veg growing Newbies- Feb 2010! lets learn together!

Megansmum

Last year i used rubble sacks (strong binliners) to do potatoes
and it worked a treat. Yesterday i noticed wilkos are doing "potato bags", 3 for a fiver - but it's still cheaper my way!

Carrots i did in a large plastic/rubber type tub - the kind you would have in a kids bedroom to put toys in - you can get them in loads of different colours and they have handles so you can move them round the garden easy enough. I made some drainage holes in the bottom too!

I have scrounged old scaffolding boards free, and any car tyre place will happily give you old tyres. I have just started getting these myself, 8 so far, but i want loads!

You really can grow in ANYTHING, there is no need to buy expensive pots. If you want pots etc, i would say look on freecycle, ebay, car boots, in skips, ask at supermarkets, flower shops for old ones they are getting rid of.

Oh, and you can grow in the ton bags you get from builders merchants, any old furniture with 4 sides! Err..... old baths, sinks, plastic sand pits....let your imagination go wild...anything you can put a hole in the bottom you can use!!

hex2

:beer: Lynz. I started growing veg on a budget when we moved here and actually had a garden that prevented the escape of small children .

The Morrisons flower tubs at 10 for a £ are great as long as you drill a few holes in. You will get one aubergine, pepper, chilli, tom etc to a tub. They are the only ones I use. I did try potatoes in them but they are not really big enough unless you just put one or two tubers in. You need shallow trays for salads/spinach type things.

Runner beans are easy to grow and are very productive for not a lot of space up a willow wigwam.

Someone was telling me about growing potatoes in Ikea blue bags?

Don't do my trick and get suckered into buying gardening magazines at £3/4 a time! Keep an eye out for freebies - the bbc Dig In website will be offering free seeds again shortly - five packets last year. tell people what you are doing - most gardeners are very generous with spare plants. Aldi/Lidl/£shop/Wilkos do some great kit very cheaply - I like the seedling trays and propagators from Aldi that will appear shortly.

29p seeds from Wilkos, etc are just fine. If you want more variety try www.alanromans.com . Sounds daft but only grow things you actually like and will eat or it becomes a real chore.

Good luck everyone, and wave goodbye to your window ledges :rotfl:

SailorSam

Plastic troughs are available in our local £ shop
I think it was 3 for £1

enrich100

lynzpower wrote: »

Would you use a morrisons bucket for peppers/ aubergines/ courgettes? if so would it just be one plant to a tub?

The chart as posted by ENRICH is very useful thank you ( I have my measuring tape at the ready!)

yes one plant per bucket, I have grown carrots and parsnips in them too

Heres another advice page on container gardening

http://www.gardening.cornell.edu/factsheets/misc/containers.pdf


this link shows you how many litres are in specific pot sizes
http://www.beckfieldnurseries.com/plant-pot-sizes.html


here is the original link i posted (thought it would be good to keep them together )

http://www.extension.iastate.edu/Pub...ons/PM870B.pdf

(its amazing what I bookmark sometimes )

the only thing holding you back in container gardening is your imagination most containers can be used I have seen every thing from tyres used for potato planters to a toy plastic tipper lorry used to grow lettuces on its trailer, I mainly use raised beds now but use hundreds of containers too, If they are the right size you can move them around and remove/replace/refill once the crop is harvested

Jackzhao

:jthat is good! I support it!

invisiblecabbage

hi, just thought I'd add my bit re containers. When I had a big spring clean in kitchen the other day I came across 6 LARGE bowl shaped mugs, you know the sort that come as gifts with things inside. They are perfect size for windowsill herbs .. and look great.:j

Vixie_Pixie

Hi!! :j

I've had an allotment for nearly a year now and i'm still new to gardening but i'm slowly getting there!!

A word of warning for anyone growing blackberries... they do have a tendency to take over and go a bit mad so I think its best if these are grown in a solid container to prevent the roots spreading too much

Also if you are going to grow courgettes - 2 to 3 plants will be plenty! We had 8 plants on our allotment and we must have harvested at least 100!!! In the end we were sick to death of courgettes!! There's only so many things you can do with them!

begley

I'm in! I have a little veg patch, although I need to get something to raise it a bit. I've been looking for scaffolding planks with no success. Still, will keep looking.

I've been growing my own veg for a couple of years now,but the only things that I've ever had any real success with are courgettes. My tomatoes always seem to shrivel and drop off before they're ready to be harvested. I tried them in a hanging basket, and in pots last year, but no joy.

I did spuds for the first time last year, and they were lovely, although we got very few considering we had 8 plants in!! Still, we got about 3 meals worth, and they were delicious.

So, this year I'm gonna try and grow:

Spuds
Salad
Courgettes
Beetroot
Carrots
Cabbages (Cos they're my favourite veg!)

My potatoes are chitting in a egg box, and I'm gonna start planting some seeds next weekend, as well as giving my little plot a good dig.

I'll keep you all posted on my progress! All hints and tips gratefully received!

nic_santorini

Morrisons have 10 plastic black big pots for 99p!! and very large terracotta pots for £4 each. I think that is a bargain, I also got 50p of each for multi buy so they were in fact £3.50. They also have 40 litres of multi-compost for £3.50 but actually think you can get more enriched stuff from homebase for around the same price. I think I may give it a go, but my garden has not got much sun (north facing) so what is best?? Any ideas??

lynzpower

The homebase compost GOT THE WORST RESULTS IN THIS YEARS WHICH TEST

I would not buy it at all !