Rygon's growing food thread - UK

[rygon]

Right, i dabbled in a bit of growing last year and it went quite well. So im going to have another go this year

So far i have:-
thyme x2
rosemary
sage
oregano
bay (probably dead due to frost)
seems like i have have a few onions coming up which i sowed last year

Plan is to order 2 water butts and 2 compostors from the local council (much cheaper) and buy a couple of raised beds. I will be looking at a greenhouse as well. Then its choosing what to grow

Pic of my untidy garden at the minute

 

[Cat-a-Tonic]

I've got to work on my garden soon! I always grow tomatoes (not sure why as they don't digest for me and my husband doesn't like them) and last year we tried growing snap peas, although that didn't go well and we only got like 4 pea pods total. I do always grow basil and two kinds of mint - spearmint and peppermint. Yum! One year I grew cilantro, I might do that again. I tried doing pumpkins one year but that was also a failure - we got just one to start growing, and just as it was starting to go well, it disappeared! We have a fence around the garden itself so bunnies can't get in. Sometimes people take a "shortcut" (which it really isn't) and cut through our yard, and I suspect someone saw the pumpkin in the garden and took it. Maybe I'll grow a pumpkin and then inject it with a bunch of laxatives - see who steals it then! They won't steal from my garden again, ha ha! Just kidding, I wouldn't do that... probably.

Mmm, onions. I grew one one year but I think it's dead now. It was an onion in a bag I had bought from the grocery store, I let it go too long and the onions started sprouting in the bag so I planted one and that actually worked! I might just get some bags of onions, potatoes, carrots, etc from the grocery store and plant them and see how that goes. It worked with onions so why not other things?

Oh, I have ginger growing in my front yard too. I love ginger. I think that's all I have done garden-wise so far. We bought our house about 3 years ago and started gardening then, we weren't able to garden when we lived in an apartment. So I'm still relatively new to gardening and don't exactly have a green thumb, but I do enjoy growing my own food as much as I am able to.

 

[David]

I love it! WOO! Subscribed for updates

 

[Grumbletum]

I'm in. I started planting last year, but got too ill to keep it up. Raring to go now. At least will be when it stops with the Hebridean horizontal rain.
I'm looking to grow onions, garlic, carrots, squash, peas, parsnips and herbs. And peppers

 

[sawdust]

Looking good! I'm excited to read about your progress! ...and it looks like you found something else to do with just the one arm! Hope you have a speedy recovery, and remember, a cast full of soil isn't a good thing!

I started my first garden last year and did some canning. I'm excited to see the fruits of everyone's labors.

 

[Grumbletum]

Lol, it's my foot in a cast Sawdust, but that will delay the seed sowing too

 

[rygon]

my arms doing well thanks. Cant do bugger all with it and i live on my own so things take longer than normal

Hows your foot Grumbletum? How did u manage to break that?

Well ive bought 2x water butts and 2x composters from the council (buy one get one half price on each). Decided to buy a greenhouse as well but no idea when ican put it up.

so far planted pak choi, coriander outside and chilli peppers, mini bell peppers in a propagator.

This is my wish list this year:

asparagus
brussel sprouts
carrots
cucumber
kale
leeks
onions
peas
potatoes
tomatoes
runner beans
squash (early butternut)
brocolli
artichoke
garlic
ginger

Most prob biting off more than i can chew but we will see

 

[Grumbletum]

Rygon, I slipped down the stairs at home. Well wouldn't you know, the sun is splitting the skies today, but everything is still sodden from weeks of rain. No drought for us!
Luckily my brother is staying at the mo so he's having to do all the driving. He's into helping with the garden too. There's also a big mound in the garden where previous owner parked his boat that I want to turn into a rockery.
And get the coop repaired to get two or three chooks. Arghh, frustrating. Still got maybe three or four more weeks in plaster.

