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

carinjo

skintbanker said:

Hi all.  newbie here.  I have no garden to speak of.  I can do a few pots, and/or windowsill.   What do people recommend to grow, please?  Thank you 

Hi @skintbanker! When you say no garden, do you have a balcony/outside seating space? Do you alreaday have the pots  and if so, what size are they?
@keran77 made some excellent suggestions. 

skintbanker

carinjo said:

skintbanker said:

Hi all.  newbie here.  I have no garden to speak of.  I can do a few pots, and/or windowsill.   What do people recommend to grow, please?  Thank you 

Hi @skintbanker! When you say no garden, do you have a balcony/outside seating space? Do you alreaday have the pots  and if so, what size are they?
@keran77 made some excellent suggestions. 

I have a small, west-facing patio.  No pots as yet.  Well, I have one which has a dead olive tree in, which will obvs be re-used. 

KajiKita

@skintbanker - think about things that grow up - so peas and runner beans. You won’t have room for many plants but the footprint will be small. It would be worth having just a few flowers such as calendula to bring in insects for pollination of them. 

How big is the balcony and how much of it can become growing space? (How much do you want to keep back for a chair, yoga mat etc?) 

Little things like radishes are good in pots. Google growing micro greens as well. 

KK

Farway

skintbanker said:

carinjo said:

skintbanker said:

Hi all.  newbie here.  I have no garden to speak of.  I can do a few pots, and/or windowsill.   What do people recommend to grow, please?  Thank you 

Hi @skintbanker! When you say no garden, do you have a balcony/outside seating space? Do you alreaday have the pots  and if so, what size are they?
@keran77 made some excellent suggestions. 

I have a small, west-facing patio.  No pots as yet.  Well, I have one which has a dead olive tree in, which will obvs be re-used. 

Ideal then, for a quick cheap start you could pop into Asda, and buy living herbs in pots, 85p each, in the veg section, pot them on at home, and you are set for fresh & free herbs for the summer onwards

Another easy one, nasturtiums, pretty, easy, bee friendly & edible

carinjo

I agree with @KajiKita on growing things that go up. I am doing a climbing nasturtium this year along with the climbing beans. Also with west facing you get hot afternoon sun, so again with tomatoes and chillies. With the herb pots you can even split them if you want to replant them. Some will need some shade in the height of summer. And lettuce will bolt if too hot, but your climbing veg can provide shade or hide the pots behind the chairs in the shade (that's what i done last year)
One thing i would suggest pot wise is to try long planters, they take up less floor space. I have build a step for my tomatoes from a half pellet on top of a full pellet. So for a bit more than 1sq metre, got 6 tomatoes and interplanted basil pots from shop. Worked really well.

Hope all the advice helps!

My lettuce have all sprung up sometime yesterday and already they look leggy. Took them out of the plastic bag and onto the window sill. Running my hands over them everytime i pass muttering: grow strong, don't flop over! Not sure that's what is meant with talking to your plants, maybe i'll play them some classicfm, see if that helps! 

KajiKita

@carinjo - I now have visions of your lettuces wafting their leaves around in time to the Blue Danube or some such! 😂😉😊

KK

MissRikkiC

Everything I’ve started is SO leggy it’s falling over. At what point do you take the lids off the propagators btw? 

I’ve also down some spinach somewhere… was a very last minute decision and can’t remember where now. 

My daughters 1 broad bean plant is looking a bit worse for wear in the lean to! I figured that they should be being sown out side now anyway so expected it to be okay. Fingers crossed it makes it 😂 else I’ll be repaying her for wrecking my tomato seedlings 🤣

Farway

MissRikkiC said:

Everything I’ve started is SO leggy it’s falling over. At what point do you take the lids off the propagators btw? 

Take the lids off now, let the air get to them or next thing is mould & mildew

carinjo

I have a staycation next week and looks like all my allotment and planting plans going to disappear under snow warnings! 

Farway said:

MissRikkiC said:

Everything I’ve started is SO leggy it’s falling over. At what point do you take the lids off the propagators btw? 

Take the lids off now, let the air get to them or next thing is mould & mildew

My lettuce are looking a lot better a day after removing them from plastic! 

Suffolk_lass

@skintbanker, just to echo others, a long planter, against the wall of your patio will work well. I bought some cheap black plastic window boxes, years ago (if you don't want to make up from pallets) and they work great, pushed to the edge. I love the idea of interspersing taller and shorter plants - I would start your seeds on a window sill - tomatoes now, cucumber, radishes and lettuces in April. You will need a few canes or other supports but I tip a growbag of compost in to my window boxes and grow seasonal crops, and re-use the compost for flowers next year. I am not great at regularly feeding so a growbag that is primed with feed works well. I am also a fan of growing a snacking cucumber (mini munch is good) alongside tomatoes (sungold orange cherry-tomato would look decorative too), and both will grow to about 1-1.2m and you can underplant mixed salad leaves and radishes for ready-made salads. Pac Choi grow really fast too.

Another good crop is dwarf French Beans which you can get in yellow, green and purple, so they look very decorative. Especially interspersed with a few strawberry plants. A separate herb pot is great too, and Sage, Rosemary and mint are good year-round staples, with oregano parsley and basil for summer (I often buy and separate out the SM pots) and grow these on my windowsill.

Over here I have brought my chilli seeds propagator in from the greenhouse to try and persuade them to germinate (there are lots of tomatoes germinating out in the G-house)