The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Growing => Vegetables => Topic started by: Fleecewife on December 06, 2016, 11:52:48 am
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Usually by this time of year I'm really looking forward to next years' growing season :garden: . This year I haven't got to that point yet. Maybe it's because I know I'm going to have to reduce what I grow even further. I've been going through my list of what I usually grow, and scoring each thing for 'do I like to grow it?' and 'do we actually eat it?' There is an additional group for 'does it feed those hateful spider mites and have to be burnt anyway ?'.
So - I love growing onions, they don't succumb to mites, but they don't store well at all for me, as our growing conditions are too wet. So they're off the list. I'll give shallots one more year. I've already planted the garlic and that seems to do well, and yes we eat it.
Courgettes and various squashes - I really love growing them but nearly all the crop is wasted and ends up on the compost heap. With just two of us we simply don't have room to eat all I grow. They are a bit susceptible to mite too. So sadly they're off the list.
Sweet corn - love growing it, love eating it, but it's one of the first things for the mites to attack - this year we had to burn the lot before we ate any.
Cucumbers - oh dear - I love growing them, love eating them, but they are the other plant most susceptible to mite - I think it has to be a no.
A few other things have gone too, or will only be grown outside (ghastly weather here most of the time, so will struggle, but we'll see)
So you see why I'm not as excited this year as I usually am. I need my veggie growing TAS friends to inspire me ;D
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Already last month I said I want the summer back lol
I think I really need to go to a country with really short winter? Australia?
I had a fantastic harvest of courgettes, marrows and winter squashed this year!!!
We still have 5-10kg squashes - blue hubbard and uchiki kuri are by far the nicest tasting (sweetest) winter squashes I grew. Will definitely grow them next year, as well I try some new varieties - pink banana, delicate.
Cucumbers didn't do very well, I had some but not that many. Perhaps I'll try a different variety next year.
Tomatoes... my dear tomatoes... we're growing brilliantly well. Massive plants with loads of fruit. The problem is... before most of them ripened there were ALL killed by the blight!!! Such a shame :'(
Sweet corn grows really well here. Last year I had a lot. This year I think I planted it too late and it was overgrown by weeds. I.e. didn't fruit fast enough to ripen on time... will definitely grow it again.
Another thing I will definitely grown next year is variety of beans. Was so pleased with them this year!
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Yep super excited.
I am really looking forward to trying to grow corn again. this year failed big time.
I also plan to get a variety of tomatoes, Giant Achoocha, Regular achoocha, Sunflowers and potatoes.
I will also be experimenting with some vertical carrot and onion growing
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Totally - i'm currently without a small holding so my veg plot is as good as it gets ( I may be adding chickens if my landlord says okay)
I had a big dig over session yesterday and I'll be doing more today - the plan is to totally rebuild/rearrange the plot into 1.2 metre square plots so i can use the 'square metre gardening" approach (yeah I know ive got 4x4 not 3x3) instead of row planting , and my intention is to grow pretty much everything.
Potatoes, carrots, corgette, lettuce, spring onions, raddish, beetroot, parsnip, leeks , spinach , onions and erm other stuff (tomatoes will go in the glassed in porch as outdoor ones didnt do well)
Chillis, peppers, and basil will go on the kitchen windowsill (which is the warmest room in the house due to the rayburn)
I also tried a hotbox last year (living on a dairy farm means ample manure) but i was unconvinced as i got lots of leaf and not much fruit from the squash and corgette. So that's getting converted into a cold frame
and the herb bed is getting moved to two big troughs closer to the kitchen door , and the really big bed (one railway sleeper by two) is getting a fruit cage built over it and planted up with fruity goodness - the raspberries, goosberies and blackberries are already in half of it so the other half will probably be dwarf apple /pear/ damson trees.
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Strangely not really :o Usually I am making plans and tidying up the garden. Its because the flu took it right out of me this year and now I am trying to avoid the cold as much as possible..... So much needs to be done and so little time. I am going to, hopefully, be maxing my supply of veg/fruit in the coming years, starting with another garden being made this winter for next years veg. Just trying to figure out and plan what to sow/plant. The usual will be very good, courgettes, pumpkins, squashes, runner beans, dwarf french beans, frech climbing beans. Going to be adding more varieties of tomato, some sweetcorn, if room, some broad beans, barlotti beans and also some peas. So should be rather busy! :)
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Our seed order has already been submitted :excited: we belong to an organic gardening group so submit a bulk order and get a good discount. Started putting muck on the potato plot today then need to get the other beds sorted including the two polytunnels. Got two more gooseberry plants and three blackcurrant plants ready to go in a anytime, and will be making a raised bed for strawberries to try to beat the weeds. Cant wait!!
