Moving House - Advice requested!

I_want_a_baby

Hi All,

I have been growing veggies for 5 years, last year we moved in May and consequently grew hardly anything at either house. Due to yet another change of circumstances we are moving again in May this year.

I have a few questions:

1. I really want to grow some veg this year so was planning on growing vegetables that can be transported with us. We have a couple of 80 litre plastic tubs we are going to fill with compost and have copious amounts of SMA formula tins which we were going to use and was also thinking about some of those thick plasticy 'bag for life' bags.
Any advice/ideas of the best things to grow in these and also which plants should stay in their containers at our new home and which are ok to replant into the ground.

2. We are planning on building raised beds and are hoping to get some scaffold boards from ebay - any ideas on an ideal height for these? I don't want them to need watering too much but want the beds for square foot gardening and less weeds.

3. We believe that we may come into a little bit of money which we could use to buy a new green house. Approx £500-1000 in total with some of our savings. What is the best thing to do? Buy a really expensive one at the top end of our budget? Buy one from B&Q? Is the toughened glass as good as polycarbonate? Really want something good quality.

I would REALLY appreciate some help & advice, I can manage to stick things in the ground and get them to grow but want to make the right investments into the move!!

Thanks all

Stacey xxx

Megansmum

I'm only in my 2nd year (so not an expert), but when reading your message i immediately thought carrots and potatoes. Both can be done in the 80 litre tubs and won't mind being carted around.:)

Re scaffolding boards - try local scaffolding companies - i got a bunch of old boards for free and i'm going to use them for raised beds too.:D

No idea about greenhouses - i don't have one, sorry.

Good luck with the move.

conradmum

I don't feel particularly qualified to answer your questions either but as no one else seems to be stepping in I thought I'd offer my two penn'orth.

In answer to your first question, personally I can't think of any vegetable worth going to the trouble of moving house and transporting huge tubs! Sorry not to be more help.

The height of your raised beds depends somewhat on the soil type underneath them. If it's dry and sandy/chalky, you really don't want them very high at all. If it's wet and boggy you want them high enough to keep the roots systems out of the ground. So find out what the soil in your garden is like before ordering your planks I would say.

On greenhouses, all I can say is that I've had a Keder greenhouse for the last 9 years and it's been brilliant. The material used for them keeps a couple of degrees of frost out in the winter and because it's opaque there's no need to paint the glass to protect plants in the summer. Not the prettiest greenhouse in the world but I love it.

foxgloves

We were given the money for a greenhouse when we moved into this house and we bought a basic model from, I think it was Greenhouses Direct. It's just an aluminium frame, and cost about £250 (that was back in 2003). We bought a piece of aluminium staging to run along one long side, put down concrete slabs, leaving a good sized veg border down the other long side. It wasn't difficult to put together or to glaze, once we got the hang of it and it's been great, we haven't experienced any problems that we know of with buying one at the cheaper end of the price range.

dogstarheaven

i agree with conradmum on the fact that no vegetable seedling is worth putting the effort in transporting from house-to-house when you'd be tied up with sorting out the interior before the garden, wouldn't you? i would suggest you can start germinating certain veg seeds that are in single 3" pots a week before you move, then by the time you do, they'd be ready to pot on into bigger pots or modules. or stick them into modules already then it'll be easier to plant out in the garden.

seeds that are easy and fast to germinate are:

lettuce
spring onion
cabbage
broccoli
spinach
basil
swiss chard

some of these i'd have to stagger the sowing times like the basil, spring onions, lettuce as i use them more often than the others, and they would be sown every 3 weeks or so throughout the growing season.

the only plants i would transport with me would be the most prized ones from my garden. these would be the perennial plants and about 100 pots i have so that'll be an awful lot of work, let alone me trying to transport baby veggies in their own pots as well!!

good luck with the house move btw. i can't comment on your greenhouse purchase. i've made do with a wilko's purchase £30 walk-in plastic 6 shelved greenhouse. altho' not frost-proof, this has proven it's value many times over since i bought it last March.

fluffygrue

If you're moving in May, you'll still have plenty of time after that to get growing in your new garden. The only thing that might be worth buying and temporarily planting now might be bare-root fruit like strawberries and raspberries, if you see a good deal.