[DenisCooper]

Evening,

I'm busy planning out this years activities and this is the year that veg will start making an appearance.

I've got an area of one of my fields set out approx 35m wide by 75m long.

We are getting a couple of large polly tunnels for growing a number of fruit and veg such as salads, toms, peas etc... and then since we love asparagus a large area will be dedicated to that.

Im then thinking of a ploughed area, around 30m long that I will use for the animal feed. We've got pigs, sheep and chickens, ducks, geese etc. Im thinking this will be the place for carrots, turnips, sweede, pumpkins and squashes. Am I missing any vitals here?

Then the rest of the area will be for the larger veggies such as broccoli, cabbage, sprouts and potatoes.

Any left overs im hoping to be able to sell at the farm gate, and to the local pubs and neighbours to make a bit of extra cash.

Whats the best way to get the seed in? I've got a tractor, but nothing apart from a broadcast spreader for grass seed and fert.

I've got a ton of manure which I need to work in to the area too, but its a bit too muddy (heavy clay) at the minute.

[Lesley Silvester]

Sounds like quite a plan. You really need to factor in rotating your crops to avoid the build up of diseases in the soil.

[Fleecewife]

I grew up on a large pig farm.  We grew several acres of fodder beet which the pigs loved.  Horrible job singling them though.
I think you might be able to get a sowing attachment for a rotavator, if not a separate row sower which you push along. I found this but it seems to be for sale in Rands or similar  http://omagroworld.com/index.php?rt=product/product&path=92&product_id=180 
anyway, that sort of thing. Depends on your budget.  You can also get a potato planter.

[Lingon]

I would grow "flour" corn and perhaps sunflowers aswell. They store well and give the animals something to do while eating them if served whole.
I grew the corn variety "Painted mountain", gave a fairly decent yield even if last summer was freezing cold.

[pgkevet]

A lot must depend on location, I tried growing sunflowers for three years. I had lovely seed heads on large palnts each time but always some mould hit the sees just as they ripened and destroyed the whole crop even if I harvested and cut away all the dodgy bits a little early. Mid Wales too damp.

If you have realistic prospects of gate sales then it may be better to concentrate on  smaller variety of sellable higher value stuff.

On my bit of land the level of potato scab is so high that I had to throw away more then half the crop each time. On the other hand onions and leeks do very well as do beans and brassicas. Parsnips and carrots vary a bit from year to year but a good crop of parsnips is a real pain to harvest manually they root so deep it's time consuming to dig them up. Cauliflower I only get a day or two window to harvest before the damp can give black splodges on them but I've had some superb specimens.

Currants and blueberries (if you can keep the birds away) are really brilliant here and currants are dead easy to propagate. My problem with asparagus was keeping it weeded and the pheasants out - it'd have to be polytunnelled for me to bother again. Turnips grow well but flea beatles like them. Khol Rabi does nicely.

[Terry T]

With the veg for you, it depends on how much work you want to put in and for how much of the year you want to feed yourself.
Rotation is important in the poly tunnels too - which will need regular irrigation.
Outside I would add to your list courgettes, fennel, onions cabbages, leeks and kale.
Indoors , a lot of oriental veg do well abd are available over winter eg chinese cabbage and mooli. Over summer cucumbers aren’t much work and french beans are reliable. I also find peppers and aubergines do well and produce into November here in Norfolk.

[Fleecewife]

<< Turnips grow well but flea beetles like them.>> 
[/size]
[/size]The trick with flea beetles is to pass a board covered in grease over the top, just touching the leaves enough to make the insects jump, then they stick to the grease

[pgkevet]

<< Turnips grow well but flea beetles like them.>> 

The trick with flea beetles is to pass a board covered in grease over the top, just touching the leaves enough to make the insects jump, then they stick to the grease

I know but I seem to have similar on a lot of the wild suff in the fields.. it'd be 2 board passes per day or residual insecticide: not worth it for the few turnips I might want and a small warning for anyone thinking they'd grow 1/4 acre for their stock. If they have the same density flea beetles that i have then manually dealing with it would also be a mare.

