veg growing Newbies- Feb 2010! lets learn together!

soul619

mutley74 wrote: »

I guess its the large tubs they sell in Asda and other places such as B&Q, but asda being the cheaper for them.

If you have no room, you could try the material bags specifically made for vegetables growing. Seen them in Wilko, £shops and B&M. I have not used them so cant comment how good they are.

or try ikea bags.. thats what im using

SallyForth_2

zippychick wrote: »

In tubs Misskool I don't have a garden.

I'm totally petrified at some things - for example, pinching out side branches on tomato plants. Mine are so small, i am finding it hard to distinguish the main stem, so am scared of pinching out the main stem. They seem so tiny and will never grow to anything!

There's no need to panic, the plant isn't going to self destruct if you don't do it immediately! Given your description, it sounds like they are too small yet for side shoot removal - I would estimate that once they get between say 10 cm and 20 cm, you may see the side shoots starting.

It is also an on-going activity, as they will keep trying to produce side shoots, so everytime you spot one, nip it out. Ideally, you will get them all, but as others will tell you, it isn't an exact science, sometimes some will be missed, but that's life!

izzwizz_2

Chimera wrote: »

Just had a lovely salad for lunch including from the garden: radishes, salad leaves, rocket, chives, parsley and first three french beans.. very rewarding!!

Wow, well done. Amazing getting french beans this early - my plants are 6 foot high but no sign of any flowers yet

shelvis wrote: »

Hi can I ask a quick question? My courgettes now are pretty big (i swear every time i walk into the kitchen they get 2 new leaves) and the roots are coming out the bottom of their 4" pots.

So do I pot them onto a flexitub now (which is where they will end up) or do I put them into a 9" pot for a while first?? I have some morrisons buckets left so I could put them i n that.

In fact could I just grow them in the morrisons buckets? Or are they too small? I have 4 plants and 6 buckets so I could do it.

Normally I’d pot the plants up gradually, but I potted my courgettes up from 4” to 9” one week ago and they were root-bound already yesterday (so out into the raised bed). I’d suggest into the Morrisons buckets, then as soon as the roots appear pot them up again (only one per pot mind!)

kimmee wrote: »

A question about courgettes: I see from other posts that you need large containers for courgettes. I've run out of pots and rather than buying anymore I wondered if I could grow mine in a spare potato growing bag that I've got, I've got 3 courgettes left as have given the rest away. Any advice please? Thanks

That sounds ideal – but one per bag.

heynonnynonny wrote: »

Am off to DIY store shortly - can someone advise on plant food please? I have tomatoes, french beans, courgettes, strawberries and raspberries growing - is there such thing as a multipurpose plant food? Not really sure what to get x

OK, you don’t want a multipurpose for that lot. They’re all basically types of fruit so you need something good for fruit & flowers such as tomato food. Don’t use a multipurpose like growmore or you will get lots of leaves and not much else. Beans & peas especially don’t need feeding since their roots can fix nitrogen.

zippychick wrote: »

How do you know when to start feeding plants?? Is there a beginners guide or something on here as i have a lotta questions!

Container-grown plants don’t need feeding until a few weeks after they’ve reached their biggest pots.

Out in the open ground shouldn’t need feeding if you have worked in plenty of organic matter into the area before planting.

Personally, I think everything tastes better if it grows slowly using the nutrients in the soil, and you get smaller, hardier plants. If you add a lot of feed, you will get lots of lush, leafy growth which is more prone to disease. Also, I don’t like using any chemicals on my home-grown foodstuffs (that’s part of why I’m growing them!).

General – I’ll start feeding the toms once the first truss has set (i.e. the first little tomatoes have formed) and probably won't feed anything else (although might do the aubergines & peppers if we actually get any!). The window boxes will yield 3 or 4 cuts of salad crops without feeding.

izzwizz_2

Hubby finally finished our 3rd raised bed & cover, so put our courgette plants out yesterday - just couldn't keep on top of the watering in the greenhouse and thought I'd risk it. They seem to have survived the first night out in the cold so keeping my fingers crossed. Couldn't believe how pot-bound they were after 1 week, and the same with the aubergines that I had to pot up again from the 9" pots that I put them in last week. They're in my tomato pots now (just a little bigger than the Morrisons buckets) and don't know what I'll do if they get any bigger!

