growing own veggies in bags and pots (Merged)

EagerLearner

I can proudly announce that 3 days after planting our seeds - today we have 3 shoots on the lettuce tray!!! I am so excited, it's all thanks to this thread and your help :beer:

Last night there was one shoot and this morning we have 3. No sight of any carrots yet... I will also look around for a few old potatoes today, if the rain stops for enough time to get out of the house!

2cats1kid

I've bought some strawberry plants too. Our garden centre had them all at £1.59. The ones I bought don't have any strawberries on them, but the 3 "normal" strawberries all had at least 2 runners from them, and the alpine one had bazillions! I've put two of the plants in the top of a strawberry pot and led the runners down to the lower holes - all the holes have a little plant in now, so hopefully they will root and I'll have a nice pot for next summer. If I put the pot in the mini greenhouse over the winter will it be OK? Does it need fleece or bubble wrap or something round it?

I was thinking of using the dustbin that was a potato pot this year to be a (huge) strawberry bin for next year. I know you can get plastic strawberry pots this big, but how would you protect that for the winter? Fleece again? As it won't fit in the mini greenhouse. If it's not really a flier I'll use it for spuds again and have a look around for something else for the strawbs. I have another alpine that self seeded in my garden this year, so between the one regular strawb, self seeded strawb and garden centre strawb with lots of runners (seriously it must have about 20 little plants coming off it!) that should fill a pretty big pot.

Lotus-eater

Strawberries don't need protecting over winter, in fact they need the cold weather.
From personal experience I would advise junking the strawberry tower idea, but you may have more luck than me with it. They do need constant attention and you must fill it a long time before you put the plants in there, to allow for settling of the compost.

You also need something in the middle to allow water to get to all the plants.

Chell

Lotus-eater wrote: »

...... and you must fill it a long time before you put the plants in there, to allow for settling of the compost.
.

Is this the same for all type of containers to grow veg/fruit?

2cats1kid

Lotus-eater wrote: »

Strawberries don't need protecting over winter, in fact they need the cold weather.
From personal experience I would advise junking the strawberry tower idea, but you may have more luck than me with it. They do need constant attention and you must fill it a long time before you put the plants in there, to allow for settling of the compost.

You also need something in the middle to allow water to get to all the plants.

Yes, I saw in one of the mags that they put a bit of drainpipe down the middle, to get water all the way down to the bottom. I don't really have enough space to give over to the size of bed I'd need to keep my strawberry-loving family happy if I went for a strawberry bed. I'll give it a go next year and then if it doesn't work I'm sure I can think of something else to use the pot for - maybe it could become a herb tower, or something. And for £1.59 for the parent plant, it's worth a punt - not like I've lost loads if it is an abject failure.

richyrich7

2cats1kid once your've put your drain pipe down the centre fill it full of gravel, fill your planter and remove the drain pipe. I used it like this on my tower and it was quite successful, feed them with Tomato feed when they flower.

2cats1kid

That's a fab idea, richyrich7 - many thanks, I'll remember that one.

mary43

Wasn't sure where to put this but just wanted to say 'just picked out first two ripe cherry tomatos:T We've had them in a hanging basket -first time we've tried these sort...........and looks like the upright toms are starting to ripen:T (slow but sure) and runner beans -third picking today!

ooops............sorry, that makes it look like I've picked three loads of beans today..........meant to say, third lot this week

blackwidowz

My 6 year old son won't eat fruit/veg at all, while visiting a friend who grows their own, he ate strawberries, sugar snap peas, peas out of the pods and lettuce.
I was gobsmacked as he asked to pick more.
The next day he asked if he could grow some himself.
We went to poundland and got some troughs,tomato feed and a kids set of garden tools, got a big bag of compost and some packets of seed from B&M.Also a tomato plant and a pepper from the range. Total £10.50.
We planted the seeds 2 weeks ago, trial and error to see if anything will grow, we now have peppers growing, lettuce, carrots, runner beans and tomatoes.
My son can't wait every morning to see what else he has, he also keeps piking the lettuce leaves saying he is just testing them lol.
I would recommend this to any parent who has a child who won't eat fruit/veg.

richyrich7

If anyones thinking about getting an allotment to grow their own, nows a good time to start.
bit off topic but grow enough strawberries and you can make your own jam etc