2023 - the good, the not so good but hopefully not ugly of growing your own!

sammy_kaye18

What do you like to grow? Im enjoying growing things my family eats. We only really have our garden space so I am a bit limited for space but making the most of it. Last year I successfully grew carrots, radish, courgettes, cucumbers, lettuce, rocket, peas and runner beans. Also made a strawberry patch and had a few for their first year. 

Are you going to try anything different this year? This year I am hoping to try and grow a bit more fruit. Hoping to find a blueberry bush and get the strawberries covered and producing. I am also hoping to get the hang of succession planting as well as planting more flowers to encourage pollinators to the garden. Considering a fruit tree if I can find some smaller ones that are happy in larger pots. Also I think potatoes and tomatoes might be on the cards to try this year too. Ive also commandeered a good few pallets so I will be out making more raised beds with them to increase growing space that is hopefully out of the dogs reach! 

Did you try anything different last year? Did you like it? Would you grow it again? Home grown cucumber. I did have a few that I missed that got rather large but they still tasted lovely, I have learnt that one plant produces many though so I will be taking heed of that and making sure I harvest them properly. 

Do you have any tips for growing? You never know unless you try. Not every seed will take and if you do end up with more than you need you can either make a few pennies selling them or giving them away to friends and neighbours. Also make sure your greenhouse is properly secure. 

Do you make anything with what you grow? I have frozen lots of cucumber since we had so many which is added to soups, stews and smoothies for extra vitamin boosts. I also make crumbles and jams with blackberries and strawberries. Also my mother in law happy when I turn up with surplus and last year I traded my neighbour a small basket of homegrown veg in return for a bag of wool she no longer needed :-) 

How much does growing your own save you? A fair bit. We eat quite a lot of vegetables as well as having 3 pets that are mostly vegetarian (2 lizards and a guinea pig) so nothing goes to waste. Plus it seriously helps my mental health! Nothing better than potching in the garden, enjoying some fresh air and sunshine. 

KajiKita

Sown broad beans, red and white onions and sweet peas today. The growing year has begun! 😊

KK

Suffolk_lass

Our ground is still frozen here. I did buy onion sets, one net of seed potatoes, and several packets of seeds at the nursery yesterday, and place two orders online. So at least I have got more or less all the seeds coming. Disappointingly I could not get Black Russian tomatoes from my usual places. 

sammy_kaye18

I am in the process of looking at my garden to try and place beds that I want to make from the pallets. Im thinking nearer the house will be better because it gets sun all morning until lunch and then the shade starts to progress over the garden but last year in the hot weather I had lots of scorching on leaves etc and keeping everything watered was hard as I dont have a water butt. 
So I am going to give the garden a clean up over the next few days and get all my building things ready. I also had a quote today for a tonne bag of gravel to put between raised beds to deter the dogs from eating my crops like last year and neaten it up a bit. 
They have practically turned my garden into a swamp so I don't want them all over my beds as well - hence the building and there's no way to separate garden from where my back door is. 

After some advice for onions and seed potatoes. 
Ive never grown onions so Im wondering if there is a hardy variety that are relatively idiot proof to grown.
Also seed potatoes - Id like to grow something that is a good all round potato.....that will (fingers crossed) produce a variety of sizes. Also whats best to plant these into? A bed, bags? I heard that planting potatoes in beds can help to clean up the bed? 

carinjo

@sammy_kaye18 onions are very easy to grow!
For potatoes, i am going to grow a second early i grew a few years ago, Nicola. This was before i knew anything and they stored really well. So doing 2 grow bags at home for smaller salad potatoes (harvest earlier) and the rest on allotment for bigger/storing. The potatoes come in 2.5kg bags, so not doing 2 different types this year.
Soil clearing can be a bit of a misnomer. The potatoes will help to break up the soil, but the cleaning up is still done by weeding and pulling up the soil as they grow. I experimented with using some straw the guinea pigs wouldn't eat and was great for suppressing weeds. I mention guinea pigs since you have some. Their dirty bedding is safe for the compost bin or around non-edible plants and fruit trees since they live on a veggie diet. 
Remember bed rotation, as mentioned earlier, growing tomatoes where potatoes grew before is not adviced, so doing too many potato beds to clear the soil can limit you the next year or afterwards. Hope this helps!

Suffolk_lass

@sammy_kaye18 I would just add that I buy a small bag of 15 seed potatoes, which is enough for us. We are growing Charlotte this year (2nd early) and I will put them in egg boxes on the window-sill to chit (sprout) before planting mid-late Feb here (cold springs in the east, normally).

Re onions they are much easier to grow from sets (mini onions) rather than seed and unless you get the white mould problem they can be replanted in the same bed in successive years. 

I get round the tomato-potato issue by always growing tomatoes in pots or grow bags, but it does mean I need to be careful where I spread the spent compost when I empty them out. I never put it in the raised bed that potatoes are going in, and either add it to my compost heap or mulch it onto flower beds

Suffolk_lass

Right, let the seed audit begin - checking dates, and determining which, if any end date seeds I might still use, before the new ones arrive. My friend's seed supplier appears to have Black Russian seeds and she has offered to get them for me (great, that is what friends are for!)

in_my_wellies

Suffolk_lass said:

Right, let the seed audit begin - checking dates, and determining which, if any end date seeds I might still use, before the new ones arrive. My friend's seed supplier appears to have Black Russian seeds and she has offered to get them for me (great, that is what friends are for!)

That is my target for today. I'm hoping to relocate to Devon this summer so I might not be here for harvest but I just can't help myself. 

leftatthetrafficlights

I've bought my seed potatoes now - I'm only doing 2nd earlies this year as we eat more potatoes in the summer with salads than we do the rest of the year...

Got the grandbaby this weekend so will go out and get the tomato seeds I need (bush varieties) and then start my first sowing of the season 😁 I'm hoping the weather improves next week so that I can start on the weeding! 

carinjo

An early morning on allotment before work: pruned the pear tree,  still using the advice @Suffolk_lass gave a few years ago. Using weedsuppressing fabric last year should make the clearing up of leaves (and the bit of the fungus still got) a doddle. 
Looks like at least 2 of the rhubarb got crown rot. Was planning on splitting and relocating it, but worried now if any that does look ok, aren't, then will just spread the rot to new soil. Will do some reading in my lunch break.