 

[rygon]

Well i have had my new plaster put on, no more limpwrist for me
As you can guess its been pretty slow for me, but i have single handedly (see what i did there) put up a greenhouse ok I had help from my bro's gf and my awesome next door neighbours daughter who's 11yo.

I had to laugh when she told me i did something wrong bless, stopped laughing when it turned out she was right lol.

So far i have bought a new blueberry bush, found out my old one is still alive. Rasberry bush seems to be sprouting new parts, and got a new bay tree (£35 ouch)

Bought a couple of strawberry plants and planted some seeds in a propagator, although 2wks later no signs of life (hoping its too cold to spout)

Filled greenhouse with soil from behind the shed and just needing a bit of compost to over the top ready for the seeds to sprout

 

[rygon]

my limp wrist

Now looking good(ish)

 

[Josephine]

Wow sound great. Put me down for those strawberries.

 

[rygon]

my greenhouse (before it got filled with dirt)

 

[Grumbletum]

Looks great and loving the raised beds. Weather has been pants, but brother has hacked away a lot of this spiky horrible bush/hedge that's common here and we have about 100 baby firs to plant for shelter.

 

[Catherine]

Looking good, maybe I need to start my ok own thread about to start planting the winter vegetable. Just need to work out to keep the garden killers from digging it up.

 

[Cat-a-Tonic]

We planted a few seeds into pots but can't plant them outside yet. The weather keeps dipping below freezing overnight, so have to keep our seedlings indoors for now or they'll die. I recall planting my garden in May last year and we still dipped below freezing at some point after that and my tomato plants nearly died then (they survived somehow, but looked really sickly and awful for a few weeks after the freeze). So I probably won't be able to plant my garden for at least another month to be safe - don't want my hard work and seedlings to go to waste.

Rygon, I'm jealous of that greenhouse! I want one too!

 

[rygon]

Thanks for the replies.

Well the gardens getting on pretty well due to the great weather we've been experiencing (in between the masses of rainfall).

Potatoes seem to have sprouted well (especially since I thought i'd pulled them all up from last year ... hopefully i'll have some decent ones to eat). Greenhouse is looking amazing as well, a few plants have died but most are doing great.

Tried makign it look better whilst trying to keep it low maintenance so I decided red bark would look good around the area. It did until a week later when all the grass and weeds grew through it (weed suppresant my arse). Ive laid some weed matting down and put the bark over the top again and so far its looking good. anyway heres the pics

No idea what these are ... either cucumbers or butternut squash I think

 

[rygon]

100 plants grumbletum!!! I couldnt be bothered to do that many lol, how are they getting on?

Catherine, that would be great idea. My parents have just moved to Aus (perth) and have no idea what to grow so maybe your thread may be of help .. Dusty may want to know about it as well as her daughter wants to start growing stuff

cat-a-tonic hows your stuff getting on? I am well impressed with my greenhouse. Got it off the web which turned out to be about £60 cheaper than homebase (still cost about £270 ouch) but pretty easy to put up and seems really long lasting

 

[David]

Looking great!

Mmmmmmm, strawberries.

*drool*

 

[rygon]

I promised my next door neighbours kid she can have the 1st lot.... havent seen her in 3days, I want them now lol

 

[Cat-a-Tonic]

Rygon, our garden is going okay. We got everything planted outside, and the tomatoes and carrots are doing really well. We also planted peas but there is no sign of them - I guess they didn't take? Our little garden has chicken-wire around it so that rabbits can't get in, so it wasn't a matter of them being eaten. I don't know. So some success and some failure so far. I've never grown carrots before but they seem to be doing well, lots of little sprouts peeking up. They're all going to go into my juicer when they're ready so I hope they continue to do well. I hope your garden keeps going well too!

You mentioned giving strawberries to your neighbor - and I'm going to stick my veggies in my juicer. Is this an IBD thing, we like gardening but can't eat fresh fruit/veg so we give it away or juice it?

