The all new good, bad and ugly of growing your own in 2020

-taff

Here you go, it's a bit difficult to take a whole greenhouse picture because the back of the garage is about 3 ft away from the greenhouse door And the cucumbers aren't in there yet. I tied a bit of nettng [ not the one I would have liked to, just the one I had some of] to the back for the cucumbers to cling to. It's green so difficult to see

And I'm with you on the can't have too many toms. A ew years ago I kind of borrowed a growing space in an enormous polytunnel form a farmer friend, I think I had 250 plants I used them all, it was a bumper year for spicy tomato chutney, passatta etc....

crv1963

Thanks taff- that's really helpful. I'm using Quadgrow and other self watering pots- Mrs Crv doesn't mind watering the seedlings but I don't want to burden her into watering loads of plants while I am away working- I figured that keeping my cold frames watered would take enough of her time- she's working full time plus too! 

crv1963

Suffolk_lass said:

crv1963 said:

Good morning.

I spent yesterday- my first day off filling a skip with garden rubbish- from the pruned roses and the branches from bushes/ trees cleared to make space for my raised beds. Today is to sort the greenhouse out- moved the last of the bedding plants to the cold frames, pot up more tomato plants and then take the chilli plants out of the heated propagator and pot them up. Having not grown toms for years and never in a greenhouse I suspect that I've too many in there for us, but I'm sure I'll be able to give away any surplus.

Then back to work tomorrow. I have the weekend off Friday to Monday inclusive so intend to do four days sorting the garden and veg out- I expect that Mrs CRV may have other plans for my time but as long as it is tidy and watered I'll just go with the flow!

I make homegrown passata with my tomato glut - it is much nicer than shop bought - you can remove the stalks and freeze the tomatoes whole until you are ready to make it. I looked mine up on youtube with an Italian lady here and mine lasted all winter (in fact the last half jar is in the fridge now). 

Looks like I'll be in the market for a new freezer then! It'll have to go in my shed!

greenbee

That's really useful @-taff - my greenhouse hasn't arrived yet (it took my ages to find one 8ft by 6ft with the door in the long side) but is due in a couple of weeks so I'm trying to work out the best way to use it. It'll be nice to get the tomatoes out of the house...  

@crv1963 - I'm looking for options for watering as I travel for work and have no one reliable to do the watering for me. My raised beds have soaker hose which attaches to the waterbutts, so I was planning on putting some kind of timer on those (and if necessary filling the butts up from the mains before I go away), but haven't worked out the best option for the greenhouse yet. I'll be interested to hear how you get on with the quadgrow system. 

[Deleted User]

That's brilliant -taff! 😁 Makes me realise how far behind my tomatoes are though!! 😂 
Dh has managed to get in touch with the glass company today and has given them the dimensions of the glass we need - just waiting for them to get in touch with a price and collection date now, hopefully it will be before the weekend and I can finally get my greenhouse sorted! 🙌 
My dh works for a company that does mainly industrial irrigation systems but also can supply stuff for gardens - he's really keen to put one in but I'm concerned that if we don't need to go out to water daily, we may not do as much weeding as we should 🤔 we've agreed that we will wait until this first main season is over and put one in for the autumn if we're good! 😉

Suffolk_lass

It is really tempting to set up lots of automated facilities. We have been removing the watering system from around our garden over the last 15 years (some of which was knackered so the rest became redundant). It was a real lesson in unnecessary over engineering for the general beds. Useful in maybe 10% of the garden (and that was the part that failed!) CRV's motives are excellent and I might consider it just in parts of the veg beds as we can probably reuse some of it, but I want to resist more expense.

Over the years the railway sleeper edging has probably just about paid fr itself in the veg garden but the compost costs means we grow primarily for flavour, personal satisfaction and to have access to premium or non-supermarket products, rather than for any reasons of economy.

GunShotResidue

Last year we lived away from family and spent quite a bit of time travelling to see them (we've since moved closer). Most of my plants were in pots and one long bed. I bought some thin pipping from b&q and drilled tiny holes so it was dripping onto the base of each plant, the pipes connected to an old bin that had a hose dripping very slowly into it. I would also chuck some feed in to the bin before we went each time. It was very basic but kept everything alive and cost about £25. 

That's a lovely video, Suffolk_lass. She reminds me of my Nana, who was Maltese, very thrifty and a very good gardener. She would take cuttings from bushes she liked in public parks (which she insisted was fine because it was for the public) and they always grew. She was wonderful. I'm hoping to use my tomatoes to make a hidden veg sauce, similar to the video but throwing in any veg that needs to be used up (carrots, courgette and peppers are especially good) and then blending it up to use in place of passata. 

I'm trying to grow peas up a bamboo pole, should I be pinching off offshoots? They are already taller than last years so I'm a bit out of my depth! 

-taff

Suffolk Lass, thanks for the vidoe form me too, I loved watching it, reminded me of my mother and my aunties all getting together to do that. Rows and rows of jars all waiting to be dispersed among the family. Loved it. I'm going to watch all her videos now...

And that's exactly how I make it, with a mouli to separate seeds and skins...Except I don't turn the jars over and I'd totally forgotten about the basil! Will do that this year tomato glut permitting! It's a shame you can't buy tomatoes in bulk they they seem to be able to do in the USA and Italy...

-taff

I should have added 'good' tomatoes.

crv1963

greenbee said:

@crv1963 - I'm looking for options for watering as I travel for work and have no one reliable to do the watering for me. My raised beds have soaker hose which attaches to the waterbutts, so I was planning on putting some kind of timer on those (and if necessary filling the butts up from the mains before I go away), but haven't worked out the best option for the greenhouse yet. I'll be interested to hear how you get on with the quadgrow system. 

I'll document how we go over the season, it is the first year with the greenhouse and the quadgrow system- I have two so 8 Tomato plants in them, I have a further two in a Duo-grow system and then a further two in Garland self watering pots. I'm going to see if there is any differences in them, I have another system for Chilli Plants. The aim is keeping everything alive without watering being an all consuming task.