Please help me become OS

sarah1

You can grow some tomatoes in your greenhouse now. Plants are for sale at car boot sales or your garden centres. I paid 20p each for mine the other week, and they are doing really well.You can get black buckets from your florist for around 20p each, drill about 10 holes in the bottom for drainage then put some broken up polystyrene or broken clay pots in the bottom (a couple of layers deep to cover the holes that you have made)
Fill 2/3 with a grow bag (one grow bag does 4 buckets) put your plant in and then fill to one inch from the top with compost and water well.
I use buckets instead of grow bags because i find they get better support.
you need to put some 4 foot bamboo canes in to give them some support i put them one inch from the plant base when i plant the tomatoes. I then put three buckets in a row about 12 inches apart, then a cane in each and a couple across (one at the top and one half way down) like a H shape. then either tie these on or i use rip ties then cut off the excess.
When the p[lants start to grow loosely tie them to the stake for support.
and when the flowers start to appear , start to feed them with liquid tomato feed (from the pound shop). They will be ready in no time.
Good luck and let us know how you get on. sarah1

Chipps

One thing that has helped me become OS is to find old cookery books 2nd hand. They will often give lists of basics, as well as tell you how to cook whats in season.
I have to admit I do envy you your garden, ours is about 30ft square, & we have a pond, shed, greenhouse, lawn & tiny veg plot crammed in there somehow.

apprentice_tycoon

A few thoughts on your garden - you are a little late for this year but you have had a few ideas offered about tomatoes etc. anything you can grow now will be a bonus. You are in plenty of time for next year though, you have months to think, plan and prepare. I think that it would be a good idea to get hold of library books etc and read as much as you can about growing vegetables.
Because you are not going to be able to dig very much I suggest that you make raised beds or failing that, fixed beds. The reason is that once you have got these beds prepared you never walk on them again, therefore they don't get compacted which would usually mean that they need to be dug over every spring.
A raised or fixed bed needs to be no wider than 4 feet so you can reach in from either side to the middle and not too long also, if it's too long to walk around there will be a strong temptation to take a short cut over it....no feet on the beds!
Another labour saving way of cultivating is to grow things in big buckets, I have or had mangetout, carrots, potatoes and strawberries all in buckets.

MrsMW

I can't dig the garden so as well as growing stuff in buckets, I grow lettuce, tomatoes and baby carrots in windowboxes and hanging baskets.

Galtizz

Thinking about it, now is the perfect time to plan for next year, most garden centres, supermakets and places like woolworths that only sell vegetable seeds during spring and early summer will be having 1/2 price sales soon so you'll be able to get all of your seeds 1/2 price :beer: (just make sure they will still be in date for next year)

Aril

I have bought a HM jam with rhubarb and ginger which was very tasty and I vaguely recall that you can serve rhubarb with meat. A friend of mine has told me that raspberry vodka is lovely [maybe not very OS] which is simply a case of adding raspberries to a bottle of vodka and leaving it to infuse over a few months. Guess it would be ready by the end of the year
Regards
Aril

Lillibet_2

Aril wrote:

A friend of mine has told me that raspberry vodka is lovely [maybe not very OS] which is simply a case of adding raspberries to a bottle of vodka and leaving it to infuse over a few months. Guess it would be ready by the end of the year
Regards
Aril

Yes that is how you make flavoured vodka, you can also do it with blackberries & elderberries (you need to !!!!!! these) & it works even better if you put the vodka thru a water filter jug a few times before adding the fruit;) You can also use rum if you don't like vodka. Strain the fruit out after about 3-4 months, you can then turn this into boozy jam or freeze & serve over ice cream etc or wizz up in a blender for grown up smoothies:D If you do the vodka/rum now it'll be ready for Xmas;)

Zziggi

We spent yesterday evening clearing the greenhouse. Only did a good half hour before we were worn out but it was amazing how much we cleared in 1/2 hour. Also found half a can of tomato feed still in there (in date) so that's a bonus.

Went to the garden centre this morning and bought some tomarto plants, an a couple of pepper plants and a tray of lettuces to grow. Obviously it'd be better and cheaper from seed but thsi year we had to buy them like this.

re: raised veg beds
forgot to mention there is kind of plan like this already there and whenever we have gone on the veg path, we've stuck to the walkway. Maybe this should limit what we need to do t get the soil ready.

Zziggi

Galtizz wrote:

Hi Zziggi and welcome to Old style.

Have you been through the welcome thread? You can link straight to it from the read this first bit in my signature, that should help with what to have in a store cupboard and also where to start with OSing, though it sounds like you've made a great start witht he slow cooker :T .

Thank Galtizz, have checked the welcome thread out, and the monthly challenges. i'm already a coupon monster and never step foot inside a supermarket without my wad of coupons (according to OH, if i they take less than about 2/3rds of my bill in coupons i'm as mardy as can be for the rest of the day!)

Maybe i could cut my bill down even more with OS?

Zziggi

Re: Breadmaker probs

I have a breadmaker but have given up on it because i was finding i got unreliable loaves (sometimes rose, sometimes not). The breadmaker i've got it LG HB-152CE = http://www.ogormans.ltd.uk/erol.html#124x0&&http%3A%252F%252Fwww.google.co.uk%252Fsearch%3Fhl%3Den%26ie%3DISO-8859-1%26q%3DLG+hb-152ce+bread+makers%26meta%3D

I've been using the recipe(for a 1lb loaf):
200ml water
350g bread flour
1tsp salt
1 1/2 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon dried milk powder
1/2 oz. butter/marg
1 tsp dried yeast. (allinson dried yeat)
I've been putting them in this order in the breadmaker (as recipe instructs) on the setting they advise.

bread hasn't been rising well, can anyone suggest how i can get more reliable loaves please? can i substiute (expensive) bread flour for cheaper plain/S.R. flour? do i need to use different yeast?

Any advice would be great- thanks