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Our seed order has already been submitted :excited: we belong to an organic gardening group so submit a bulk order and get a good discount. Started putting muck on the potato plot today then need to get the other beds sorted including the two polytunnels. Got two more gooseberry plants and three blackcurrant plants ready to go in a anytime, and will be making a raised bed for strawberries to try to beat the weeds. Cant wait!!
could you tell me what the group is called? Sounds very interesting..... :thinking:
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Lost the plot last year :innocent: weeds took over big time. Managed Runner beans and peas at home but nothing on the smallholding.....but I have lost lots of weight this year and can now move around better, so Today I have managed to dig over and weed the first bed 2.4 x1.2 m . Would love to get the polytunnel covered for next year and in production.
Hope to grow red onions and shallots, brussels, spuds, tomatoes, cucumbers, runnerbeans, peas, corgettes and pumpkins.
Can anybody tell me what variety of beans produce kidney beans?
Happy growing
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Hi WBF its the Lincolnshire Organic Gardeners Organisation. We are affiliated to the Henry Doubleday Association (Chase Organics). We normally order our seds through them but they have changed their catalogue issue dates which doesnt fit with our distributon dates so we are ordering from Tamar Organics
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It's lovely to hear how positive you all are and your plans for the coming year ;D .
Unfortunately our veg garden is in the only place it could be, as I'm tempted to start again on fresh ground, where there are no weeds.
Keep talking and you'll have me being positive again :garden: Choosing the seeds for next year is always inspiring, so that should help.
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I will be growing beans as always - runner and climbing French - easy to grow and we love them. Lost nearly all of them to aphids last year as I was away for a week and they had taken over. I usually attack them with the hose on jet but they had too much of a hold after a week. I love growing squashes even though I'm the only one who eats them. Make lovely soup from them as well.
I'm cutting down on tomatoes this time. I cut down on the quantity in the greenhouse this year and the dreaded blight was a lot later in the year so I managed to salvage most of the crop but the outside ones didn't do so well as they fruit later when the blight had arrived. So no more outside tomatoes in future. I will also grow beetroot because it love it and can eat one like an apple while preparing another one for my salad. Mixed salad leaves are a must as well. And radishes. I don't much like cucumber so don't grow them. OH doesn't do salad at all.
I grew black kale for the first time this year and loved it so I will probably put a few more seeds in next year, So basically, next year will be a repeat of this. ;D
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In reality my season has not ended , it never ends it's all part of a continuous cycle .
The green house originated spring greens were set out a few weeks ago so were the all year round cauli, I brought late garden germinated lettuces into the glasshouse so what ever teh weather we'll have lettuce from 21 Dec till well into the new year on a cut & come again basis . A few spring onions were also transplanted in to a big tub in the glasshouse .
I've put all twelve geranium tubs in the glasshouse .. some are still trying to break into flower .
Two 7 year old plums trees & two 7 year old apple trees were taken out & given to a friend as a present for the start off a 40 tree orchard at their farm .
For the last few weeks I've also been sowing many many seeds from all manner of trees some of which are cypress, Welsh oak . Irish oak , Douglas pine , larch, sycamore , eucalyptus & several others . to try and get them to grow onto specimen bonsai trees.
Tomorrow as it's forecast warmish I think I'll give it a session ,putting in a dozen broad beans , some more onion sets and ther rest of the harvested garlic as this year our garlic just . I'll also take the walnuts & almonds that have been sat in heat sealed bags of damp compost out the fridge .. they have been sat there for four or more months at 3 oC so should have been stratified long enough for it to be safe to try and get them out in deep pots on the outside bonsai bench .
The next growing season will see me sow celeriac , as we love the strong taste of celery in soups & stews .
If funds allow , we may even get a decent tray dehydrator with timer & temp control and start drying some of the fruits & veg we like so we can eat them all year round . That may drastically alter what we sow from that moment on.
