Revisited! Great 'Grow Your Own' Hunt: share your top tips on home cultivation

kprice580

Quick question???

How do you grow garden peas (Peas Onward).
I'm just about to buy some seeds off ebay
Also I'd like to grow Button Mushroom (buying off ebay)...should I wait??

Cheers Katy x x

Primrose

kprice - I fear you may be a little late this season for growing your peas. They normally need to be sown around April. The best way to start them off is to sow them in a length of guttering filled with compost above ground somewhere as if sown direct into the soil most of them will be eaten bt mice or slugs before they start peeping through the soil. Once they're a few inches high you can dig out a furrow into your soil, gently slide the contents of the guttering into the furrow, and cover up with soil. They grow fairly tall so will need some netting or stout twigs to grow up to give them support.
Can't offer you much advice on the button mushroom kits. I tried one once, followed the instructions to the letter and did get a single mushroom !

Larumbelle

Peas are fairly easy to grow, though you'll probably need to get them in the ground quick for this year. You can grow them in containers or in beds, and they don't need the best soil - in fact, they won't do as well in the best soil! They don't want to be in full sun but they will need somewhere bright-ish.

Soak the seeds for a few hours (and only a few hours lol) before sowing at a depth of about an inch deep and 3-4 inches apart. They grow upwards so put a cane or support next to them ready for them to grow up. Keep an eye that they don't get eaten by slugs or birds (cat litter around the plants and an old net curtain 'tent' are good cheapo options) and water them regularly. That's pretty much it!

kprice580

You guys are great

thank you soo much for your expert advice

I feel silly asking all these questions all the time, but I feel I can ask anything.

thank you x x x

A.Jones

Does anyone have any good tips for stopping theft from allotments? One of the good things about the credit crunch and higher prices for vegetables is that many people are becoming interested in growing their own again, but one of the downsides of higher veggie prices is the amount of theft of "free" food from allotments. On our local allotment, a number of plots have signs up saying "Please do not steal from our allotment" and I think most people that own plots have noticed crops disappearing overnight. Not only do people steal the food they take, but they often remove crops before they are ready and destroy other crops in the process. Does anyone have any good tips how to try to stop theft from allotments? I am obviously only interested in legal methods, and don't want to put down glass, barbed wire or other dangerous items amongst the crops.

Primrose

AJones - I don't know whether your allotment is on a privately owned one or you rent from the Council. If it's the Council I think they should be your first point of contact, trying to get them to put up secure wire fencing and padlocked gates. But knowing how Council budgets are current squeezed, they might be reluctant to spend that kind of money. Longer term maybe a really thick Pyracantha hedge all round the perimeter, and padlocked gates would help protect against theft, but short of having nightly patrols by volunteers, I think it's going to be difficult. We had two allotments in the past - both were affected by theft and vandalism. Now we just grow in our garden where our crops are secure.

antilles

Found a useful Excel spreadsheet here which shows you a calendar showing when to sow and harvest. Hope it's of some use -
http://raggedradishes.wordpress.com/2007/01/20/vegetable-growing-plancalendar/

radio10

HOWEVER what I am trying to find out is - should I build raised beds at all? If so, how? and why?
.[/quote]

YES!! They are much easier to manage being an enclosed area. Make them so you can get round each side. Also they are better for drainage. Slugs have to work harder to get up in them! Much more "professional" looking and better on the eye, finally, they keep the plot as a plot whereas without borders weeds creep and the whole area can get out of control.

Make them from anything you have lying around? I used plastic floorboards (click together stuff) and made the stakes from old pine bed planks. You can spend as little or as much as you like!;)

Thefunkygibbons

I am currently preparing my plot in the back garden, I have the space and the children tend to only use the front garden anyway

The first thing I have learned, you can never have too many pallets, great for making compost bins

Also veryone has opinions, so if getting books, choose at least three to see where they agree and where they don't

ScotBoy

HELP!

I have been trying for 3-4 years to grow veg. I have a raised bed which is around 6ft by 8ft and is 1 railway sleeper high. This is filled with a mixture of soil, compost (from plant pots and seed trays) and my own compost from the heap (all kitchen waste is composted).

I have tried carrots, turnips, potatoes, cabbage, lettuce, courgette, fennel, onions squashes runner beans etc etc.

Disastrous.

Nearly everything bolts almost immediately. I have had a cabbage plant that reached over 8ft high!! carrots have lots of green shoots but no carrots. Fennel became a tree. Beans simply do not grow.

I start from seeds (generally) under cover and get good germination. I water regularly, but this doesn't seem to help. I have fertilised the soil (chicken poo) and have turned it, weeded it, tended it, talked to it!!

How do farmers get fields full of veg and I can't get a couple of cabbages to grow without bolting?

I am about to give up and turn the land back to grass - I think I simply do not have green fingers. Any advice before I give up?