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Calling SMB veg growers

  • Thread starter Thread starter Deleted member 5265
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Fair point.
Because the veg garden's quite sprawly we've made the paths wheelbarrow width which does take up space.
On the plus side the raised beds are great for crop rotation


Ta.

This thread needs more pics !

That does look good like. I went for similar and did raised beds because of the heavy clay soil. I will see if I can get a picture or two up tonight.
 

It's February, it's time to be thinking happy thoughts about what you'll be planting and eating this year.

I grow from seedlings not seed as I don't have a greenhouse and also have some time constraints. So just put my order in for:

tomatoes
summer cabbage
savoy cabbage
broccoli (calabrese)
purple sprouting broccoli
sprouts
celeriac
courgette
leek
pak choi
peas
broad beans
dwarf French beans
runners
aubergine
chillis
butternut squash
sweetcorn

Heavy on the brassicas this year. Love my brassicas me like.

@Cowvahlo @spitfire
I know there are more of us veg growers, sorry for not tagging everyone, can't remember who else is in.
No Brussels Sprouts?
 
I had great success with sweet corn in the polytunnel, but I've dared to plant outside this year.

Eaten most of the broad beans. Peas and raspberries still coming in thick and fast, can't keep up !!
Also currants, black & red.

Downside, my spuds (Home Guard) got blight so are all dug up today. Doesn't seem to have reached the actual potatoes tho, so not a disaster. We'll eat them all within a couple of months.

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Sweetcorn in foreground, peas behind, last year's leeks left to run to seed as they look so pretty

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Fruit beds, strawberries, gooseberries and rhubarb with a currant hedge behind.


Runner bean wigwams with courgettes underneath, sunflower bed behind just starting to flower now


Is that gravel you've got down there as your path?

I've allowed my back garden to get way out of control, to the point that it became completely infested with blackberry brambles. I payed at least a few hundred quid to get rid of them last year, but the fuckers just chainsawed through them and left all the roots in, so they're back again this year.

Our new approach is that we've put down a load of tarpaulin to try to starve the brambles and long grass, but it's been such a nightmare that I've been looking into alternatives.

Yours looks amazing with the little mini gardens and paths. Tempted to try something similar. So sick of having grass. It goes from ankle length to 7 feet tall practically overnight.
 
@fyl2u yes, it's gravel on top of Mypex membrane which runs slightly up the side of the raised beds and is held on by lengths of tannalised tile lath.
This hopefully stops the weeds growing in the tiny gap between bed and path.

This has been a long process, various permutations of veg garden, but it got to the point where I was spending more time weeding paths than growing veg, plus the reclaimed scaffolding boards we used to edge the beds last time just rotted into mush !!! Now replaced with tannalised timber as well.

Brambles are a twat. I'd be almost tempted to use Roundup on them (quick before it's banned)
 
Impressive. Where do you live?

The people out my back just cut down trees that overhung the back border of my veg patch, stopped most rain and sucked the moisture out the soil so very little grows. Is is south facing, so grapes might work pretty well. Do you plant new vines each year?
 
Impressive. Where do you live?

The people out my back just cut down trees that overhung the back border of my veg patch, stopped most rain and sucked the moisture out the soil so very little grows. Is is south facing, so grapes might work pretty well. Do you plant new vines each year?

Live in the Western part of Jutland near the North Sea. The grapes are only three years old. The first year not a single grape came. Last year a couple of bunches grew but because of lack of watering and six weeks of very hot weather none of them came to anything. This year the weather has been more even and the stock has been watered plenty with lots of grapes to show for it. It is the first time am trying my luck with grapes and still my first and only plant. It grows outside up against the allotment building wall and gets cut down quite a bit each year. This year with all the berries popping up I have cut off a number of leaves in the past couple of months to make it easier for sunlight to reach the grapes. Seems to have done the trick. The two pictures show about a quarter of the grapes there and am well chuffed by the amount of berries on just the one stock. They are not as big as ones grown in a greenhouse but they are very juicy and wonderfully sweet. And oddly enough the gardenbirds don't eat them.

Wow !!! Impressive.
Mine in the polytunnel are nowhere near that. Still look like peas on a stalk....

I took a picture of them around 1st July when they were tiny and green. Never expected them to get this plenty I must admit.
 
Planted an autoflowering satavia cannabis seed on Monday under a glass container amongst my flowers, it's starting to poke through the soil today.
 
The frost we had the other morning had a good go at me first earlies. Garlic doing well, onions too, spuds coming along despite the frost, peas starring to sprout and me parsnips are in. Carrots next. Toms and peppers doing well in the greenhouse
 
Greenhouse is overflowing at the moment, 80 various chillies ( Carolina Reaper, Bhut Jolokia Ghost, Trinidad Scorpion and Hot Joker) 10 tomatoes plants a mini cucumber and hundreds of flowers.
 
Things are not looking too bad this year. The taties are coming up and I have just earthed them up, the onion sets are sprouting, the turnips need thinning out and There is something starting to poke through the soil that is either the first sign of the peas sprouting or more bloody bind weed. Nothing coming up from my parsnips or carrots yet. My new fruit bushes look to have taken, though I'm not expecting much to eat of them this year.

The greenhouse is pretty full. I spent the weekend potting up the march seedlings which has taken a few seed trays and spread them into loads of shelves full of pots. I always have problems getting my leeks to thicken before going out. I plant them in modular pots, they get to thin grass size quickly then stop. I have re-potted 40 of them into 3" plant pots so I will see if that makes a difference.

One thing I am trying different this year is to start my beans in pots, and stick a batch of first early potatoes in the bed where they are due to go with courgette. It is going to be another month before the beans go out, so I'm hoping I get a bag full of salad potatoes to start the season off.
 
Twenty-two degrees at the allotment today. Perfect for celebrating World Naked Gardening Day 2017. Never cut the lawn in the buff before. Rather liberating it was.
Gorgeous sunny day in Ireland too

I've put shorts and a vest on, but not going buff as too many midges about.... And I'll scare the animals :lol:
 
Two weeks away and come home to find that the blackbirds have been at the grapes this year. Still a few left.

Took this at the allotment a couple of hours ago, only shows one side of the bush so only about a fourth of the total grapes there.

Still, should be enough left for a snack when they are fully ready. :)

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Two weeks away and come home to find that the blackbirds have been at the grapes this year. Still a few left.

Took this at the allotment a couple of hours ago, only shows one side of the bush so only about a fourth of the total grapes there.

Still, should be enough left for a snack when they are fully ready. :)

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Can you not put a bit of netting over them? Keep the birds away
 
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