Preparedness for when

GreyQueen

Karmacat wrote: »

Fascinating, GQ! Erm, have I missed the planting season? Now that I'm definitely staying in this house for as long as I can, it'd be worth my while to get this going.

Absolutely not. Most small seeds don't get planted until this month of April.

I plant broad beans in Oct-Nov because they can overwinter in these latitudes in all but the most severe weather and the autumn sown ones are tougher are more resistant to blackfly and disease. The stems and leaves are tougher, I mean, not the beans themselves.

Spuds should be in late March, still time if you're quick. Onion sets I put in about 2 months ago. Will be sowing leeks, beetroot, lettuce outside in next few weeks, starting cucumber and courgette in the cold-frame and then as the weather warms, will move on to the frost-tender beans like French, runner and dwarf beans.

Last frosts in my neck of the woods have mostly passed already but there is typically a very late frost in the 2nd or 3rd week of May in most years, which will kill stuff if I'm not careful/ lucky. HTH.

Cappella

Now is an ideal time to start planting
Our planting schedule is about the same as GreyQueen but we put potatoes in later (last week in March) and earth Them up as soon as they come through, we have to watch the weather and cover them with straw mulch if frost is forecast as our allotments are in a dip near a river valley and frost often hits late here.
We're further ahead than usual because MrC is amazingly organised and spends most of his life on the allotments. Since my heart attack he's the main gardener now. I'm the weeder, tea maker (very important job) and harvester but he does all the heavy digging and lifting.

GreyQueen

I buy my spuds mid Feb, chit them in the flat and plant them 3rd weekend of March. Because of when Easter fell this year, I was away that weekend at the folks' place. I organised the spud planting in two sessions, as I have ME and can't do it all on one day unless I have help.

I planted the first lot the weekend before Easter and the second lot the weekend after. Most of the second batch were maincrop but the first ones were second earlies.

I reckon that for a lot of the UK, 3rd week in March would be about perfect for spud sowing as they should just be breaking the surface as the last frost risk passes.

Late spring for gardeners can be a slightly stressy time as we aim to get frost sensitive non-native species going early enough for them to have their growing seasons before the first frosts/ shortness of days and weakness of the autumn sun stop them growing to maturity properly.

Karmacat

GQ, Capella, thanks for the planting info - I'm not going to do tatties, as I'd have to do those in raised beds cos of the soil - I've tried root crops here, and it was ridiculous

I'll definitely do kale and chard - I'll plant any seeds I've already got over the weekend, but if I see plugs I might buy them its a question of "food security" - not for the UK, but for me I'm in the south too, like GQ, so it should be good timing. I'm not focussing on carbs at the moment, though I'll need to of course, I'm just going for healthy perennials in the garden. Speaking of which, a slight confession - I have two lovely rhubarb plants in the garden, well established now, and I nearly killed one - I have a tendency to put the odd little piece of broken tile onto the bark chippings around my perennials, to support the weed suppression. One particular piece of broken tile landed right on top of the newer rhubarb I discovered in time, and its now going like the clappers, but it just shows how careful you have to be :cool:

I also have to renew my water storage - when I turfed all the contents of my built in wardrobe out onto the bed in the 2nd bedroom, I discovered some of those 5 litre containers had actually warped :eek: I think I may replace them with several 2 litre bottles - if anything happens, at least there's less carnage



milasaves money: I thought I recognised the name Lisa Marie thanks!

Cappella

Karma at said

its a question of "food security" - not for the UK, but for me

That's why I've just put red and black currant cuttings and rhubarb crowns in our tiny back garden after dithering and thinking do we really NEED them. Most of our neighbours have block paved theirs which I find very sad; maybe they find our bizarre planting (mainly teazels, marigolds, borage, and alpine strawberries sad too though
Off to the plot now to deal with brassica seedlings!

pineapple

Karmacat wrote: »

GQ, I'm not going to do tatties, as I'd have to do those in raised beds cos of the soil

Potato bags/sacks?
I grew potatoes in bags year after year on my patio as my soil was rubbish.

Going to sew some nasturtiums. Lovely to look at and great in a salad.

[Deleted User]

You can grow potatoes in a 'tyre stack' which is old car tyres that are past using on the car piled on top of each other and filled with a growing medium and as the potato haulms grow you add another tyre and fill it with soil/compost until it's as high as you want to go. They apparently grow very well in these, I'm sure there will be details of exactly how to assemble, fill and grow in them on the internet. You can keep tyres for years and hopefully get them for free from someone/a tyre replacement company/garage in the first place too!

Karmacat

Can't do the potatoes like that, I'm afraid. Its an energy thing - I'm diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue by my local NHS unit, and I won't be able to take care of anything like that. I'd love to, but the fatigue is why perennials are so important to me.

craigywv

hi regarding the fizzy vitamins,ahem ahem the place of my employment sells them in tubes adult and kids ones. saunters away again................

mardatha

Karmacat, I do tatties in those special bags you get on ebay. I throw a couple in then throw compost on top, then leave them for ages. I have variable ME and when I'm bad then I'm a vegetable on a sofa lol. I do feel really guilty when I read about all the folk with allotments because once upon a time that was my dream, along with a smallholding... and now I haven't got the energy to dig more than a border.
My frost-free date is 1st June and I've learned the hard way not to try and copy you lot lol.
And I eat a LOT of things Polly. I eat porridge and chicken and lamb and chips and em erm porridge!