[DenisCooper]

great thoughts, thank you....

where do you guys get seeds from? places like Thompson and Morgan / Sutton seeds?

or is there a more 'agricultural' store?

[pgkevet]

For the quantities of seed I need I shop about carefully paying attention to numbers/pkt and how well some seed types keep. For your half acre total plot I doubt there's much you need in commercial quantity. There's plenty of ebay sellers (like premier seeds) that essentially rebag bulk seeds into smaller packets and a good chance that an email to them would get a bigger value bag than the ones advertised. I just bought some leek and onion seeds from lidl at under 30p a packets each - starting them off indoors I'll expect over 100 leek seedlings out of the 300 seeds - more than enough for my needs later.  Local to me there's at least 2 places that sell pea and bean seeds loose by weight or volume (pint beer glass) - but they don't stock the runner variety I want (polestar) or in the smaller volume for my needs. If you plan on direct sowing of say fodder maize with prepared seed (the stuff with fungicides and bird repellants) then you'ld have to either beg at your local agri merchant for a pint from  bulk bag or approach a farmer who's going to be sowing a field full.

I start my brassicas in modules (even when i was doing 100's of brassicas) and those pkts usually are around 1000 seeds.. sown 2/module in 40 module trays then a pkt lasts years when you consider all the different brassicas you'll be sowing. Again its the planting out and weeding that's a manual killer on this scale. I also hit problems here with short drought periods when the borehole couldn't cope with demand if I tried sprinklers.. so was carefully watering individual plants by watering can from 1000L bulk tanks a friendly farmer dropped off (free, nice chap).

Your situation will vary but the work rate for return on this level wasn't worth it to me.

I had a go one year growing a few sqr meters of wheat - sadly a poor year for wheat so even with the amusement of manual threshing/winnowing the seed size was too small for decent flour (one very heavy loaf) with the remaining seed saved for a bigger patch next year ('cos I missed last years winter sowing window due to other stuff). Hand harvesting for a bucket of seed isn't economic and I only did it to have a play - and i'll try once more.

[Scotsdumpy]

Seed suppliers for larger quantities - I've always used Moles seeds for a quick and free delivery service ( orders over £7.50) the catalogue offers great advice re crops to grow, spacing, seeds per acre etc. If you get the catalogue you also get a wall calendar too - which I find extremely useful to plan the year.

[Fleecewife]

Seed suppliers for larger quantities - I've always used Moles seeds for a quick and free delivery service ( orders over £7.50) the catalogue offers great advice re crops to grow, spacing, seeds per acre etc. If you get the catalogue you also get a wall calendar too - which I find extremely useful to plan the year.

I wish I'd known about this when I used to grow large quantities of veg   


Their sugar pea Magnolia with purple pods looks good.  I'll remember for next year.  Thank you.

[DenisCooper]

moles seeds looks good....I'll get a catalogue from them - thanks for the tip.

is it better to start of brassicas, peas etc in module trays rather than straight in the ground? I assume I could start these off in the polly tunnel first before planting out...

[Terry T]

I also use Moles - they are v efficient and even if I don’t need their min no of seeds, it’s often still cheaper than buying 2-3 bags from a non-commercial supplier.

[Scotsdumpy]

Dennis, you don't say where you are but I live in north Aberdeenshire wher the spring can be late and wet so I personally start brassicas in modules. I've learned over the years that my growing season is short so getting a head start in the polytunnel gives me a much better chance of a good crop. I prefer to grow brocolli - those that give side shoots once you've taken the main head, pointed head cabbage and cauliflower. I've tried to consider growing crops for my animals but I can't grow enough outside to make it a viable proposition. Have you thought about using a hot bed? Google it if you aren't sure what I'm on about - you might get some strange results but a good book and articles are by Jack Forst. You need access to plenty of manure but once built you can start your seedlings off early. Another method is no-dig and the person to search for is Charles Dowding.

going back to animal feed - if you are far enough down south then mangels are a good crop - if you can find the seed. They are similar to fodder beet but softer.