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I'm a rubbish gardener. I think part of the problem is that I don't really like veg very much :innocent:
Our veg garden currently looks like it's been abandoned, but I'm planning to get on with weeding it tomorrow. Give myself a clean slate for next year when I will endeavour to do better. THat's the best bit about veg gardening - you can just clear away all your disasters in November and start fresh.
I've bought my seeds from the Real Seed Company - so no F1s for me this year.
Still trying to get my head round using the polytunnel for anything apart from tomatoes. Still, it might have chooks in it shortly ::)
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Now with the Avian Flu regs enforced I'm quite pleased my tunnel has some gaps in. That's where my poultry are going to have to spend the next 30 days. I can cover the leeks, I can cover the garlic, but I think the geese will demolish the brassicas which are dotted around as they were self sown and can't realistically be covered. There's nothing else important in there at the moment, and we have nowhere else for the birds to go under cover.
There's an upside of course - they'll do a great job cleaning and fertilising the ground for the coming year :thumbsup:
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very excited about the new season, as it'll be our first veg growing season in our new smallholding!!! It's a total blank canvass as far as veg is concerned. There is a 1 acre field which the house and barn sit in, and we're intending on dividing that up to make the veg/fruit beds. A very modest polytunnel will go up on the original garden boundary (so as to avoid planning/PD concerns for a while). Perhaps we'll have a proper polytunnel in a couple of years once we get PD rights back.
I saw something on a permeculture forum that I thought I might try - especially for converting grass field to veg plot.... You create strips of earth/turf which are a couple of spade-widths wide, and then do a sort of pastry fold with them. The left hand strip gets folded over onto the centre strip, and the right hand strip folded on top of both of those. It seems you end up with some quite neat looking ridges for planting.
Anyone else tried this? I think we're a bit late in the year for covering with plastic... I think it needs a good whole growing season to kill the grass doesn't it?
We've just taken delivery of 2 tonnes of compost to give the veg a kick start - until our own compost bays are built, and we've established a comfrey bed.
So.... minimal veg this year probably.... and lots more weeding & digging... but exciting!
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In past years I have always seized upon the seed catalogues that come through the door, made copious lists, added up and amended the lists!!
This year I feel weary and can't even get up enough enthusiasm to even open the envelopes. My land is clay and shale and difficult to work and a target for pigs, though I have no pigs now. The gardens in this bungalow consists of a back garden with just room for a washing line and the only plant in the front is a two hundred year old oak tree with a TPO on it.
So, no, I have no sense of excitement at all.
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[member=89885]devonlady[/member] keep reading the thread. I felt like you do just a few days ago, but reading about everyone else's plans and excitement has cheered me up a bit. Once the Solstice is past on the 21st, then the days will be longer and less depressing. Do you have any ground at all for planting in, or does it need to be containers?
[member=7747]farmershort[/member] those sound like 'lazy beds'. To make them more fertile you can spread manure or even veg trimmings from the kitchen, anything, on the central grass before you start folding. They are apparently perfect for potatoes and help to get your land going for other stuff next year. I've not tried them (they don't sound exactly 'lazy' to me) but I think we'll all be interested in how you get on. I wonder if it would be worth covering the made beds with dark material for the winter, just to discourage grass from coming through?
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Ah yes... lay beds... the chap I got the idea from did call them that actually, but I assumed it was his own pet name for them.. didn't realise they were a 'thing'.
Yes good idea about covering them over winter just in case.
The other (future) beds might get marked out in the spring and treated to the old cardboard and compost mulch system.... see if that works at killing Rye grass.
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My land is clay and shale and difficult to work and a target for pigs,
If the land is rubbish you could build some raised beds out of scaffie board or similar and fill them with a 1:1:1 mixture of topsoil , compost and sand - yes buying it in is an expense but its also a one time thing and if you put down a membrane , or a load of cardboard first you shouldn't have a weed problem
I did that on our smaller bed 3 years ago and i'm still not seeing weeds coming through - except the damn baby fennels that got everywhere and rooted down into the subsoil (per bu post on the herbs board)
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Farmershort ,
In the 1950 & 60 's my parents did all their half acre of digging by hand like you have described. Each year the twitch ( couch grass ) & other perennial weeds grew less & less .
