Do we have some sort of built in gardening calendar?

I've just realised, my brain is racing in garden project mode again, and that it does this every year at the start of autumn. I think this is because its my believe that the bulk of the work should be done in autumn and over winter, so that you can chill and enjoy it in spring and summer, but I've never really given it much thought before.

 

You might be on to something here, often I get inspired at this time of the year. And it's a bit cooler doing the hard labour jobs.

 

Must be better Gardeners than I, at this time of the year I am most uninspired, seeing the harvest for all the hard work, and think wether to bother again if it was worth it

Here in Fife, we can buy fresh dug Potatoes from a farm £5 for 56lb, carrots, and greens for pence ie cheaper than buying the seed and working on the ground

Tomatoes are a problem I am working on, I think I have found a hippie commune in Falkland that has very large glass house and sells straight from the plant at less than Lidls

They do fresh eggs, Hen, Duck, and Goose, but were using an honesty box system at the side of the road, trouble was not only did the people take all the eggs, but broke into the honesty box too
;-(

Jack McH

 

I must admit the veg growing side seems to me to be more about the fun of it than the practicalities. Our local greengrocer sells fresh local produce for a pittance, and you get a good chat when you go in too:

But its not just about what you grow, it about the whole thing, making the garden your own, and enjoying it for what you've made it.

 

This sticky is building into a what to do now type diary,

http://www.gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/threads/2013-growing-season.50567/

 

Excel and Notepad in my case

When something, either in the garden on in the forums, triggers the thought that I need to do something I make a note. My Notepad file is divided into the months, and 4 periods within each month (1-7, 8-14 etc). "Prune roses", "Bring hose in before frosty weather" ... that sort of thing.

In Excel I have a list of all the plants in the garden. There is a column for which bed the plant is in, and how many "yards" it is from the end. Sorting the XLS by those columns gives a list in "walking order". I have 12 columns for any monthly actions, plus some specific columns for Autumn and Winter care - e.g. a column detailing anything tender that needs to come in before first frost, and whether it needs to go into the "keep dry" or "keep growing" section of the conservatory.

Here too. But UK ones will have been treated endlessly with chemical against the threat of blight, and the tops will have been burnt off with, I believe, acid (probably benign) whereas imports are much more likely to have had their tops burnt off with a weed killer / desiccant like Gramoxone - now banned in the EU.

Increasingly that is the incentive for me to be totally self sufficient in veg. (particularly in the case of main crop spuds where I had stopped growing them as, in storage here, they were all sprouting my Xmas and, as you say, cheap-as-chips to buy).

The choice of varieties for best-flavour is another factor for us