preserved, added about a third on top for disease, pest etc...

...then binned it and planted up as much of the garden as I could, because I had the luxury of space, which I realise you don't have. I grow whatever I can squeeze in, knowing that I can always store and preserve some, and that a suplus is definitely better than a shortage. and foist any surplus onto my neighbours, especially as some of them are elderly and consider fresh nutritious food to be an expensive luxury. This year I was practically running a veg box scheme for four of the local pensioners :rotfl: For the few pence it cost me in seeds, and the time in the garden that I enjoyed anyway, it was a brilliant way to do my bit.

Storage-wise you can be a bit wily too. One of my friends stores potatoes, squashes, apples, cabbages, etc in his loft - it's cool and dry! Do you have a loft? Do you have anywhere to put an extra freezer if you could get one on freecycle?

But one thing you can do is consider making the most of your space by less traditional means. You can grow cut-and-come-again lettuce, spring onions and radishes in seed trays on the windowsill. Herbs can be grown in pots on windowsills, alongs paths, and anywhere else you can cram them! You can grow tomatoes and strawberries in hanging baskets, or create a 'growing tower' from pots. Peas can grow climbing up sweetcorn to save space (and it's actually beneficial to both plants to do this in terms of nutrients) and squashes and pumpkins can be trained vertically to make extra space. The SFG book is really useful for tips like this, and don't forget 'catch cropping' (planting small quick-growing things around bigger plants until the bigger plant needs that space). I have got quite a few useful books, I'll dig around and see which I think are most beneficial so you can see if your library has them, or I could post you them to borrow if you wanted Ceridwen.

Sorry I can't really help, I'm thinking out loud here, so sorry it's all so garbled, but I'll think some more and post back!

BTW Karmacat, so glad to see you're still plugging away - I've been working too, just had no time to go on myfolia and catch up, especially with the aminopyralid campaign I'm gonna have to make time and start again.

Oh, the blog... I've practically given up on it. Everytime I post something mildly controversial the site gets attacked, but since they're leaving it alone right now I've left the site with just information on it and am helping people out through other channels - I think they're going on, seeing the 'closed' sign and ignoring all the information that you can navigate to through the sidebar. I'm pretty sure it's no coincidence that some of my contacts in the USA and Australia have had the same problem, unfortunately most of them have simply withdrawn their data. Hopefully something big is gonna happen *soon* but in the meantime... well, I gave up. It's soul destroying to see your hard work sabotaged, but mildly impressive that I'm apparently worth sabotaging!

Anayway, potatoes he stores in hessian or paper sacks (we save these, but also acquire extras from the local farm shop) but you must store them 'dirty'. Squashes, cabbages, caulis, apples, carrots, onions and the rest just wrap in newspaper and put in single layer in cardboard boxes, it tends to be dark, cold and 'dry' air in lofts in winter, so perfect for storage, just, as you say, it's not the greatest place in summer, and you need to be careful you don't break your neck getting things in and out. Things like broccoli and corn you really need to freeze (well, not for popcorn, but....), peas and beans can be dried out for future rehydration although I've never actually done it myself. Salad doesn't store at all but you can grow it year round if you're lucky. I've started trays of lettuce, spring onions and stir-fry greens today, they are on top of a heated blanket to help them germinate, but I'm hoping to find a 'proper' way of heating them as without central heating my house is a chilly 14 celcius right now (speaking of which I have veg just sat on the terracotta tiles in brown paper bags right now, it's cold enough that they don't mind!)

Good books:
Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholemew (all of my local libraries have their own copy)
Edible Cotainer Garden by Michael Guerra (not sure about libraries but I have seen it cheap in The Works and similar)
Good organic veg how-tos - well, I'll be honest, there are lots of good ones, all giving similar advice, so I'd go for a cheap one, as both of the two above give some advice but not 'complete' advice, if you see what I mean.

Right. I'd rather be doing this than actually working (and I do have a little list in my diary, which this is built on) so what I want to grow is as follows:

Herbs:
dill, coriander, mint, sage, chives, fennel, thyme, horseradish and tarragon.
I already have mint, sage, chives and fennel (and a few others...).

Veg:
carrot, onion, green beans.

Salad:
beetroot, lettuce, radish.

If I ever clear the back of the garden:
rhubarb, raspberries (already planted, but currently under a *lot* of weeds, if they still exist).

This is based on what I already have, what I eat, and what I think is easy enough to grow (for me), which is why tomatoes aren't in the list, even tho I eat them.