Got an urgent plant problem

aliasojo

We won a 'Children's Rocket Garden' last year and it was to be delivered during planting season this year.

It's just arrived unexpectedly today and it's a very large cardboard box full of vegetable and strawberry plant 'plugs. There's a lot. The instructions say to put into the light and water asap but I have literally nowhere to put them.

My garden is still like a building site because work going on inside the house has dragged on much longer than we thought it would so the garden's not been touched. We have slabs and a wee bit of weedy mud.

Ideas please? I'm happy enough to go buy something or buy deck boards to make a temporary kinda raised bed thing if need be? I can't think of what else to do?

We have...

Pumpkins x 3

Courgettes x 3
Strawberries x 3
Tomatoes x 3
Runner beans x 5
Borlotti beans x 5
Beetroot x10
Peas x 10
Carrots x 20
Mixed lettuce x 10
Spinach x 10
Potatoes x10


Can anyone help me/tell me what to do please? I don't want them to die tonight or over the next couple of days so I need to do something with them now...but what? I can't leave them layered in the straw in the box.

I'd really like to try to grow these for my daughter more than anything else, she's all excited but I know nothing about the garden other than the fact grass is green.

I'd be grateful for any ideas.

jackieglasgow

I would be tempted to take them out of the box, put in trays and water them. Bring them in tonight, and back out in the morning, they will be OK for another couple of days until you decide where they will go. Or bring them down to me!

knithryn

I would suggest the following plan of attack...growing them cheaply in bags...
Go out and buy half a dozen (or more) growbags and a roll of 'rubble sacks' and find some old net curtains or bubble wrap and some clear polythene.
The strawberries can be planted out in the growbags now (eg three to a bag). They can live in those for a year then be planted out.
A lot of the other stuff is 'one year only' eg pumpkin, beetroot etc. Some of it is very tender - the tomatoes etc but still also a one-year plant only.
Roll the rubble bags down, puncture a couple of holes in the bottom, half fill with compost (from a growbag) and plant up the carrots, lettuce, beetroot and peas. They are all going to probably live in these bags for this year.
Plant the potatoes in about 6 inches of compost - perhaps 3 to a bag, and cover in compost. Once the leaves have grown through by about 12 inches you can earth them up.

Next the tender crops - the tomatoes, pumpkins, and courgettes (possibly also the borlotti beans). Plant these in the rubble bags as well, but they need protection. Rig up a shelter with a piece of polythene (perhaps staple it to a wooden fence to make a triangular 'tent' affair).

Keep them all well watered. Label them.
If it's very cold, put a piece of net curtain or bubble wrap over the protected plants at night but take it off in the morning if it is a warm day. You can remove the protection completely probably in the middle of June.
If you have labelled them, you will know which ones are which when you come back here to ask about feeding/staking/harvesting etc.

Zazen999

Courgettes x 3
Tomatoes x 3
Runner beans x 5
Borlotti beans x 5

Put these in a tray in the bathroom or somewhere until they can go outside; if you are at home then put them outside in the daytime and bring them in at night.

Mixed lettuce x 10
Spinach x 10
Potatoes x10
Strawberries x 3
Beetroot x10
Peas x 10
Carrots x 20

Put these outside in a corner somewhere and if a frost is due, bring indoors for the night or throw a fleece over the top.

Not sure how you have carrot or potato plants though!

Give them all a good soaking today as well.

Then grow the lot in growbags this season until your garden is sorted.

invisiblecabbage

If your daughter is at school why not donate to her class, and she can enjoy growing without you panicking about keeping the plants safe.

wssla00

I got one of these too mine are going into trugs from Asda with cheap compost

aliasojo

Thank you so much for all your advice. I had 2 multi pot tray thingies that I'd got from Aldi so all the smaller plants are sat in small individual pots for tonight to allow them to get some light/water.

I've actually got a load of rubble sacks, polythene and bubble wrap here already so will use those initially along with the growbags which I'll get tomorrow. Really appreciate your help, thank you.

stilernin

Cheap plastic storage boxed are useful too.

Rectangular, so can be fitted close together with low growing plants.

Rigid, so can be moved about. Move things in and out of the sun as they grow / move out of your system when plants have finished.

Robust, so can be used for a couple of years.

Light, so can be stacked. I have stagger/stacked 5 boxes( think 3 boxes in a row with gaps between them and 2 stacked over the gaps) to grow 5 tomatoes. The vines grow happily closer together, but the roots have more space in their own boxes.

Different sizes, for different plants. Bigguns happily accommodate poles for beans.

Some councils are giving recycling boxes away now they have changed over to wheelie bins for recycling.

Great news on your win though:T