Vegetable patch - Help

Hello again stoney, I still reckon you'd be best to dig the old stuff out and get some fresh growing medium in there but whatever you do, you'll get there in the end, the first step is always the most difficult. Don't forget container growing, it's amazing what you can grow in a humble growbag!

 

If you know anyone with horses or a local stables its really worth asking them if they'd be willing to give you some of their manure. That will do your patch no end of good and with any luck you'd get it free too. I started my veg patch at the back of the our garden last year and after a lot of digging and prep it is now producing well. Keep us updated on how you are doing.

 

Stoney - Just joking (but obviously not appreciated by some): my point was that your ground will need a lot of improvement before it is worth trying to plant anything. To reinforce what others have said, you really have to spend a lot of time preparing your ground at the start. Once you start planting it gets much more difficult to improve the soil (too crowded). I guess that you will be eager to start growing, so I suggest a few growbags for this year. When you have harvested them the contents can be added to your soil to improve it further.

 

Stoney, I do not have any room at present for a proper veggie garden as I filled my garden up with shrubs but come the Autumn a lot of shrubs are going to bite the dust as with the price of food escalating I intend to grow even more veg next year. Like you I shall have to dig over a garden that has been drained of goodness by the large shrubs I have in there now. But like the others say with some good horse manure dug in its amazing what a difference it can make and hopefully I can start by growing some potatoes in it next year to break the ground up a bit. I have about 10 grow bags and other bags filled with veggies this year lining a pathway. I also have an old bungalow bath in which I am growing my runner beans and they are doing well. It is amazing what you can do with nothing. And as Daitheplant says whatever you do - don't get disheartened. Keep us up to date with how you are getting on. We are all here for you.

 

good work stoney!! I've got 4 seed potatoes left over if you want them, a little late for sowing but you'll get something from them i'm sure. just PM me your address and i'll get them to you. maybe best to plant them in a compost sack rather than your patch though, til you get organised!!

google for full instructions but basically you:-

Cut along a short edge and empty the compost out - you need to store it somewhere dry preferably.

Turn the bag inside out (just because is looks better), and roll the sides down

Put about 3-6 inches of compost in the bottom. Put in seed potatoes and cover with a couple of inches of compost.

When there's 3 inches or so of growth showing, cover with more compost. Roll up the bag as you fill it with compost.


not sure how many to put in a bag, you could use all 4 in 1 or get 2 bags and put 2 in each. Then, when you've harvested your spuds, used the compost on your patch to improve the soil.

 

If anyone wants to look at the pictures of my garden, some are a couple of years old then please use the link.............. I hope I have done it right as I cannot seem to get the photos from there to here.:confused:

http://s306.photobucket.com/albums/nn264/moyrasmith/

 

Moyra. Those pictures are fantastic and an inspiration to those of us doing things on a small scale.

Stoney. Keep the updates coming. It's good to see someone so young starting out. I'm 36 and wishing I'd started at your age.

Ant.

 

Thanks Anthony, the photos of the veggies were taken a week ago and we have had a lot of rain since so as you can imagine everything is growing quite fast. I will take some more up to date photos in a week or two so you can see how they are progressing. I have to go into hospital for an exploratory tomorrow so in a day or two after I have recovered from that, I shall be out to buy some more gro bags and hopefully the seeds from Fothergills will come tomorrow too.

 

Stoney, great to hear you are keeping up the good work.
Regarding manure btw, don't forget that you need well rotted manure!
You can plant most salads all through the summer really. You can even overwinter them, but they grow really really slowly!
If you are intending to put in a fair bit of time and get the ground dug over in the next few weeks I think you could get away with sowing some beans and courgettes in compost in small pots or seed trays indoors (e.g. on a window sill) now - I only started mine about two weeks ago. You could also get some young plants if you want to from the garden centre, which is a bit more expensive - that way you can be guided by what they have when you're ready.
Otherwise, work out what you like to eat/want to grow then go have a look at the seed packets, (or most places that sell seeds online will have the information on the webpage) that will tell you when you can sow them.
Really pleased to hear you are getting on well, keep up the good work BTW it's just occurred to me to mention that my veg patch here was covered with paving slabs, sand, weeds and ants when I moved here - I dug it over mid-late summer, piled on the compost (and manure where it was needed) and had a few salad crops before winter then fantastic crops the next year. It's hard to tell from a photo but I'd be quite hopeful.
* edit to add - here's a link to a sowing times guide, probably more helpful than my random musings - http://www.allotment.org.uk/vegetable/general/sowing-harvest-vegetable-chart.php *

 

Stoney

I moved house last year and found the "soil" in my new garden was like yours. But not just under a shed, it's like it everywhere! I had to use a pick axe the first time I dug it over and I've now dug it over three times. I'm going for raised beds and crops with a rapid turn over, like lettuce and radishes, in my first year. They will let me get at the soil again as soon as possible.