The blue clay soil started to build into a decent garden , it only took both of them 15 years or so .
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Digging turf in by hand is hard graft , you'll be better off hitting it with round up in a dry period , leaving it for a week to ensure it has killed the weeds ( they'll also make a type of compost ) spreading the load of compost over the whole area . Then if the area involved is much more than 10 mtrs by 15 mtrs hire a decent heavy rotavator to work the whole bed area down to about 15 inches deep in a few hours .
That way you stand a good chance of getting useful healthy crops out the plot next season .
Depending on how fresh the compost is & what it is made of may affect root crops like parsnips & carrots ..too much nitrogen & they'll grow multiple roots .
So if you want a bed of them it's best to not put any compost on the area the year they are to be grown for up to five months before you sow their seeds .
If you fight shy about using Round Up, have a look at the toxins & stuff in cardboard as well as the sodium th-isulphate that's used as a fire prevention additive to the cardboard & the mould inhibitors put in at the making stage .
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Heritage seed library catalogue just arrived in my inbox so now to have a look and decide which six packets of seeds I want to receiver.
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I can't wait - I am chomping at the bit. This was our first year and we did surprisingly well. We've made more raised beds for this year which are full of just manure at the moment. I'm going to get a top soil delivery and put that down before it all kicks off. I heard the traditional day for sowing onions is Boxing day so I may pop one or 2 in :)
Can I start all year round cauli yet? The name suggests so, but any advice?
We're going to be aiming to grow all our own veg this coming year. Obviously it will be a slow start, but then that will be it! So exciting.
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Tracy , don't be in too much of a rush . Far too many folk sow much too early & lose a lot of seedlings to bad weather & pests.
If you look online you should be able to find your average first & last frost dates for your locality .
Sowing a day or so after the last average frost date should soon see your seedlings catch up & in a lot of cases over take earlier sown seeds that have suffered thermal shock & water distress .
If you sow a few seeds in an indoor plant pot in well damp seed compost , germinate it covered in cling film in the airing cupboard As soon as the yellowish green shoots start to poke their heads up in 7 to 14 days .
So check every day mentioned , take it out the airing cupboard & put the pot on a saucer on a window cill that's not got a radiator frying the seedlings under it or where it has strong sunlight on them you should be able to bring the seedlings on to about an inch high .
Now put them on a cill in a north facing window but don't have them right against the glass in case it freezing .
On a frost free day at about 10 o C or above , when the seedlings get to 2 " tall carefully prick out the plants with the back of a teaspoon handle after soaking the pot for a good hour in a bowl of room temp rain water.
Without damaging the stem or roots transplant in to dibbed holes , gently back fill & them water well .
Perhaps sprinkle slug pellets if you have any sign of slugs . Cover with a weighted down at the edges white fleece to ward off a sharp frost .
They will develop bigger natural roots in about a month .
Don't sow a lot in one go , unless you hope to fill the freezer .
Sowing three or four seeds every a week to ten days apart should see you have them throughout the year & you can eat all the greenery as well .
Cauli's can be difficult to grow , they like Boron in the soill .. this can be added by giving a dressing of Epsom salts a week or so , scratching & watering it in to the area you want to plant up
It's taken me five years to get decent caulis's in virgin garden soil.
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Very informative reply, thank you! I think I am going to do a bit of experimenting. We do hope to fill the freezer to take us over winter but this year is the year of testing how much is enough/too much, so watch this space.
I'm copying your words to print out. You can't beat a been there, done it advice :)
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Tracy, are your onions from seed or sets? You can start onion seed from after Xmas, if you use modules. Onions are very slow to germinate, so this gives them a good start, then when they are large enough to have a good root ball, you can transfer them to their final growing positions in your raised beds. You could plant out sets in Feb to Mar depending on where you are and they harvest at the same time.
'All the year round' is a bit of a misnomer - it really seems to mean that they can be used as summer or winter caulis, not that they can be sown all year. I wouldn't sow them before Feb and they will need to be protected from frost when small, and given plenty of light so they don't grow long and pale and drawn. Any set-back and you won't get a decent head.
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Fleecewife - both. I'd like to see what we get the best results from. Experimenting with what I can.
I am in the North East of England.
Thanks re cauli tips. Much appreciated.