Show Us Your Veg Patch - You Know You Want To!! (Merged Thread)

MRSMCAWBER

Hi there

Im having a go at melons without a green house this year...they need a sheltered warm sunny spot though, and not to near cucumbers if you can help it as they can cross polinate and make the cucumbers grow all deformed and bitter -
will go and have a look at the melons Im having a go at so i can tell you the variety
here it is -Im having a go at this one
http://www.mr-fothergills.co.uk/catalogue/product/1990-1/

although this one looks like a better option
http://www.mr-fothergills.co.uk/catalogue/product/2315-1/

If you are having a go at them -keep nets from onions, oranges etc -they make great hammocks for the fruits once they get going -to support their weight and keep the lower ones away from slugs etc

buddywitch

MRSMCAWBER wrote: »

thankyou


My brassica tent is 3 arches @ €2 each -6 crates and some mosquito curtains from a broken gazebo (knew they would come in for something :rotfl: ) even if the netting only lasts the year it will have earnt its keep -and I will darn it to within an inch of its life if need be :rotfl:

Your greenhouse looks great:T , Where did you buy the arches?

MRSMCAWBER

buddywitch wrote: »

Your greenhouse looks great:T , Where did you buy the arches?

Thankyou
Im affraid I got them out here in Germany -they were reduced to €2 as the boxes were squished -I grabbed all 9 :rotfl: -hubby thought I had lost the plot -but they are all up and about to be used:j

They are only the basic tubular metal ones standing in collapsible crates lined with card and filled with compost.. but im not sure where the cheapest place in the uk is for them... possibly wilkos might be worth a look -Im sure someone will know where they have them at a good price

Hubby has just come home with a big roll of bubble wrap (free :T ) -so now my mind is thinking about covering the frame with bubble wrap for over winter once the brassicas are done :rotfl:..

Once we move back to the uk for good Im thinking of making all 9 arches into 3 of those frames(but full height -that one has a section of leg taken out) and covering 2 with thick plastic and keeping one with net
blue peter have nothing on me :rotfl:

buddywitch

I managed to get a load of free veg seeds from Daily Mirror @ Somerfield on saturday, i was really lucky when i went to get my free perenial seeds on sunday and i asked if they had any veg ones left over and the assistant gave me another 3 free packets!

I got:

Cabbage - Wheelers imperial - 200 seeds pkt
Cauliflower - All year - 20- seed pkt
Tomatoes- Gardeners delight - 65 seeds pkt
Spring Onions -White lisbon - 200 seeds pkt
Carrot - Early Nantes - 1500 seeds pkt

Im going to pot up the cauli, toms and cabbage and try and sell the plants at a car boot sale to earn a bit of spare cash.

Doom_and_Gloom

We finished making the salad and herb planter (old crate with laminate for the sides hehe) and filled half with rubble (deep planter) and the rest with compost. Managed to get a palet off next door that we will make into a raised bed for blackberries and blueberries . Next door were going to burn the pallet :eek: so I've got a raised bed for nothing as I'm using laminate my dad ripped up and hasn't gotton rid of to make the sides just like I did the planter . It'll only be about 6-8 inches deep but that should be okay.

I have sown peas, leeks, brussel sprouts, broccoli, spinach beet, chives, coriander, parsley, basil, mesculun (rocket, chervil and endive) and mix lettuce (iceberg, cos and butterhead) as well as planted the mint plant in it's new place as it managed to live through the winter . I swear I'd call mint a weed if I didn't want to grow it :rotfl:.

hathor

Fayjmck- I just got some sub arctic tomato seeds via ebay from premier seeds direct. Not a bad price, I thought, for 10 seeds, and they arrived really quickly. They are just germinating in cottage cheese tubs with clear lids on my kitchen windowsill now. I figured they'd be worth a go if we get our 3rd wet summer in a row!

hathor

In my balcony a-pot-ment I have beetroot seeds, mixed leaves seeds, last year's spring cabbage about to come out, spinach seedlings (sown in situ), carrot Amsterdam (some sown in containers, some transplanted in loo rolls), broad beans over-wintered in situ from about October (they've got greenfly already, would you believe?), spring onion seeds, swiss chard (for salad leaves), Parmex carrots, land cress seeds, and a raspberry cane surviving from last year. Most of the crates have fleece over them at the mo, as my balcony's rather windy, but most things seem to be germinating so far.

