veg growing Newbies- Feb 2010! lets learn together!

janibrown

Do you have to shelter Carrots as I am am getting quite worried about reading about carrot fly this is my 1st year of growing lots of vege

ema_o

From what I have read you do need to do something to prevent them. I'm going to put a fence round them similar to the picture in this link:

http://www.coldframe.org.uk/Carrot-Root-Fly-5.aspx

I'm off to Wilkos to get canes and either netting or polythene, will put it up tomorrow, so hopefully that will do the job. :j

MORPH3US

Anyone joining the growing party late... don't worry.

I was in Tesco yesterday and got a pack with 6 plants - 2 cucumber, 2 aubergine and 2 courgette and was reduced to 90p.

They never water properly in these places and of course the plants get no nautral light so no wonder they don't survive too well.

Anyway got them home, cut off a few dead leaves but I could tell in the shop the stems were strong on all and new leaves were coming through if I looked closely.

I think I will end up with 5 plants minimum surviving although I may even get all 6 for 90p... really pleased.

Also got 6 different herb sets from Wilko @ 10p each a few weeks back, a three pack (should have been four, one dead) of banana chillis for 50p from Wilkos...

A quick water and some TLC and they soon come back.

elantan

janibrown wrote: »

Do you have to shelter Carrots as I am am getting quite worried about reading about carrot fly this is my 1st year of growing lots of vege

carrot fly as far as i know cant fly above 18 inches (this may not indeed be true ... but i heard it somewhere) so carrots are best grown in tubs ....not to sure about shelter though sorry

vish_2

woohoo, just harvested some baby pak choi for dinner today as part of my thinning process, tried one leaf raw and it tasted so amazingly sweet and crunchy!

i have a problem with one of my courgette plants though, it's seed leaves have turned yellow but it still looks quite healthy. should i be worried?

would take some pictures but have ran out of batteries..

vatic

stilernin wrote: »

30" containers seem a bit excessive for a courgette plant. Are you getting this measurement from the planting distance for courgettes? This spacing is because of the spread of the leaves, not necessarily the spread of the roots.

lol oh dear, my brain wasn't working right last night! I meant 30cm pots :rotfl:

Thanks for the info stilernin!

GarnetLady

My Thompson and Morgan potato planter finally arrived today. It had another 5 packs of seeds with it.

I'm not going to use the following, so if anyone would like them, please let me know by PM and I'll pop them in the post -

Onion - Bedfordshire Champion
Pepper Chilli - Anaheim
Pepper - Jumbo Sweet F1 Hybrid

More of my broad beans have come up, so exciting!

ETA: Seeds have all gone.

love2love_x

elantan wrote: »

hi love2love .. alot of us here are newbies and were all growing different things ... its all a learning process with plenty of mishaps and fun along the way ...

what do you want to grow? this will possibly affect what you do to the ground before and which bit of your garden you grow in ... do you want to go organic? do you want veg? flowers ? the list really is endless ... do you have seeds? etc etc ...

I would like to do veg and things I know I will use. I am going to have a look around this weekend of price of seeds and things I will need as I really have nothing might be best reading up and getting ground ready for next year so I have more of a clue of what im doing

elantan

thats a good way to start love2love... simple things to grow in the first year would be salad leaves etc ... they will also save you a fortune if you buy the packets at £1-£1.50 ... if your going to do carrots do them in tubs just make sure you have some holes in the bottom with some stones in for drainage (this is the same for everything you grow in pots)

if you get yourself a packet of dried peas (you know the ones you get that you soak then cook about 30p or so) put them in some soil water them and in roughly three weeks you will have some nice tasty leaves to add to salad...

if your thinking of tomatoes get wee plug plants makes life a bit easier ... and if you choose to grow some tomatoes try and buy yourself some magnolia (they should be on sale at the end of the month in the garden centres) apparently there is a bug that loves tomatoes but cant stand magnolias (or something like that) so having them next to your tomatoe plants helps to stop them from being eaten...

please please please if you are going to buy compost by peat free compost ... yes it is more expensive and i know that can be an issue ... but the worlds peat resources are under serious threat and we really need all the peat we have ... was on a peat bog today the sun dew are starting to appear they only grow on bogs and the thought of them becoming extinct is not a nice thought ....

and ofcourse come on here ask loads of questions (we all have them) its a great way to learn

Lotus-eater

elantan wrote: »

if you choose to grow some tomatoes try and buy yourself some magnolia (they should be on sale at the end of the month in the garden centres) apparently there is a bug that loves tomatoes but cant stand magnolias (or something like that) so having them next to your tomatoe plants helps to stop them from being eaten...

That's Marigolds French Marigolds.

They keep away whitefly in greenhouses and believe me, they work extremely well, I would tell anyone who has GH toms to plant loads of them in there.
They also attract the predator insects which will go for any aphids you may have around, especially if you have chillies and peppers in there as well.

Not sure if they do anything against red spidermite, but I've never had them.

They look nice as well