The ups, the downs and the insides out of growing your own in 2024!

FreeBear

Farway said:

kiss_me_now9 said:

Other than that... I'm a bit lost. We're vegetarian so eat most vegetables but I always end up growing the same things and I'd love to try something new. South facing garden but there's a huge (and I mean huge) fir tree in our right hand neighbours garden that covers the sun most of the day - the sunniest spot is where the green house is and that gets sun around 70% of the day in summer. We've got a medium sized veg plot at the back and were trying to make some new ones in front of it but as I'm planning to do no dig I could expand this very easily. I'd like to try carrots but because the soil is so tough they never grow well. Have done potatoes in the past but find them a bit of a pain to keep earthing up and I'd prefer a patch that is largely low maintenance. 

You don't mention fruit, sounds like you have space for some. 

How about some apple trees? Mini orchard kind of thing.

Planted a plumcot (an apricot/plum cross) last year. Going to be a while before I see any fruit though.

Farway

FreeBear said:

Farway said:

kiss_me_now9 said:

Other than that... I'm a bit lost. We're vegetarian so eat most vegetables but I always end up growing the same things and I'd love to try something new. South facing garden but there's a huge (and I mean huge) fir tree in our right hand neighbours garden that covers the sun most of the day - the sunniest spot is where the green house is and that gets sun around 70% of the day in summer. We've got a medium sized veg plot at the back and were trying to make some new ones in front of it but as I'm planning to do no dig I could expand this very easily. I'd like to try carrots but because the soil is so tough they never grow well. Have done potatoes in the past but find them a bit of a pain to keep earthing up and I'd prefer a patch that is largely low maintenance. 

You don't mention fruit, sounds like you have space for some. 

How about some apple trees? Mini orchard kind of thing.

Planted a plumcot (an apricot/plum cross) last year. Going to be a while before I see any fruit though.

Oh, that sounds interesting, did you buy a tree or is it from a stone you had?

rtandon27

At our old house (a rental) most of my gardening was done in containers to compliment the already well stocked garden. 
Some of the pots are still going, including a few that are by the back door filled with mystery bulbs! They are all starting to come up and since the labels have long since faded it will be a surprise when they do eventually flower! Must remember to relabel them this year! 

FreeBear

Farway said:

FreeBear said:

Farway said:

kiss_me_now9 said:

Other than that... I'm a bit lost. We're vegetarian so eat most vegetables but I always end up growing the same things and I'd love to try something new. South facing garden but there's a huge (and I mean huge) fir tree in our right hand neighbours garden that covers the sun most of the day - the sunniest spot is where the green house is and that gets sun around 70% of the day in summer. We've got a medium sized veg plot at the back and were trying to make some new ones in front of it but as I'm planning to do no dig I could expand this very easily. I'd like to try carrots but because the soil is so tough they never grow well. Have done potatoes in the past but find them a bit of a pain to keep earthing up and I'd prefer a patch that is largely low maintenance. 

You don't mention fruit, sounds like you have space for some. 

How about some apple trees? Mini orchard kind of thing.

Planted a plumcot (an apricot/plum cross) last year. Going to be a while before I see any fruit though.

Oh, that sounds interesting, did you buy a tree or is it from a stone you had?

Purchased as a bare rooted tree - Grafted on to a dwarfing root stock, so it shouldn't grow more than ~3m high.

Suffolk_lass

I bought two apple trees on the smallest rootstock about five years ago and they have both really struggled. It is probably our rural position but both produce tiny fruits. They are in the small (too small to call an orchard, really) orchard area with a russet, another same group pollinator apple, a cherry and a universal pollinator (crab apple). There is a bramley and two other apple trees nearby in our garden.  Something to ponder and explore. I don't think I would want anything bigger than M26 rootstock or they would take over, but from memory, they are on M9.

