Want to grow my own!

ginvzt

Hello, I hope some of you might be able to help me. sorry for the long post, but I want to give you all the details straight away...

We are renting a house with a decent garden, and I have ripped out some of the flower beds last year and tried to grow my own things, but with no success. To tell the truth, nothing grew in that garden well last year. Even Bramley apple tree only produced 2 apples!

The spots I can use are at the east fence of the garden. So, they do get some sun during the summer, but not much because of the trees on the other side of the garden. WE can't cut the trees and I can't rip out the lawn in other areas as it is rented house. I have a bit of space on the patio area, where I have been growing strawberries in the pots, blueberry, a pot with garden herbs. I tried growbags last year, but they are rather unsightly (are there any containers I could by to put them in to raise them a bit from the slabs?).

So, last year I tried growing:
By the fence/around black currants

• Carrots - the longest ones were about 4cm (not joking)
• Onions - no result, had a few leaves, no heads.
• Kohlrabi - no success, only leaves
• Fennel - only leaves
• Beans - I had 2 beans (not 2 pods, beans - from 3 plants)
• Peas - a couple of pods to taste, nothing more
• Cabbage - no result

In the growbags

• cucumbers - all died
• courgettes - only male flowers
• peppers - no fruit
• aubergines - none grow to decent size or ripened (I think the biggest one was the size of baby tomato)
• Tomatoes - had a handful from a few plants

Oh, sorrel grew well and I have enjoyed sorrel soup. One plant is till going all over winter and snow!

I did water plants, and used plant feed, but the results were pitiful.

The soil is 'clay-ee', the garden gets easily waterlogged, the drainage is poor. The end of the garden (where I can plant in the soil) is higher than the patio area, but it doesn't seem to drain well anyway.

So, can anyone suggest what could I grow to be able to show something to my husband at the end of the summer?...

The spot/bed where I tried growing stuff was over-run with aquilegia before, and it was not easy to get rid of it! (still have a few spots left, which I might be able to tackle this spring, one the grounds dries out a bit).

Wookey

Get a cheap soil test kit and find out the acidity level of your soil, also root type crops tend to not do so well in clay. If the clay you have is really heavy then improving its texture or going for raised beds is paramount, also instead of growbags try large tubs as they will encourage deeper rooting of plants. You will need to remove as much of the weeds as possible and stay on top of them.

ginvzt

Thanks. Raised beds are out, as this is rented house and I just can't do that. The weeds are out from the veg growing plots, of course!!!!

Zazen999

The fact that you said 'by the fence by the blackcurrants' makes me think they are in the wrong soil, are contending with the roots of the blackcurrants and don't get enough light. And that's before looking at the pH

Growbags aren't really big enough for courgettes or cukes; and need loads of water and fertiliser for toms/chillis/aubreys.

What you need to do is to grow in containers; buy cheap storage boxes [I got some 97p black in tescos], and fill with multipurpose compost and grow in those.

Join a good forum for veg growing [The Grapevine is a good one with a long thread on container gardening], and do some research as to how to grow in containers.