I'll be planting out tomatoes Marmande, Moneymaker, Sub-Arctic Plenty, & Tumbling Tom later, plus a red onion squash, bush courgette, and some french beans & mange tout. All my containers are home-made self-waterers, so that helps overcome some of the disadvantages of growing on a windy site not anywhere near a tap!

I'll also be growing some sweet peppers in pots indoors.

Doom_and_Gloom

When I bought my marrow seeds and rosemary seeds yesterday I went and bought another variety of tomato seed (so I will now be growing 5 different varieties) . I’ve heard so many people saying about the yield a tumbling tomato plant produces and decided to buy some. It cost me £3.64 for the marrow, rosemary and tomato seeds which I’m rather pleased about (should have cost £5.14). I do have a rule when buying seeds or indeed plants though. They have to be plants I and/or my parents eat, or ones that I have never tried and like the sound of!

My only problem is cramming all the plants I’m growing this year in the 15ft by 9.5ft plot as well as the 7ft by 12.5ft and 3ft by 15ft concrete areas I have next to it that I got permission to use by my dad (it was the wasteland area of our garden overgrown with thorns and other kind of weeds. The fact that my partner is making it all usable and I‘m doing something constructive on it won‘t make my dad budge on giving me any more room than what he‘s given me). I will be using planters my partner has made, raised beds (that partner has made), pots and grow bags on the concrete area. All I’m hoping to leave as blank space in my area of the garden is that what I need to walk and harvest in :rotfl: .

hathor

Inspiring, D & G!
Don't forget "vertical gardening", too, if you've a wall or a fence that can be pressed into service. You can add extra containers above ground level, so long as you clear the expected height of what's planted underneath & don't make too much shade. Bush or tumbling varieties - tomatoes, beans, courgettes, to name a few - lend themselves very well to starting life "higher up", and there's less bending for the gardener, too!

Lotus-eater

Doom_and_Gloom wrote: »

My only problem is cramming all the plants I’m growing this year in the 15ft by 9.5ft plot as well as the 7ft by 12.5ft and 3ft by 15ft concrete areas I have next to it that I got permission to use by my dad (it was the wasteland area of our garden overgrown with thorns and other kind of weeds. The fact that my partner is making it all usable and I‘m doing something constructive on it won‘t make my dad budge on giving me any more room than what he‘s given me). I will be using planters my partner has made, raised beds (that partner has made), pots and grow bags on the concrete area. All I’m hoping to leave as blank space in my area of the garden is that what I need to walk and harvest in :rotfl: .

In some ways a smaller garden is better than a big plot. You can make it super productive and really cram the crops in when you get experienced enough. You can tend the soil and add as much organic matter as possible so it is the best soil in the world, you can't do that with a big plot so easily.
It is easy to keep tidy and weed free, I know it doesn't seem big enough, but learn to deal with that size plot well and then you will be ready to move on if you still want to. I've seen many people grow absolutely loads of produce on tiny areas smaller than the area I have put my potatoes in.
Show your Dad you can deal with what you have and next year he might give you a bit more space, not sure how much more he has to give?
Look at it like this, when I was young I wanted to grow stuff at home and wasn't allowed an area apart from a horrible shaded area which I protested wouldn't grow anything (and didn't) but they still didn't give me anything. A bit later I entered gorilla gardening and found some strawberry plants in an abandoned garden and transplanted them into a flowerbed where eventually (somehow ) the flowers all died and my strawberries took over.
The bug was with me and has been there for the last 25 years, you have plenty of time to learn and acquire a bigger plot.