veggie plot advise

Farway

notatvstar wrote: »

but I like growing differently coloured things.

A person after my one heart, I have grown the golden beet and it was lovely, as was yellow chard [tried rainbow and failed]

Due to garden size I now just mainly stick to tomatoes, yellow, black, stripes, plus red. All shapes, cherry, plum, mini plum etc

My raspberries are yellow ones, and now have [not fruited yet] a red gooseberry

This all comes back to grow what you cannot buy or is very expensive, seen the price of yellow cherry toms?

My kids were amazed, when younger and starting school, to find that "normal" toms were red

notatvstar

Farway wrote: »

A person after my one heart, I have grown the golden beet and it was lovely, as was yellow chard [tried rainbow and failed]

Due to garden size I now just mainly stick to tomatoes, yellow, black, stripes, plus red. All shapes, cherry, plum, mini plum etc

My raspberries are yellow ones, and now have [not fruited yet] a red gooseberry

This all comes back to grow what you cannot buy or is very expensive, seen the price of yellow cherry toms?

... I'm totally jealous of your toms and raspberries! The boyf tried to grow a load of cherry toms in hanging baskets, but he packed 4 plants into each basket and bonsai'ed the lot! :mad:

You can get toms that grow well well in baskets, but I think 1 plant per basket will produce enough to supply all summer. I can't try for myself as I might damage his 'Man-pride' if it works for me.

I suppose baskets are a decent idea if you're stuck for space as well... We've got a load of strawberries in some and we've also got a bath full (found disused bath outside so filled it with manure and topsoil and bunged in 30 plants. It looks amazing as already we have loads of runners hanging over the sides as well as big clumps of fruit. It works well as the slugs can't get to them. Boyf's hung a net over it, and it sort of looks like a shower curtain... but hey!

RAS

Lotus-eater wrote: »

You have limited space and alot of mouths to feed.

Firstly I'd agree with the above, grow what you like to eat.

Crops I would consider valuable enough to grow in a small space.

Carrots
Salad, lettuce (various types)/rocket etc
radish
Cucumbers - climbing
Courgettes
Runner/french beans - climbing
mangetout - climbing

Then see what space you have left.

Grow the rhubarb somewhere else, it takes up too much space.

Hi

Think about using vertical space - climbing plants give you more per square foot; so cordon tomatoes, cucumbers, climbing french ansd runner beans and climbing mangetout. For the future you might consider thornless blackberry, cordon apple or pear trees, or even a vine?

As the solstice has passed, think about adding Swiss chard to your green stuffs and chicories and endives.

It might be worth getting a few books from the library. Try Mel Bartholomew Square foot gardening, Guerra on Container gardening is worth it for the few pages at the back when he shows you the plans and photos of his own garden. And read charles dowding on harvesting salads. He grows them for a living and harvests the outside leaves regualalry, leaving the heart to keep growing. Masses of salad leaves, nowhere for the slugs to hide and he only need to plant every three months instead of every three weeks.

Other things that will last over winter - corn salad and land cress.

Farway

notatvstar wrote: »

... I'm totally jealous of your toms and raspberries! The boyf tried to grow a load of cherry toms in hanging baskets, but he packed 4 plants into each basket and bonsai'ed the lot! :mad:

You can get toms that grow well well in baskets, but I think 1 plant per basket will produce enough to supply all summer. I can't try for myself as I might damage his 'Man-pride' if it works for me.

One or two max per wall basket, I use Balconi yellow [sic], I know there is a red one, but why follow the crowd?

The excess are fine washed & loose frozen whole, then used as you would tinned toms in stews etc

I save my own seed from these, so now is the time to search around for clearance seed bargains :money:

As a bloke myself, perhaps you could suggest trying a new variety, then use the above? Because there was "obviously" something wrong with the previous variety

cootambear

strawberries