Veg plans for 2020

Karlee Magnificent Valve wrote: »

Don't know what part of the country you're in not to have had a hard frost in recent weeks.

Probably not yours! I'm a few degrees of latitude down towards the equator.

But usually a few degrees of temperature colder than Dublin in the winter (like 10-15°C colder) Average temperatures here - central France - are currently about about 13°C higher than normal for this time of year, hence the plentiful supply of grass clippings.

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.

Those look fantastic. Nice work!

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.

Vicarious Function wrote: »

Scarepanda, I don't envy you making the move! LOL! It's over two years since I made the move from a place which was bigger than what I have here - hence more work.

I left my raised beds behind as they were about ten years old and the wood surrounds were past their sell-by date. I did have a compost heap that was matured and ready for use. I shovelled it up into eight bags and took it with me. Delighted I did that because it got my raised beds here off to a great start. I had to hire a man with a van to transport it for me but it was worth it.

Ha! I don't envy myself either! I'm dreading it if I'm honest!

I'm thinking I might dig up a section and see how bad it actually is. My dad will be able to transport it for us on his trailer so that won't be much of an issue. Our landlord couldn't give a fiddler's that we have a veg garden, but I'm not sure if he'll want it left either, so either way it might need to levelled. We're only moving 10mins up the road so not a crazy distance either.

I'm going to start the post winter tidy up of the garden this week and start digging up the few bits I want to bring with us while I'm at it.

CelticRambler wrote: »

Just bought 15 packs of seeds in Lidl for 4.50€. For the veg garden: giant pumpkin (40-50kg it says on the packet :eek: ... we'll see - have only ever had 10kg-ish before); white onions, yellow onions; two types of carrot (summer and winter); lettuce; leeks; Charentais melon (don't know who's going to eat it - I won't, and the family insist on visiting too early in the summer - but why not ...); and new for this year: jalapeño chilis.

Ha, you sound like me! I nearly always try to grow something new every year, even though chances I won't either eat or will have the best of intentions and then don't :-0, but it's all in the fun of growing something cool! I love growing pumpkin's. And I have plans to grow seeds of coloured corn eventually!

I have 9 raised beds. Last year I grew mostly peas, mange tout, french beans and runner beans. A bed of lettuce, spinach, chard, beetroot and potatoes.

My potatoes were poor, my beetroot was poor, very small.

This year will be more of the same but I will not grow potatoes or beetroot. We had a huge crop of Mange Tout and had to freeze them, but I felt that they did not freeze well. Tasted bitter when cooked. I love cabbage but no matter how well I protect them the cabbage white butterfly always finds a way in.

I will cut back on the Mange Tout and grow more French Beans.

I will turn my compost shortly and probably dig it in to the beds in March. I will start a new compost heap beside last years for next years supply.

This year will be a big return to the veg front for me.

Im lucky enough to have a 'spare' 50ftx50ft area at the bottom of the garden with greenhouse that up to 5 years ago provided veg through the season. Used to be gorgeous with raised beds etc but a party sewer burst and the whole area dug up and destroyed.

5 years on, lovely neutral soil I'm going to replant. This year I'm just rotovating the whole lot. Gradual job to restore raised beds but for now it's almost a mini allotment.

Sweetcorn is my nemesis though, always goes earwiggy so if anyone has a resistant variety I'd love to hear.

Can you prune back currant bushes? And is it too late to prune raspberries? How hard of a prune can you give these fruits?

I've just been out in the garden starting a bit of the post winter tidy up and I was looking at the fruit bushes. I'm going to bring the blueberries, but undecided about the rest. They were let go wild last year so it's a tangled mess at the moment but If I'm bringing the stuff I'd want to get them moved sooner rather than later before they start growing properly

Got my Sutton seeds’ box yesterday. A good mix of stuff, some i’ll Use, some I probably won’t. Not a fan of cucumbers or peppers so i’ll Probably pass those to MiL. I haven’t had Swede in years, so it’ll be interesting to see if I like them any better than I did as a child.