Growing your own food (1 Viewer)

[broken arm]

who here does it?

how do you do it? wondow box, vegetable patch, allotment, small holding, farm?????

what advice do you have? deadly crops, big No's..

Have you grown corn?

 

[Wobbler]

Interesting topic. Something I'd love to do.

 

[Goodbye]

The wife grows loads of stuff. Not enough so sustain a larder (we just have a small garden), but its nice to have a yield once in a while. Homegrown organic nurtured good food.

Examples have been:
Spuds
Garlic
Onions
Rhubarb
Strawberries
Blueberries
Tomatoes
Spinach
Rocket
Shitloads of herbs.

Thats all I can remember right now.

 

[broken arm]

The wife grows loads of stuff. Not enough so sustain a larder (we just have a small garden), but its nice to have a yield once in a while. Homegrown organic nurtured good food.

Examples have been:
Spuds
Garlic
Onions
Rhubarb
Strawberries
Blueberries
Tomatoes
Spinach
Rocket
Shitloads of herbs.

Thats all I can remember right now.

deadly.

we just got a decent sized allotment and are currently preparing it for growing.

We have a list of potential things to grow. There are a few things we want to grow but are negotiating what is to much hassle starting out. e.g. things like blanching celery....

Does your wife have any advice on storage or were you picking as you go?

 

[Diddles]

We've a small area in the garden for veg, have a few fruit bushes dotted around the garden, two apple and two pear trees.

We hadn't grown veg before and it was a bit of a disaster. We did everything arseways from the start, sowed seeds straight into the ground and then thinned them out which didn't work too well. The spuds were great but they took over the plot. Got about three strawberries. The broccoli flowered before we realised it was ready. The cauliflower got eaten by slugs. We've three sprout plants still on the go so hopefully we can get something off them.

Hopefully it will work out better for next year. The slugs and snails are bastards. We have our beds boxed off and rubbed them with vaseline to try and stop them but it didn't work. Apparently copper is a great deterrent so I'll try binding the boxes with some.

 

[Squiggle]

The slugs and snails are bastards. We have our beds boxed off and rubbed them with vaseline to try and stop them but it didn't work. Apparently copper is a great deterrent so I'll try binding the boxes with some.

My mum goes out in the evening with a torch and a tub of salt. Works like a dream.

 

[Diddles]

My mum goes out in the evening with a torch and a tub of salt. Works like a dream.

You can't kill them! It's their garden after all.

 

[broken arm]

The spuds were great but they took over the plot. .

This is true. we have a 90ftx30ft plot so we'll dedicate a fair bit to spuds.

Apparently copper is a great deterrent so I'll try binding the boxes with some.

i think you can buy something that looks like copper cellotape to put around boxes.

I'm only assuming that if you have boxed raised beds the slugs/snails can only get in by climbing over??

also, apparently the egg shells trick works better is the shells are cooked beforehand..

 

[Goodbye]

We get them drunk.
Some beer in a little box. They love it.

Barm
We just harvest and eat when things are ready. Let nature tell us what to eat, although we dont talk about the great beetroot disaster.
They began to rot before I pickled them. oops

 

[magicbastarder]

we just got a decent sized allotment and are currently preparing it for growing.

where?
i've grown raspberries, blueberries, garlic, onions, beetroot, rhubarb, spuds, radishes, apples, and a few herbs.

with most foodstuffs, growing it means it's feast or famine time, the way i plant them. so stagger the planting.

 

[magicbastarder]

also, spuds are supposedly a good start on an allotment, as it gives you the impetus to dig over the soil a bit.

 

[ernesto]

We've a small area in the garden for veg, have a few fruit bushes dotted around the garden, two apple and two pear trees.

We hadn't grown veg before and it was a bit of a disaster. We did everything arseways from the start, sowed seeds straight into the ground and then thinned them out which didn't work too well. The spuds were great but they took over the plot. Got about three strawberries. The broccoli flowered before we realised it was ready. The cauliflower got eaten by slugs. We've three sprout plants still on the go so hopefully we can get something off them.

Hopefully it will work out better for next year. The slugs and snails are bastards. We have our beds boxed off and rubbed them with vaseline to try and stop them but it didn't work. Apparently copper is a great deterrent so I'll try binding the boxes with some.

roasted eggshells cuts the crap out of them.
bit mean but works a treat.

