The ups and downs of growing your own dinner 2016...

Jazee

Hello everyone, especially newbies.

DH doesn't seem to have noticed yet that the windowsills in the LR and kitchen have been taken over by seed trays or at least he hasn't mentioned it. Maybe he's just used to me by now!

Very stormy/windy here today so apart from dog walks I'll be staying indoors so tidying in the garden will have to wait.

Zafiro, I grew the celery this year. Started with 100 seeds in a tray in the greenhouse not expecting much. 94 plants took and no one wanted any on freecycle so I planted the lot in 2 beds. All grew strongly and were nice quite young in salads, and later for soup, but I had far too many (as I didn't want to not plant them all) and I'm going to have to just dig up the rest now and chuck them on the compost heap.

NicA

I'm off to prune all the currant bushes, these were already here when we moved in, and are crazy overgrown! Need to do the gooseberries as well but slightly scared of the thorns!

Dizzy_Ditzy

NicA wrote: »

I'm off to prune all the currant bushes, these were already here when we moved in, and are crazy overgrown! Need to do the gooseberries as well but slightly scared of the thorns!

Welcome!

I find the best way to do gooseberries is [STRIKE]get someone else to do them[/STRIKE] wear a good sturdy jacket and keep the sleeves down! When I do mine, I use the secateurs to pick up the off cuts. And try to wear close fitting thick gloves, they'll save your fingers and nails :cool:

Dizzy_Ditzy

I've been to my first ever seed and potato day today

I came back with four different varieties of potato, seeds and of all things - yam. Yes, YAM!

Few things I picked up Ive never tried growing before so it'll be interesting to see how they pan out

Highly recommended if you can find them in your area

Ken68

New to me Queen...is it a swap thingy.

Dizzy_Ditzy

Ken68 wrote: »

New to me Queen...is it a swap thingy.

Some do swaps, some just sell at "discounted" prices. I've never seen so many types of seed or potato in one place. It was so much easier to actually see the type of potato and buy however many you want, and every type of flower/veg/herb seed you can think of, and then some.

It didn't go unnoticed that I was the youngest person in there though :rotfl::rotfl:

zafiro1984

Here's my challenge to myself this year.

1) To be able to go and pick sufficient veg/salads/herbs/fruit every day of the year
2) Not to grow too much of any one veg/salads/herbs/fruit, not to have too many gluts, especially those I cannot freeze.

So I'm going to spend some time on my iPad/kindle working out when things are ready, the average yield, how a polytunnel/greenhouse may extend things and then work backwards to a sowing date.

That's the theory, fortunately I'm pretty sure I have enough growing space, but, every year I get carried away and fill up my beds with things I can't bear to throw away because I've raised them from seed. I end up with unusable gluts - usually salads and miss out out on veg/salads/herbs/fruit that we like but have no room to grow them.

Let headache begin, could be a disaster

lucielou5

I planted nothing last year due to ill health. Determined to turn that around this year. I don't have a garden, I have a backyard. It doesn't even get the sun until mid-day so it's quite a challenge. I do however have lots of pots, hanging baskets and a pop up greenhouse.
In 2014 I got a glut of 'cut and come again' salad leaves, courgettes also did well as did the potatoes. Peas not so well (admittedly that was more due to my neglect), only a few tomatoes (not sure what went wrong there).
This year I need to be super frugal (my partner left me last month and I have a growing boy to feed). Ideally I'd like to grow salad, tomatoes, potatoes, herbs and carrots mainly as we eat a lot of these. But I'd also like to try my hand at fruit. My son is a heavy fruit eater.
Any suggestions on what might be possible in a large pot/hanging basket would be most welcome.

Dizzy_Ditzy

Hi lucielou and welcome

Why not have a go at raspberries, strawberries, blueberries and currants? They'll all be available to buy in aldi in the coming weeks and they're generally quite cheap :cool:

You can grow potatoes and carrots in bags - used compost bags turned inside out are ideal

Are there allotments in your area? Is that something you could do? Most plots are now let as half plots and it's amazing what you can cram into a half plot

zafiro1984

queen_of_cheap wrote: »

Why not have a go at raspberries, strawberries, blueberries and currants? They'll all be available to buy in aldi in the coming weeks and they're generally quite cheap :cool:

Thanks Queen of Cheap but is there any chance you could post when these fruits have appeared in your Aldi. I'd be very interested in getting some more raspberries but our nearest Aldi is a round trip of almost 40 miles. Anyone know if Lidl do things like this, that's only 6 miles away.