There's plenty of good advice already posted. All I can add is to say keep at it and try and be patient. That first veg will taste even sweeter...

 

Thanks again for all the help guys, absolutely brilliant friendly forum you've got here and your quickly persuading me to stick around. :thumb:

First of all a lot of you have mentioned grow bags. Like I said before, when I said i'm a begginner, I really meant it
http://s306.photobucket.com/albums/...rrent=SaladLeavesParsnipsandCarrotswithto.jpg
Taking an educated guess, are they growbags?
If so I'm getting a couple of them soon as I've had advice off my grandad too, to get a couple from the local shop at £1.50 each and i'm looking to grow some tomatoe's in there hopefully.

The horse manure is a great idea which has been suggested by a lot of you and with me living really close to two stables i'm sure i'll be able to get hold of some of this pretty easily.

Glenw, thank you so much for the offer. To be honest i've only had a quick glance through these posts as theres been so much support to me in this thread that i'm going to have to re-read your post to see how I would go about planting them etc. if you were to send them me, again, i'm a real beginner :thumb:

Now, as for the vegetable patch, its come on leaps and bounds since the first picture I showed you but tbh I've rushed it so much I think. I got so excited that the patch was coming along good that when I saw a man on the market selling cheap lettuce plants, I took the risk and got a few. Now I've planted these down with slug pellets in the soil which is now mixed with lots of compost by the way but its clear there not gonna grow and it was a mistake. But I suppose you make mistakes before you move forward, I hope anyway :D

This is how the garden is looking now...

 

Hi Stoney.

I wouldn't worry about taking risks ... don't forget ... he who dares! :D

Ant.

 

Hi Stoney

Do you know a website called Freecycle? It is basically a locally run web-based organisation which puts people in touch with each other to get rid of things they no longer need. The idea is that one man's rubbish is another person's new kettle or new children's bike or whatever. Last year, when I had a new garden I asked for plants from people on there, and I got LOADS of freebies which people kindly let me have from their own gardens. I have since seen people asking for other people's surplus vegetable seedlings and things. So you could try posting a 'WANTED' message in which you explain your project and ask whether there are any people in your area who have too many tomato plants or whatever. I bet you'll find people who'll let you have some. That's the first thing. The second thing is: if you are not worried about what your veg garden looks like, you can use all sorts of containers which people throw out into which to put your compost / horse manure / soil mixture. I am thinking of people's black plastic bins (great for growing potatoes in apparently), or maybe a bathtub which someone is throwing out because they are redoing their bathroom... It might help you to grow some things quickly for this year, whilst you are working on improving that patch of soil from your photos. So you could try Freecyle to get you started with containers for planting in and with baby veg plants!

If there are allotments near where you live, you could always go along and ask people for advice on what to grow now and how to do it (I bet they'd give you the odd runner bean plant or two as well!!). It probably helps when someone can show you what to do. Good luck!!

 

The advice youve had already is sound ie ading compost, however I sudgest regular hoeing (as often as poss) not only will it keep things weed free but it will help break up the soil struture.

Pratsio, It made me laugh anyway m8 !!

 

Hi Stoney.

When I dug up the garden the first time, the soil was really rubbish - lots of builders waste and stuff, but the next year it was doing well with all the manure and compost that had been wound into it. The only thing I could possibly add to the great advice others have posted here ( I'm still a newbie too really ;-) ) is to google for "companion planting" There are some combinations of veggies and herbs that seem to like each other - and perhaps more importantly, some that *don't* like being planted together. I didn't know that, or hadn't considered it. My broad beans are way too close to some garlic and onions, and are not doing so well. That *may* be a coincidence, but most sites on companion planting seem to generally agree on what doesn't mix well.

Although it might not be suitable for your plot, one neat combination I read about was the 3 sisters - an old native american way of growing. Sweetcorn provides a "pole" for climbing or runner beans, and courgettes or squash are grown around the base to shield the roots, and help prevent water evaporation. Should be a good way to pack crops into a small area, although possibly with a smaller yield than if grown separately.
Another nice one is peppers and toms together, with basil and oregano to shelter the soil.
I'll be trying these this year.........

good luck!

cheers,
Dave