The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Growing => Vegetables => Topic started by: sandalfarm on January 17, 2013, 07:30:20 pm
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Hiya, does anyone manage to grow lots of things from their plot in the frozen north? I've had one year on my sheltered plot and managed some lovely parsnips, carrots and kale. The leeks were a disaster! The broad beans were sparse. The sprouts were fine except the damn chickens got to them. Grrr. Getting a greenhouse soon (no room for my polytunnel here) but wonder if anyone has any tips.
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Hello and welcome from arbroath
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I use a little leanto greenhouse for raising the seedlings and then plant them out onto our very exposed beds (we are about 800ft up, directly facing onto the edge of the Cairngorms).
The little leanto is sited on the only sheltered wall of the house and gets dismantled in the autumn and isnt put up until gales fun has subsided in late April, so it is a short growing season.
Nothing tall copes with the wind, so I havent any runner or french beans. However brassicae, carrots, onions, etc all do very well. My fave are the cabbages, its just so amazing to get a huge line of them from a few seeds! I use it in stir frys as well as steamed and also to make coleslaw which I love.
If I win the lottery I am going to get myself a Keder greenhouse like they have in the Falklands (and on the Beechgrove Garden programme on TV) but we have enough room for that (just not the money to get it). A greenhouse would have to have plastic panes here - there are far too many things flying through the air when the wind gets up for us to risk glass, and the wind itself would probably blow out the panes.
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leeks are a hungry plant so I prepare the plot by digging in well rotted horse muck in November or earlier if I can. I grow peas, turnip, beetroot, salad stuff, potatoes, parsnips. strawberries, rhubarb, cooking apples and black currents. Now and again spring onions if I have space. I live at Gamrie near Banff.
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If you've got a sheltered plot, I imagine you can have a good go at anything that doesn't require a very long season. Remember you have much more daylight in summer up there than further South. I've got friends in Sweden who are further North than you who grow pretty much everything I grow (in Kent) - no sweetcorn and some things under cover that I'd have out - but I guess most things are worth a try. If you had an exposed plot it would be harder but it sounds like you don't...
Broad beans are reasonably hardy (mine have selfseeded and are currently growing through the frozen ground and snow) so the sparsity is probably down to the quality of the ground rather than your location.
H
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Hi, we're right up north and have to grow a lot in the polytunnel (runner beans, courgettes etc). Our tatties do really well but carrots, cabbage, parsnips have to be under mesh as we suffer really badly from cabbage root/carrot fly. I find that fleece until things are established works wonders.
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Is it a myth or can you grow tomatoes in Scotland?
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You can grow tomatoes in Scotland, in a greenhouse or poly tunnel! Nearly impossible to grow them outside, unless you maybe have a walled garden.
We used to produce 2 tonnes of tomatoes a week in the late seventies/ early eighties in central Scotland, but by mid eighties holland was producing tomatoes cheaper than we were...
Beth