GROWING VEGETABLES ADVICE NEEDED

[butterfly]

Hi! I'm going to spend my weekend sorting out my garden and putting up the two little plastic greenhouses I bought last year. Last year we started growing our own veg with the children with varied success. Potatoes were great, we managed one carrot, the lettuce got eaten by slugs and the strawberries were extremely small!

Does anyone have any advice on what is easy to grow and what I should be planting now? Last year lots of our needs needed to be germinated but I didn't know where to put them so they went outside but didn't grow. Do they need to be inside or can I get away with putting them in the plastic greenhouse?

Any advice greatly received!

[Toothfairy]

I have a very small garden (40ft) and it is paved over, so I grow our fruit/veg in pots and grow bags.

I found the eaisiest fruit/veg to grow have been;

Tomatoes (in a grow bag)
Runner beans (in a grow bag)
Strawberries in a hanging basket (stops the slugs)
Lettuce (in a large seed tray)
Peppers (in a pot)

I have a great book called 'Crops in pots' it shows you how to grow easy fruit/veg.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Crops-Pots-C.../dp/0600615510

HTH

[Ripeberry]

It's all a bit too early at the moment. The best time is mid-late March, start them off in the greenhouse. Just prepare the soil and get as many perenial weeds out as you can, such as couch grass (white filaments) and dandelions, dig all the root out.
Maybe apply a general fertiliser on it.
The best and easiest plants to grown (after 10 yrs of trying) are:

Potatoes
Toms in growbags
Sweetcorn
Runner beans
Cucumbers (greenhouse)
French beans
Mange tout
Pumpkins or other squashes (if you have space next to the compost bin)

The last two years I've been planting out later and later as spring has been so cold lately. But plants soon catch up and I love early June when everything is lovely in the garden.

If you want salad crops, then best to do them in container with a copper band around it (stops the slugs) and the best salad leaves are from varieties that allow you to pick them off without pulling up the whole plant. Also if you grow Spinach, nothing will eat that, but the young leaves are delicious.

Good luck, lets hope we get a better summer

[sweets]

i cant wait to get growing again!

you can most veg to grow in pots, best thing is to go to the garden centre now and look at the back of all the packets to see how to do it and then you can work out how much space or how many pots you need.

[butterfly]

So excited! My daugter and I just went out and bought a load of resources for the garden and seeds to plant! We've got strawberries, peppers, onions, runner beans and tomatoes! I've bought specil grow bags for some and i got some seed trays for the greenhouse! I also bought a notice board to put up in the hallway to show the parents what we're up to in the garden!!

[manjay]

It's a bit early just yet even for the green house. I have a full size one and we have tried most things over the years and I would agree with Ripeberry on the best things to grow. This year we have had sprouts and leeks in over winter which is great as the beds are usually empty at this time of the year. Be really careful with grow bags as they tend to dry out very quickly in warm weather.

We also love growing a variety of flowers and the collecting then seeds to use again next year.

This year I also invested in some special fruit trees which are designed to grow in large patio pots. We have an apple tree with 3 different varieties on it. A pear tree and also a cherry tree.

Good luck. We spend an enormous amount of time in the green house once it starts to get warmer

[charlie potato]

'This year I also invested in some special fruit trees which are designed to grow in large patio pots. We have an apple tree with 3 different varieties on it. A pear tree and also a cherry tree.'



If my other half reads this i think we'll end up with an orchard as he's already mad on growing veg.

[mushpea]

I am getting some of these for the allotment this year,,how long do they take to bear fruit?

[Roseolivia]

I love growing things. I'm going to start at the end of the month and put things in our spare bedroom as it's warmer in there than the greenhouse.
In the greenhouse we have the following:
Herbs (easy)
Cucumbers (hard to grow but succeeded on the 2nd go)
Peppers (easy)
Chilli's (easy)
Tomatoes (easy)
Strawberries (ours didn't do well last year)
Potatoes (easy and got loads from the potatoes for schools)
In the garden:
Corgettes (really easy but if not picked straightaway turns into marrows)
Carrots (easy)
Salad (easy)
Peas (easy)
Onions (easy)
Garlic (didn't grow)
Beetroot and radish (very easy and quick growing)
Pumpkin (easy)