Planting Plans For One Person

ceridwen

Hi Jenni

Thanks for that clear description of "bolting" - how to describe a plant thats heading for that Great Nursery in the Sky..:D All other "simple" language to describe common gardening concepts welcome;)

ceridwen

Any other single people out there - of a more organised variety than I am as regards gardening - that have kept a diary along lines of: types of plant planted, quantity used, quantity harvested?

Think it might be an idea for me to do some "homework" on my private blog - typing up all the types of plants I eat, guesstimating quantities I'm likely to eat in a year (adding on one-third in case of pests/weather?), months I can plant in, space required per "head" and work out some sorta plant rotation to maximise my use of space. Guess I need also to think in terms of trying to always have some seeds on the go ready to plonk into spare "spaces" in my containers as they appear.

Decided to get a 3-storey "Seedhouse" from Evengreener for £15 - very useful plant "skyscraper" for best use of windowsill space - but they had sold out (v. frustrating - particularly as they'd not bothered to remove it from their website - so it looked like it was still available):mad: . Anyone know of any other firm that has these?

I'm thinking I presumably dont need any heated propagator stuff? (maybe thats more applicable to people in cold houses in the "frozen North" (like Mardatha up in her mountain fastness - <waves>). For myself - I'm thinking I could just put a standard unheated propagator on the shelf above my bathroom radiator or shelf above my sitting room radiator or desktop in front of front bedroom radiator - so three possible places (two of which keep pretty warm throughout the day).

2cats1kid

ceridwen, if you don't have much "flat" space, but more "up" space, then do a search on "vertical gardening". I had a look at some sites and they certainly get the old ideas flowing! Some people grow tomato plants hanging up in recycled plastic bottles - all sorts.

ceridwen

Doing some further thinking - good point that plants that have bolted = plants to harvest seeds from. How can you tell I'm a gardening newbie?

I gather one can take seeds from tomatoes and peppers one has bought for eating - anything else in this category please?

Seedsaving has gotta be a good idea - save money and help ensure access to food that M**santo has had nowt to do with (ie the main firm behind ginitec food - deliberately misspelt as it looks like they have tracker technology that latches onto anything said about them on t'Internet).

Query - presumably Heritage Seeds are varieties that have been around for donkeys years and F1 Hybrids are modern/human-altered ones so to say? (now that just shows HOW ignorant I am re gardening) -

Larumbelle

You're kind of on the right track, ceridwen, and seeds are a MAJOR issue that (I think) you'll be interested in. I know plenty of people here hold different views on this matter or don't consider them important. I understand that, and I don't want to alienate any of you, so feel welcome to ignore this post and move on to the rest of the thread .

Seed companies all have BIG interests in creating patent 'terminator' seeds that produce sterile seed and seeds that are resistant to their own weedkillers and insecticides, so that farmers can merrily douse our food with massive doses of chemicals without the plants dying. This tends to be on a commercial scale rather than anything you're likely to come across at the moment.
However, six companies, Monsanto, Dow, Syngent, Aventis, DuPont and Mitsui control 98% of the world's seed supply. They therefore control what seeds are available to buy and what traits are 'desirable'. They are also the only ones with the money to get their seed varieties licensed. Needless to say, openly pollinated seeds that perform well without requiring oodles of chemicals are not exactly good business for these companies, so they're gradually disappearing from commercial sale. These companies hate seed-saving. In fact, at one point these companies tried to ban seed-saving altogether in many developing companies, forcing farmers to buy their commercial seed year after year. And if you're a commercial farmer buying their seeds, you're forbidden from saving seed anyway. That's one of the reasons they adore F1 hybrids, saved seeds don't come true to type. If you do grow seed from their stock, they control use of the crop on an unprecedented level - for instance, Mon:eek:nto sold seed to Argentina then blocked export of the resulting crop to other countries unless they were paid a royalty fee. They now have a virtual monopoly on soy-bean production worldwide. Scary stuff.

On a domestic level, you should speak to the seed merchant before buying. Large proportions of seed for 'domestic' use might not have all of the above nasties but much of it is still produced by the 'big six' even if that's not on the label. Best thing to do is call and ask the seed merchant, and if they can't give you a straight answer, refuse to buy. One company that I know is okay and would throughly recommend is this one: http://www.realseeds.co.uk/

'Heritage' seeds is one of those terms that means about as much as the sincerity of the people behind it. Lots of seeds are sold as 'heritage' varieties because it's trendy to call them that, but they still come from a big producer and likely with a side-order of chemicals too, though they do tend to be open-pollinated varieties.
All seeds that are sold have to be licensed, and licensing takes a lot of time and costs a lot of money. Because of this, big seed companies more or less have a monopoly on what seeds we can continue to buy, and lots of the varieties that are open-pollinated and easy to grow without chemicals have been delisted by the license holders because they ain't great for business.
When I think of 'heritage' seeds I think more of the varieties that aren't licensed by governments (i.e most of them) and that therefore can't legally be sold. They tend to have evolved to grow well in local conditions, are the strains that have survived because they are hardy, and don't require chemicals. If we don't save these seeds we are literally throwing away the combined efforts of thousands of years worth of growers who have 'created' varieties the natural way that serve the grower, not the supplier. Because it's illegal to buy and sell these seeds they have to be given away. Seed banks such as this one at Garden Organic: http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/hsl/index.php aim to preserve seed from these varieties, and they give seed out to members to grow, the idea being that they return some viable seed to the seed bank then keep the rest to grow or swap. This is a great way to get seeds.

