[Closed] Vegetable gardeners: What are you growing?

spuds, peas broccoli and spinach at the mo, need to make room for some more stuff though

Spuds
Carrots
Garlic
Onions
Courgettes
Salad greens
Radishes

..and possibly some other bits

I think onions give the best amount of crop per unit area and effort required. Beets are good as you can use the tops as spinach too 🙂

Hemp 😉

wors - How's the broccoli worked out for you before? I've had good results from purple sprouting but the calabrese was just devoured by the pigeons.

I'm always trying to steal new bits of the garden to grow veggies in. What use is a shrub to anybody?

i was surprised how easy mange toutes are and keep cropping for quite some time

Spuds in one bed, broad beans and lettuces in another.

I have runner beans, tomatoes (moneymaker) and beetroot coming up in the mini-greenhouse too and strawberries out in a planter.

All of this will step up a gear when we get an allottment though.

Pigeons

I fabricated some frames using 12mm plumbing pipe and various elbows, etc. They go over teh beds and netting over the frame, held down by big stones, etc. Easy to remove for tending to the crop

First attempt this yr.

In the house at the moment, until they get big and strong:

basil
tomatoes

In the cheap greenhouse propogator thing:

Onions

In the ground:

coriander
parsley
spring onions
lettuce
radish
carrot
parsnip
potato

in the shed, awaiting planting soon:

curly kale
brussel sprouts

cha****ng-first time i've tried, i grew a few things before but then jnr turned up and then didn't have time, this year he's helped me sow the seeds, just poking through now so fingers crossed, need to get some netting to protect them though.

piedi - Yeah, I had better results growing in a fruit net sort of thing that I made, but the veg never seems to grow in the right direction or to the right height for the frame.

I think I'll just concentrate on stuff the pigeons don't like so much.

Our chickens are taking up the space I was going to use for growing veggies. Have a couple of small beds that I'm going to use mainly for salad leaves and spinach.

We have Peas, carrots, sunflowers and beans all in seed pods all over our house, waiting to sprout.

Have a real monster of a rhubarb plant under cover at the moment 😉

Took on a disused allotment last year, its been hard work clearing the area and have a real problem with Cooch Grass, which means nothing much is going in apart from Potatoes in raised beds.

stumpy - You've just reminded me to get more basil. It's been one of my most reliable and prolific crops in the past. Had a greenhouse full of it the summer before last.

Anyone got any tips on treating a greenhouse to get rid of that green algae stuff? It ruined most of the stuff I put in there last year.

I have a couple of carrot-tops in some water...

If anyone is looking for a good outdoor tomato
'Outdoor Girl' has cropped well for us up the NE when others haven't, small & sweet tasting

We also had lots of trouble with carrot fly until we found out that they can't fly above 2'6" so now all our carrots are grown in barrels & never suffer from it

what am I growing? rabbit food at the moment 👿

chapa - is your greenhouse in the shade?

Miketually - fresh eggs and fresh spinach - yum.

Ski - I had to give my allotment up last year following arrival of baby, but when I needed to clear it I wasn't ashamed of resorting to Roundup to clear it quickly and effectively. Good luck with the couch grass!

This year - going to be trying:

Spuds
Onions
Garlic
Spring Onions
Variety of greens - lettuce etc
Courgettes
Broad Beans
French Beans
Berlotti Beans
Carrots
Tomatoes

All planted in raised beds constructed out of scaffolding boards or in large containers. Hopefully I'll be able to pick some old glazed windows/doors from the tip this year and add some roofed beds for bringing more on from seed going forward.

...and on the fruit side:

Gooseberries
Raspberries
Red currants
Blueberries
Apples
Pears
Rhubarb

We inherited a few canes/bushes when we moved in and discovered a neglected veg/fruit patch - we have 'rennovated' them over the last 2 years and then added some apple / pear / plum trees as well as a selection of other bushes. They seem like less work than the vegs but do require an eye on pests and netting to keep the birds off.

Neither my wife or I had grown anything before we moved in 2 years ago - so don't profess any expertise but it's great getting out and harvesting and it's been a boon in getting our two daughters to eat their greens. On the 'tip' side - our Kale got completely ravaged by caterpillars in our first year but we found companion planting seemed to keep the rest of our crops relatively intact (borage, marigolds etc in the corner of each bed). I'll see if I can dig out the list of flowers we planted - looked really nice too!

Also found sweetcorn to be the biggest waste of time and space relative to crop. Followed closely by pumpkin / squashes...

wors - Yes, there's a 6ft fence to the south and west of it. Is that a cause?

just got some pots outside, planted some broad beans and garlic about 2 months back. They've just started going nuts and growing hyper-quick. We'll only get one meal out of the beans, I should think but enough garlic for a few months. Although gonna try HFW's wet-garlic bhajis. Hmmmmmmm

it can be a cause of algae build up, yes.

Just dug over the veg patch, nothing in it at all right now.

Got no idea what to start with this early. My dad said it was too early but you lot seem to be well under way.

I'm hoping to get out at the weekend and see if the wild garlic is up yet, though I think it's still too early this far north.

tons of wild garlic on the river banks round here. Anyone got a good use / recipe for it?

jimmy, you have got to try and make some Garlic Beer!