Listening to Gardener's Question Time on the weekend, Bob Flowerdew said that peppers don't like their roots to get warm and to shade the pots with something, so I rearranged the pots to put small pots of basil in front of all my pepper pots and will see if that helps (he saide he made little bibs for the pots, but that sounded like a lot of faffing about to me!).

Bit the bullet and stripped the yellowing leaves from my 3" pots of spinach then potted them up into six window boxes. Have accepted that I won't have any more space outside this year, so it's window-boxes from now on (must keep telling myself - "NO MORE SPACE" LOL!) - have 27 window boxes full of plants now ...

ausmummy

lolly5648 wrote: »

I am not sure what the flexitubs are that people keep mentioning (or where to get them). I have courgettes and a cucumber to plant out and no room in my raised bed so thought they might be suitable as people seem to be planting courgettes in them.

Could someone help, please

This is the original post from the home bargains thread on the grabbit board. These are, I think about £5 in B&Q and a bit smaller. They must have had another delivery of them as they were still in stock when I went to my local a couple of weeks ago. So maybe they are still around in most stores. If interested I'd ask on the Home Bargains thread if anyone has seen them. I have one tub for potatoes and three with 8 french beans and a courgette in the middle. They all seem very happy and the beens are helping to support the huge courgette arms. I've got another 4 spare which will eventually be filled, but at the moment they are perfect for storing compost and using as general tubs to put the cuttings/stones/weeds etc in when clearing the garden. I guess there actual purpose is for indoor use for toys ect but they never made it in to the house lol.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=31509867&postcount=3696

If you've never been to home bargains then this is the store locator (at the bottom of the page).

http://www.tjmorris.co.uk/

Youthworkers_Wife

Oh great - half the courgettes I planted out have gone totally floppy. But the other half seems fine. They've got the same conditions, are the same size ... but half have decided to wilt. I just don't understand them!

Strange things these plants ...

zippychick

ausmummy wrote: »

This is the original post from the home bargains thread on the grabbit board. These are, I think about £5 in B&Q and a bit smaller. They must have had another delivery of them as they were still in stock when I went to my local a couple of weeks ago. So maybe they are still around in most stores. If interested I'd ask on the Home Bargains thread if anyone has seen them. I have one tub for potatoes and three with 8 french beans and a courgette in the middle. They all seem very happy and the beens are helping to support the huge courgette arms. I've got another 4 spare which will eventually be filled, but at the moment they are perfect for storing compost and using as general tubs to put the cuttings/stones/weeds etc in when clearing the garden. I guess there actual purpose is for indoor use for toys ect but they never made it in to the house lol.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=31509867&postcount=3696

If you've never been to home bargains then this is the store locator (at the bottom of the page).

http://www.tjmorris.co.uk/

I seen some yesterday in poundstretchers - but they were called Trugs - exactly the same thing (only £5 !)

Thanks for the help all. Interesting about the food - all learning curve for me.

Someone mentioned peppers not liking warm roots - mine is planted in a t in plant container - is this absolutely wrong?

Orange_King

Youthworkers_Wife wrote: »

Oh great - half the courgettes I planted out have gone totally floppy. But the other half seems fine. They've got the same conditions, are the same size ... but half have decided to wilt. I just don't understand them!

Strange things these plants ...

I agree! I have some that have lost at least 4 or 5 of the bottom leaves but there still appears to be growth on the main stalk. Will these be ok or is it not worth pursuing with?

soullessfire

I'm officially stating that I don't like the BBC French beans. Had the first lot rot, second lot rotted too and I've only had success using the wet paper in a tub trick to germinate them. However when they came up 3 or 4 out of the 10 have no blinkin leaves on them at all! Just bare shoots! Grrrrrrr. Thankfully I have enough that actually made it, but my goodness, what a kerfuffle over some silly beans!

misskool

soullessfire wrote: »

I'm officially stating that I don't like the BBC French beans. Had the first lot rot, second lot rotted too and I've only had success using the wet paper in a tub trick to germinate them. However when they came up 3 or 4 out of the 10 have no blinkin leaves on them at all! Just bare shoots! Grrrrrrr. Thankfully I have enough that actually made it, but my goodness, what a kerfuffle over some silly beans!

Beans are very prone to rotting. I have to slap myself and not water them.

Sow them into damp compost, cover and leave them.

I rotted loads by watering them every day. It's taken a lot of beans for me to get it :rotfl: