12 month Grow your own planting plans

Mom24

mum of 4 thank you so much for sending through your month by month plan. It's wonderful! Hubby is getting the rotavator this weekend and will be digging a nice, big piece of land for me to get started with. How soon after doing this would I be able to start planting (impatient!)? The land is currently full of weeds (mainly nettles and some other very thick stemmed weed).

I'll have to dig out all my seeds which I've gathered up and never got around to planting... and get to list making and planning!

Thanks again mum of 4! (finally read through the whole thread and there is such a lot of good advice!!)

rosy798

This is my first year growing anything and have really enjoyed myself. Next year I want to be more organised and put into practise what I have learned. Thanks to you all for help and advise, have PMed mom of 4 for the plan so excited now

mum_of_4

Mom24 wrote: »

mum of 4 thank you so much for sending through your month by month plan. It's wonderful! Hubby is getting the rotavator this weekend and will be digging a nice, big piece of land for me to get started with. How soon after doing this would I be able to start planting (impatient!)? The land is currently full of weeds (mainly nettles and some other very thick stemmed weed).

I'll have to dig out all my seeds which I've gathered up and never got around to planting... and get to list making and planning!

Thanks again mum of 4! (finally read through the whole thread and there is such a lot of good advice!!)

You sow/plant straight away after clearing some space.

If you are clearing weeds the best approach would be to clear and plant as you go as the weeds will come back.

Start seeds of in cell trays/roottrainers/ yogurt pots, plastic milk bottles/marg tubs and plant them as baby plants. That way you have some breathing space to clear a planting area and won't feel rushed into cutting corners.

Le73Uq86Uv

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mum_of_4

Le73Uq86Uv wrote: »

You may be better off just covering the ground with cardboard and black polythene over the winter and make a start next year.

That would kill all the weeds off with very little effort.

http://www.gardenaction.co.uk/allotment/allotment-clear-1.asp

Yes and it does work I did this on a small section that had couch grass and left it just over a year and it really did help. I sprayed the area with roundup first and then covered with cardboard,three layers and then a black plastic sheet.

ktpie

Thanks for the plan! I started reading through this thread yesterday and managed to get about half way, how did you get on with the sweet potatoes? Any luck?

We are waiting to get an allotment, it isn't a council one, it's on a local organic farm, they are going to clear some space for us. Bit more expensive than the council ones but there aren't any council allotments near here. So far I have been growing a few things in our little garden but I think I have blight in my tomatoes and potatoes so that is very annoying!

Been having a good look at the real seed catalogue, love the idea of collecting my own seeds.
I have used http://www.alanromans.com/ before, they are great for cheap small packets of seed, good if you only have a small garden or plot, or just want to try something out.

mum_of_4

ktpie wrote: »

how did you get on with the sweet potatoes , ? Any luck?

I didn't:o

I was so busy with other stuff that I had to hold back on a few things. I am going to try fennel, just sown this morning

mum_of_4

Just been reading a few emails and the same question keeps appearing - How do I work out how much of each crop to row.

This was something I too used to keep asking but it's not a big deal.

I just work out how much of each crop I think we'll eat.

So cabbage most people grow far too many. Remember there are spring/winter and even summer cabbage so I only really grow a few of each. Most families would only need 1 a week. My home grown cabbages are far bigger than a shop one so 1 a week is more than enough. Also there are other winter crops and we wouldn't want to eat jsut cabbage or just carrots etc

off the top of my head for say winter crops

cabbage 12
Kale - 10
PSB - Early 10
PSB - late 10
brussel sprouts - 12
leeks - 200
carrots - 800 (remember you'll be thinning) this would be sown to harvest for winter
beetroot - 30/40 (easy to store amazing Vit C content)
Kale - 10 (misture of 3 varities)
spinach - 20/25 (spinch doesn't amount to much when wilted so you need a good amount of plants
garlic - 40 more if I have room
winter onion sets - 100+ (winter onions don't keep as well as spring so i plant less)
swede - 30 (mine never seem to gro very big
things like carrots you should be making at least three sowings and because of that it's easy to fit them in. Beetroot can grow anywhere so sow some whenever you can.

I make up a lot of soups which is why some veggies

Lotus-eater

mum_of_4 wrote: »

PSB - Early 10
PSB - late 10

Woah! Really?
I had 6 mature at the same time last year, we used it all the time and I still had to gives loads and loads away. Do you freeze it though?

Mom24

Le73Uq86Uv wrote: »

You may be better off just covering the ground with cardboard and black polythene over the winter and make a start next year.

That would kill all the weeds off with very little effort.

I'm assuming (probably not correctly!) that this would only work with smaller weeds? The nettles and other weeds are about 5ft high and quite strong (well, the nettles pull out root and all quite nicely, but the other ones won't budge even with hubby trying to pull them up!). It would save a lot of work though if this really could be done!