However, even if your seed originally came from one of the big six, so long as it's not an F1 hybrid you can save some of the seed each year to grow or swap, taking back some of the power of choice and making sure your money doesn't filter back to companies you'd rather not be bankrolling. I had no idea about any of this when I bought my seeds, but I'm not going to go throw the lot away, I'm just going to follow my conscience now I am aware of the issues.

So, do a little research, then follow your conscience. And apologies if 'seed politics' doesn't interest you, I thought it might is all.

Yategirl

Sylvan wrote: »

Also cauliflowers, sprouts, turnips, swedes, mustard, wallflowers and stock.

thankyou my head is working abit better today and I was just thinking about this thread!

Yategirl

ceridwen wrote: »

Think it might be an idea for me to do some "homework" on my private blog - typing up all the types of plants I eat, guesstimating quantities I'm likely to eat in a year (adding on one-third in case of pests/weather?), months I can plant in, space required per "head" and work out some sorta plant rotation to maximise my use of space. Guess I need also to think in terms of trying to always have some seeds on the go ready to plonk into spare "spaces" in my containers as they appear.

keeping some sort of diary would be a good idea... i am going to do the same the same this year (rather than just bumble along like always!!) - I always grow way too much and give so many young plants away as I haven't enough space to grow them :rolleyes:

I have taken a leaf out of mumof4's plans and drawn a spreadsheet picture of my garden - so used one square of the spreadsheet to equal one square foot and then as the next season gets goings, I will add in where I put the containers. Then.. following the plans, I copied the picture onto 12+ pages-so one page per month for the next year and beyond... I then wrote a list of what we like to eat and worked out roughly when I need to sow the seeds (and I sow into modules/toilet rolls rather than into the ground), when I need to transplant and when I need to harvest (so have some definite harvesting dates i.e. I will harvest peas at the start of june and some rough dates i.e. i will harvest x between may and july ). I also wrote down how many plants of each would be planted in a square foot.

rotation - you are going to be gardening intensively so rotation in a small space may be difficult.. try and work a rough outline of where you are going to put each variety but don't get too het up about rotation. I know some "oldie" experienced allotment gardeners who do minimal rotation and some who don't rotate at all.

I hope someone who has experience of growing for 1 comes along and helps with working out amounts you need to grow.. but you may find it a case of trial and error anyway and need to think about growing a bit more than you need anyway - our weather is SO unpredictable at the moment and it is affecting some plants quite a lot...

I'm thinking I presumably dont need any heated propagator stuff? (maybe thats more applicable to people in cold houses in the "frozen North" (like Mardatha up in her mountain fastness - <waves>). For myself - I'm thinking I could just put a standard unheated propagator on the shelf above my bathroom radiator or shelf above my sitting room radiator or desktop in front of front bedroom radiator - so three possible places (two of which keep pretty warm throughout the day)

I use my windowsills (i use my sunniest windowsills first) with a basic propagator to start seeds off (I only got my greenhouse up and running last year) and then transferred to a coldframe - can you make a temp coldframe? large plastic boxes with a clear lid or fleece in a sheltered area of the garden would work (i have an old coldframe made from metal sided box with no bottom and a metal framed lid with plastic sheeting and it works fine).

RAS

Hi

I am a seedsaver as well, mainly HSL (Garden organic) seeds but also others not commercially available in the UK. Peas, french beans and tomatoes are dead easy, and curcubits (squashes, courgettes and cucs etc) are simple to hand pollinate.

Seed taken from shop bought produce may be open pollenated or it may be F1 - in which case what you get next year may be great or it may be rubbish.

On the other hand, my corn salad appeared in a pot, flowered, germinated in the garden the next winter and was moved to the plot. I have just being letting it go to seed every year since and harvesting it each year. Not exactly seed saving but it works.

Things for one person

Runner beans - 3 plants are plenty. French beans (climbing) - 4 plants will give you a picking a week. Courgettes -one plant is enough, two if you really love them. Mangetout - 20 seeds will produce one or two pickings a week. i love Golden Sweet (from realseeds) which will crop well into the autumn - through the first frosts but probably not the sort of weather we have at the moment.

Yategirl

RAS - 2 courgette plants for one person? .... ohh that is brave! C will be giving the produce away and everyone would be running for miles not to get any lol!!!!

I usually do 2-3 plants for 4 of us... F1 Jemmer is a yellow variety - slightly sweet and lovely raw as well as cooked makes great courgette soup and can use in muffins/cake as well...

ceridwen

Thanks all - more note-taking coming up for me.

Silver Charming - yep, with you on the "seed politics" - you obviously know more about this than I do - but I've got the general gist of whats what myself and agree with you.

Yategirl - the thought never even crossed my mind of a temporary "cold frame" ----hmmmm...thinks....box with plastic sheeting over it....now why didnt I think of that?