 

[mr pharmacist!!!!1]

whats the difference between free range and organic eggs?

 

[frona]

I tried tomatoes, strawberries, spinach and herbs in pots in my back yard this year. All were disasterous because of the bad weather.

 

[broken arm]

They began to rot before I pickled them. oops

ouch. pickling is another thing. out local veg shop sells 5 litre bottles of pickling vinegar.....

where?

in the UK!

 

[orange pekoe]

My fruit and veg didn't do too well this year on account of the weather. I got a relatively decent crop of potatoes, carrots and tayberries, a few apples, some rhubarb and a few strawberries. The plum tree didn't produce any fruit and the birds got to the cherries before i did.
I tried putting copper around the pots to deter the slugs and put out beer traps, but they'll always find a way in to the juicy leaves. I normally don't like killing them, but they destroyed so much stuff this year it inspired me to go on a murderous rampage with the salt.

 

[jillface]

last year i grew bell peppers, chilli peppers, courgette, tomatoes and a list of herbs.

the herbs (chives, basil, parsley, dill, mint, rosemary & lavender) were a breeze but everything else needed a bit more tlc. i grew the tomatoes and courgette outside. got loads and loads of tomatoes that never went red so i gave them away to my mam's friend who made green tomato chutney.

the courgette was tiny little weakling but i ate it and it was the tastiest motherfucker i've ever eaten. apparently you can eat the flowers of courgette plants too. you can batter and fry, pan fry, bake or saute them. i never did although i'd be really interested in the taste.
http://www.veggiechic.com/pan-fried-zucchini-flowers/

i germinated the chillis and bell peppers in the hot press and they lived out the rest of their life inside by the window until they terminated in my belly. they were disappointing.

then i went away for a few weeks and everything died.
the end.


maybe i'll do it all again this year.

 

[minka]

last year was a bit experimental, but i had lettuce, chard (yummy as both salad and cooked, ornamental, also not popular with slugs), parsley, purple basil, coriander, thyme, radishes, mint, rocket. i also have two grape vines but they're too young to crop yet, and my pak choi and spinach never really took off due to a combination of slugs and incessant rainfall. the rocket did really well for a brief period and then bolted like a maniac (pretty flowers, though), so i suspect one corner of my garden will be forever a rocket jungle due to it setting seed. still, at least it's tasty.

took a couple of goes to get a decent crop of lettuce, the first batch of seedlings went straight into the ground and were instantly eaten by bastard snails/slugs. next lot went into window boxes on the ground with holes cut in the bottom and vaseline round the edge, so they did a lot better. still had to pick the odd ambitious fecker out of the tub, so may try the eggshell trick next year. we then had lovely lovely tasty lettuce for a bit (doing cut and come again) and then it rained continuously on them and the chard and the other leaves and they went all wilty. boo.

i'm definitely going to plan it a bit more next year, and hopefully do some more non-leafy things like courgettes, tomatoes, broccoli.

 

[niallmc]

IN the garden we grow spuds from potatoes that have been in the press a bit too long and are starting to sprout eyes.
onions, beetroot, rhubarb from bulbs
We grow peas in pots with sticks to grow them up against
Also courgettes, started with seeds in the window of the gaf and planted out after a few weeks - got a huge number from a few plants
Our strawberries and tomatoes were bad this year better last year
We also do various salads in hanging baskets (to keep out the slugs)and have herbs in pots on windowsill
Not forgetting the sprouted beans in the kitchen
All grown using our very own compost form the compost bin (except for the sprouted beans that is..)

 

[minka]

I tried putting copper around the pots to deter the slugs and put out beer traps, but they'll always find a way in to the juicy leaves. I normally don't like killing them, but they destroyed so much stuff this year it inspired me to go on a murderous rampage with the salt.

oh yeah, we did slug pubs as well, didn't seem to discourage them that much: certainly not as much as putting the plants in vaseliney tubs, and even then they occasionally got in.

and yeah, mr. minka went on a bit of a snail death rampage as well. though he (avert your eyes, those of delicate sensibilities) just smashed them with a brick.

i think you can get some kind of organic slug pellets, which i might try if the eggshells don't work next year.

'sfunny, i would have been reasonably live and let live about slugs and snails until i tried growing my own food and suddenly became all "you BASTARDS, that's my LETTUCE, it is for ME!!!".