Hello

Hi everyone, I'm Ava and a real newbie!
We have just bought our first house and I'm so excited to finally have my own garden. At the moment it's very empty which is great as I have a blank canvas to work on. But I've never really done any gardening beyond planting a few bulbs and weeding. I really want to start my own veggie patch - I've just planted a couple of things in pots to get going.
Anyway, I look forward to being part of the forum
Ava

 

Hi Ava, and welcome to GC - Lots of very experienced and knowledgeable gardeners here who are pleased to give advice on most topics. (A bit of friendly banter too)

Question: - Where abouts are you - garden advice varies for different parts of the country and how large (approx) is the proposed veg patch?

a-a

 

Welcome to Gardeners Corner Ava Are you a relative of JWK's? He looks knitted too.

 

hey Ava and and a very warm welcome
Shiney thats my line

 

Welcome to GC Ava....you'll get lots of great advice and you'll have fun in the process.......Enjoy

 

Welcome to the asylum Ava!

 

Wow thanks so much for the welcome guys - looks like I came to a good place!

I'm in Northants - I'm not really sure about the size of my veggie patch yet - I have nominated a corner of the garden so at the moment that can be as little or big as I want but at the moment it needs a bit of work to prepare it (which is why I ended up here looking for tips/ideas) I have planted Tomatoes, Strawberries, Gem Lettuce, Radishes and Spring Onions so far just in pots but I'd really like to grow more fruit and veggies, start composting and work on the rest of the garden too! So just a wee bit of work!

 

Hello and welcome Ava.

For your veggie patch, how about just filling it with potatoes for now. Apart from the obvious benefit of getting free spuds that actually taste of anything, there are other bonuses too. You don't need to get the ground perfect for spuds, they are not to fussy as long as the ground is fertile and watered. They break up the ground nicely, and their dense foliage blocks out the sun for any weeds that's might still be lurking in there. In other words, they save a lot of effort in getting the ground nice for other plants.

Also, I can't miss an opportunity to recommend one of my favourite plants. Nasturtium. It is very pretty, but also it is easy to grow, and entirely edible. It grows fast but is easy to control, and so far I have yet to find a set of conditions that it wont tolerate.

 

Ha ha I just spotted him. Think he may be a long lost cousin!

 

Thanks for the suggestions - I like the idea of letting potatoes do some of the hard work for me!