Veg plans for 2020

I am in the process of building three raised beds from stone from an old shed.......harder work than i thought it would be!!

I have winter peas and beans up in one bed and filled the other bed i had last year with strawberry plants.


In the new beds i plan on
Carrots
parsnips
courgette
Peas
lettuce
beetroot
spinach
kale

Not sure i will get to all this but at least ill enjoy trying!!!

BrownFinger wrote: »

Good question,I dont remember when but they are all up about 200mm (20 or so shoots).
Its my first time trying them,just planted cloves from aldi.

I've read with regards to garlic,
Plant before the shortest day and harvest before the longest day .

Are they outside or in a tunnel? 200mm is great growth......

Having just two raised beds 6' by 3' each, there are certain things I need to leave out, due to lack of space. One of these is potatoes. Right now, being the end of Winter, I have a fairly large selection of herbs such as sage, thyme, rosemary, fennel, etc. I love being able to run out to the garden and cut a bunch of fresh herbs for my latest recipes. Also have three varieties of kale, which are great growers during the winter. Have some salad varieties growing in pots in a shaded corner of the garden. They survived the winter fairly well. It doesn't sound like much but I must say I take great pleasure in what I have.

Later during Spring, I hope to sow a variety of salad leaves and some root veggies such as carrots, beetroot etc.

CelticRambler wrote: »

Grow 1-3 plants in 20-litre buckets/old food containers (e.g. catering-size oil drums, water-cooler bottles, etc).

Thanks for that suggestion, CelticRambler. I'm not a great fan of spuds, so I may or may not try it.

I forgot to mention I have spinach growing well at this time in my raised beds. Also have various mints in pots. They can be invasive as regards root spread if planted out in the beds - hence are confined to pots. Bay leaf shrubs grow well in reasonably sized pots and are good herbs for flavour in cooking. I love having herbs outside my door.

Right now I am making some fish chowder and the herbs come in very useful for making the base stock.

scarepanda wrote: »

I probably won't grow much this year and anything I do will probably end up being in pots. I might try get a herb garden going, maybe in nice pots for outside the back door. We're trying to buy a house and if the sale goes through I'll be building the veg garden from scratch so that will take up my time.

Regards to building a veg garden, Is there anything anyone has done that they are really happy they did, or anything you regret doing? Ill be going for 18in high beds,build from 9x2 timber. 8x4ft beds. And hopefully making it a bit of a smart garden.

Sounds like a great plan, scarepanda. Having herbs in pots at your back door will probably enhance your chances of selling because it may give prospective buyers some ideas as to how they can make the place homely when they move in.

Your plan for your new garden once you move house sounds brilliant. You're obviously a fitter, possibly a younger person than me, as far as work goes. If you are up to it, then fair play to you!

I'm very delighted with what I have out back, as when I moved in two years ago there was nothing but lawn. I got everything I needed from a brilliant Irish online company. If anyone wants the name, feel free to PM me.

I chose 3-foot wide beds rather than four-foot because for me it would be easier to reach across from both sides. That's just me! I also got a compost heap that 's constructed from wood but no nails. You just stack up the slats one cubic metre high. I lined it with weed protecting fabric, so that the compost doesn't leak through the gaps in the slats once it breaks down into crumbly compost. For those interested, this company has a wide range of ideas for varying sized compost heaps.

I didn't need my compost heap to be the full metre high, which left me with another metre square low bed for containing my rhubarb. The rhubarb is now growing for the 2nd year and so far is about 9 inches high already. I will be having some rhubarb crumble in no time at all!

So far so good! I'll probably leave it a couple of weeks before I plan Spring planting because my garden has been quite productive right through the Winter and still is.

My only regret was that I missed out on planitng Swiss chard. I hope to rectify that mistake next yeart.

Best of luck with your plans, scarepanda!

kylith wrote: »

We went down about 2.5feet putting in a fence post and it was clay all the way. I’ve postulated with Himself about raised beds, but those things are not cheap.

Hi. I was able to use fresh EURO pallets and those hinged collars ( treated with weatherproof paint)on top to make my raised beds. Scavenged everything from my job. Very cheap.

Karlee Magnificent Valve wrote: »

Where did you get the collars?

They were hard to come by as I just asked around.they are always sought after. I am truck driver so am able to visit a lot of yards.you can buy them from a place called AJ products in Ireland but I haven't dealt with them because I eventually got enough by mooching. It's a great idea though. One ton of topsoil was able to fill 4 of the collars.

The Master. wrote: »

Here is one after being treated and soil in. There are 12 beds altogether and I've garlic in one that is shooting up. I've no idea what to put in the others or when to plant it!

Very impressive, The Master.

Funny, the term "raised bed" can mean different things to different people. Your emphasis seems to be on height.

Mine are nine inches high and rest on the ground. They are just frames with no bottoms that rest on the lawn. I covered the lawn with several layers of large cardboard cartons, opened out flat inside the frames. I also lined up the sides on the inside with weed prevention fabric, stapled onto the wooden sides, just to make sure weeds didn't sprout up along the insides. Before putting in the compost, which was half-and-half home-made and bought from the shop, I sprayed the cardboard sheets with water to dampen them. It has worked out perfectly.

If you are not sure what to plant, The Master, might I suggest you keep an eye out for places like Woodies and Homebase or any Nurseries to see what they have for sale at any particular time. Salad type crops are great for starters, but unless you have protection, you need to wait until the danger of frost is over. It's a bit early yet. I like to buy the plug plants ready to plant out, rather than sowing from seeds, but it's everybody's choice.

An interesting technique, when space is limited is "Square Foot Gardening". I just used string stretched across from opposite sides to divide the space into foot square sections. There are lots of articles and videos on the Internet as to how this works. Basically it's based on how much space various plants need and there are various charts available on the Web showing how many of the various plants to plant per square foot. It's a great use of space. For instance, you can probably get four lettuce plants into a square foot, but a cabbage plant will need more than one square foot.

There's another technique called "No-Dig Gardening" which is quite interesting too. Loads of info on the WWWeb!

Have fun, The Master. That's what it's all about.