 

[rygon]

well its been a very long time since I updated this.

strawberries where amazing ( well what was left after the kids next door ate )
Potatoes turned out very well
Carrots where very small but tasted amazing, I think I need to water them more when they are young
Due to wet weather tomatoes got blight, although I managed to make a great soup out of them all. Butternut squash where very small but again made a great soup
Not hot enough for the chillies and peppers to grow
onions where great but garlic very small due to planting late

Lesson learnt:
Dont try to plant too much, plant need their space.
Plant early
Prepare ground in winter ready to plant (and cover with leaves for added nutrition)
When the greenhouse instructions say dont install in windy areas take heed)

 

[rygon]

Garlic

Peas

and my 1st attempt at bread

 

[Catherine]

What happen to the green house

 

[rygon]

erm.. you know the story of the 3 pigs.. pretty much that. Its in a big heap at the moment

Before it was all bent and upside down

Hoping I can fix iit easy tho

 

[Catherine]

Good luck.

It's looking a little sad.:eek2::eek2:

 

[David]

Congrats on the harvests! Those tomatoes look wonderful

 

[xX_LittleMissValentine_Xx]

How inspiring! Its so amazing how things grow out of the ground.
I'm not at all interested in gardening but I do love nature and flowers etc.

 

[Lisa]

Oh noooo poor greenhouse!!!!!

Tomatos do look yummy - I have some cool varieties to try this year, one is a purple striped one...and some tiger melons - striped melons.....

I have a 3x20 foot or so plot that I put horse manure on last year - was going to plant flowers this year, but might end up putting melons in it instead to let things sit for another year and compost.....

I usually do cucumbers (which LOVE the location I put them - plenty of moisture!), tomatos, peppers didn't do squat last year - need to try a new location for them.....

My daughter loves to eat tomatos, peas and beans straight off the plants...reminds me, need to find a spot for those last 2 this year also! .....

 

[Ya noy]

erm.. you know the story of the 3 pigs.. pretty much that.

Hoping I can fix iit easy tho

Poor greenhouse. I've been wanting one, but afraid of the same thing -- there is a reason Chicago is called "The Windy City". All my neighbors' cloth covered gazebos suffered the same fate, and one of their trees fell on top of my rotating composter and crushed it.

This is why we can't have nice things.

 

[SarahD]

Wow, poor greenhouse! I imagine it's a bit more windy down the coast than it is inland?! I've been looking at getting a greenhouse too but they're so expensive, even second hand ones aren't cheap.

Last year was my first year with my own garden and I grew garlic, potatoes, onions, runner beans and strawberries. I tried to grow carrots and parsnips but nothing came of them, so going to try again this year. I've started some parsnips off in toilet rolls in an indoor propagator, so hopefully this year they will grow. The cold weather has been problematic this year, I'm hoping to get my first lot of seed potatoes in soon now the weather has improved.

Here's a few pics of my goodies from last year:

And finally, an enormous home-grown potato:

 

[rygon]

wow those potatoes are big. Where do you grow them? Ive used those potato bags and do get a few large potaotes but most are salad potato size. They do taste great though.

Looks like you had a great year, just hope this year isnt going to be a washout as it has been so far

 

[sawdust]

You could play rugby with that monster potato! Beautiful produce, SarahD!

 

[SarahD]

We grew some in the ground and in bags. The ones in the last pic came out of the ground. I think they grew so big because it was so wet last year, the ones we grew in bags were much smaller - salad potato size like you say - and they got a lot less water than the ones in the ground. These were Rocket variety and we're trying them again this year as they tasted really nice and we got a good crop, so we'll see how they turn out this time. We're also going to try growing some Desiree ones.

Last year was hard work as we had to prepare the veggie patch (and it was full of gravel which me and my boyfriend spent HOURS sifting out) but it was really rewarding when it came to harvesting everything. I'm hoping this year will turn out ok, I reckon everything will just be a bit late. Are you able to start anything off in your greenhouse or is it still not fixed? I've started a few things off inside the house but you can't do that with everything, I guess it depends on what you want to grow.