In the meantime I found somewhere selling Black Russian tomato seeds and ordered some

-taff

I thought that the problem with folowing potatoes with tomatoes or vice versa was the risk of disease because they're both in the solanaceae family. Blight spores exist in the soil regardless and get splashed about the place in  rainy weather which is why it doesnt happen so much in greenhouses. Botrytis does though and that can look similar to blight.

With the seeds and looking for new ones, join your local gardening group for your area [or start one if there isn't] and see about organising a seed swap. Good for meeting other local gardeners too. There was an article regarding plants which become used ot local conditions over time, so those kinds of seeds are alos on the hit list of things to look for.

This year I'm growing the usual suspects, beans, toms, celery, rocket, kale, pumpkins/squash, zucchine but also hoping to add in some ones I've grown before but not for years, tomatilloes and some other stuff I've forgotten until I find the seed packets I stashed away somewhere safe...

I tried flowers from seed last year for the first time and I was surprised at how easy they were, I'd always done veg and bought any flowers from the gc. This did up my compost requirements though so I threw caution to the wind and started proagating heucheras and all sorts and I finally finally! managed to take some rosemary cuttings that are still alive now from my mothers rosemary plant outside which has come to the soth west via italy and then wales. It is very resinous and has white flowers and is starting to flower now. I love it, it's a completely different smell and look from the other rosemary I got off a friend that had been in a pot for twenty years but now looks like a lush tropical version of rosemary.

And since we had the tree cut down my bay tree is brown and crispy so it was obviously doing a grand job of protecting it in the winter but now I'm in two minds whether to leave it in case it revoers or just put something there.

Sorry, late night waffling alert.

~FlowerPot~

hello, is there room for another one??

We have a very large garden and its split up with a lovely allotment area in the middle. We inherited this layout when we moved here 8 years ago and it works very well. However last 2 years I have done very little veg growing in the garden due to various health / child related issues and so this year I am really needed a rocket up you know where to kick start me to getting the beds sorted out.

we have about 12 beds the first one to sort is the asparagus bed as they wont be too long, shockingly I didnt even harvest very much last year. DH decided he doeasnt like it !!! and the children are stupidly fussy!

Apart from the veg area we have an awful lot to do, the boundary hedge on one side was all box and its been killed by the box moth caterpiller about 25/30 meters. so thats in the process of being dug out and then there are 2 further areas ofthe hedge around the garden that also need to be dug out.

ANyway, hopefully if I post on here it will help me stay accountable! im looking forward to seeing what everyone is going to grow this year for inspiration!!

ArbitraryRandom

-taff said:

Blight spores exist in the soil regardless and get splashed about the place in  rainy weather which is why it doesnt happen so much in greenhouses. 

I thought the spores travelled on the wind (as well as insects/water etc), so if blights heading in your way you can reduce the risk by keeping the windows closed on the greenhouse? But that's just based on my grandad being ranty whenever anyone left the door to his greenhouse open  

-taff

Im sorry, i wasn't very specific there and a bit generalising, but the spores move by wind but alos get deposited on the ground, so splashing water will throw them onto the plant, as well as being wind blown...

This could be interesting because I decided to read a bit about it and I'm a bit confused about where they actually come from because if what I was reading was right, late tomato blight can't survive except on living tissue, live plants, but obviously, there'd be nothing left after winter in most peoples gardens so where does it come from? And if it was coming from commerical tomato growers, they'd be burning their infected plants asap to avoid infecting all the rest of them, so how come the country is virtually blanketed in blight every tme conditions allow [but never in the greenhouse, crossed fingers, so far anyway]....

I'm happy to be told the nitty gritty because I do have a habit of being constantly wrong about stuff

ArbitraryRandom

I think it can live in potato tubers (because they don't die over winter) and I guess if you're not careful about composting your tomatoes some of the plant material might be dormant rather than completely dead until spring (you can apparently overwinter tomatoes if they are kept frost free and a compost heap might be warm enough)...?

I'd also kind of assume that other plants in the nightshade family (weeds maybe) could also host spores and might be more hardy/not cleared at the end of a season.