Smells like garlic but tastes great aparently 😉

Just got me an allotment, and after a few hard weekends clearing, digging and building raised beds, I've just started planting:

Spud Patch
Maris Piper (in)
Desiree - chitting
King Eds - chitting

Bed 1
Parsnips
Carrots
Beetroot
Turnips

Bed 2
Onions
Shallots
Garlic
Spring Onions
Leeks

Bed 3 (pending!)
Broccoli - purple sprouting and "regular"
Peas
French beans
Courgettes
Cauliflowers

Fruit Bed
Raspberries
Gosseberries
Blueberries
Apple

Will be chucking some salad leaves in wherever there's room 🙂

It's cost me a grand total of about £20 so far for the plants/seeds, and £30 for timber (old scaffolding boards) for the beds. Fingers crossed!

Have you seen the price of rotavators though!

Goes off to moan and groan in the back of the shed..............

just had the first buds show up on my chilli plants 🙂
I just scraped the seeds from a chilli I bought from tesco and stuck them in plant pots.

Anyone using their front gardens to grow veg?

I have a one bed flat, so indoors next to the window i have cherry toms and chillis on the grounds that they will not take up too much space, and that getting the chillis fresh really makes a big difference.

What else is good for the apartment gardener?

Anyone using their front gardens to grow veg?

Yep, onions and garlic.

They just look like flowers that haven't flowered, if you know what I mean.

What else is good for the apartment gardener?

Basil is worth a go, if you like it.

What else is good for the apartment gardener?

a pot with some chives in it is always good

You can grow baby salad leaves with not much room, just plant 'em then pick 'em not long afterwards!

Anyone using their front gardens to grow veg?

Had hanging baskets with tomatoes and chili peppers in last year, lost a few to people helping themselves as they passed.

Used to get the odd half eaten chili's on my doorstep when I came back from work 😉

You could try herb window boxes if space is at a premium?

I have a lemon tree with lemons swelling nicely, got some artichokes growing plus potatoes, chard, will have beans and courgettes later.

and i don't have to specifically grow them as they are everywhere, wild strawberries.

Purple sprouting is just about ready. Can't wait. Wild garlic, don't just take the leaves have ago at the flowers also, look really good in a salad. Kids love eating flowers.

This will be my first season, only planted beetroot so far.
Been setting up my compost factory last week.
[img] [/img]

I ask about the front garden as we have a pretty big garden at the front, which is basically just one big area of lawn. The back garden is taken up with chickens and the kids toys, so there's not a lot of space to grow veg left there. The front garden gats very little use, apart from growing some rosemary.

I was thinking of an edible hedge around the outside - various fruit bushes.

There's a few veg that could serve a semi-decorative purpose.

Chard is quite colourful, Fennel has nice fronds.

Somebody near us has a quince hedge, which looks absolutely beautiful at the moment with lots of tiny pink blossoms.

I was thinking of an edible hedge around the outside - various fruit bushes.

I'd recommend netting if you do this which may spoil the aesthetic somewhat. We didn't in our 1st year and ended up with about 5 raspberries and 15 red currants whilst the pigeons and assorted other wild birds got fat

Oh, if you want edible flowers there is borage (good with pimms) and nastursions (sorry about the spelling, not sure if that's right?) which are great in salads.

This year, we'll also be keeping bumble bees 🙂

http://www.nestbox.co.uk/bumblebeebox.shtml

Talking of raised beds, how high and what do you fill 'em with?

I'm thinking about 16", but not sure what to use as soil. Thinking top soil mixed with well rotted horse manure?.

Ours are two scaffold boards deep, with part of that being sunk into the ground. The insides were lined with waterproof membrane to help prolong the life and to make sure there were less nasties leaching into the soil

[img] [/img]

Picture taken mid-construction.

To fill - this four took a couple of tons of decent topsoil liberally mixed with well rotted manure and garden compost.

Can anyone recommend a good book or website for a total newbie at this? I have some overground land at the rear of my garden which I would like to turn into an allotment this year but I need some direction.

titchmarsh is your friend

After last years bumper crop of chard, I will only be planting a very small number of plants rather than 3 rows of the stuff at one point had half a fridge full of the stuff.

This years crop so far are....
Peas
Purple Beans
Tomatoes
Cucumbers
Baby Sweetcorn
Carrots
Pumpkins
Lettuce
Cabbage
Onions
Spring Onions
Chard

and a number a of herbs

Have found that using various pots (including and old butlers sink) are great for expanding the space I have to grow my veggies.

Can anyone recommend a good book or website for a total newbie at this?

[url= http://www.amazon.co.uk/Grow-your-Own-Eat-Flowerdews/dp/1856268039/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237884457&sr=8-1 ]Bob Flowerdew does[/url] [url= http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gourmet-Gardener-Everything-Prepare-Vegetables/dp/1856267237/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237884457&sr=8-10 ]some excellent books on fruit and veg[/url] and my inlaws swear by the [url= http://www.amazon.co.uk/Grow-Your-Own-Veg-Rhs/dp/1845332938/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237884534&sr=8-1 ]Carol Klein RHS Veggie growing book[/url].

The [url= http://www.amazon.co.uk/RHS-New-Encyclopedia-Gardening-Techniques/dp/1845334086/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237884575&sr=8-5 ]RHS Gardening techniques encylopedia[/url] is pretty good too..

Can anyone recommend a good book or website for a total newbie at this?

I used this and would highly recommend it...

[url= http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/displayProductDetails.do?sku=6037624 ]The Allotment Book[/url]

Very approachable and well laid-out.

Thanks guys, I'll take a look at those.