Veg plans for 2020

Harry Palmr · 19-03-2020 4:58pm

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Just reading the QuickCrop newsletter and the no dig method of potato crops - looks like a good idea and I have the idea spot for it think I'll do that.

TLDR of article - dump 6 inches of compost on your prepped soil bed area, sow spuds as per but only to a depth of 6 inches and then build the bed up with composting material as the spuds develop. Harvesting is as easy as can be with no heavy earth getting in the way. Plus excellent growing medium for next crop on that bed.

Potatoes for early cropping in, onions which went in a month ago and salah leaves (salah's leaving?!) oh and some tumbling toms (red and orange) which are sat on a bedroom window sill until late April/early May

I'll have to come up with a more long term fix for bird protection, it could be a chicken wire cage in a couple of sections

MacDanger · 19-03-2020 7:05pm

Hoping to plant my early potatoes (Sharpe's Express) this weekend and out down a few onion sets

jack_frost_09 · 19-03-2020 8:27pm

Potatoes (earlies) are chitted and ready to be planted in beds in the coming days with the main crop going into containers as an experiment next month.

Also have some broad beans started off on the windowsill as well as some lettuce and herbs so far.

One question - have any of you had any issues with ants in your raised beds? Are they generally good or bad and is there a non-chemical way to get rid if needs be?

Living Off The Splash · 20-03-2020 10:51am

I always have some ants living in the corners of some of my raised beds. I generally just sprinkle the ant powder in the general area and they disappear quite quickly.

[Deleted User] · 20-03-2020 11:07am

Here a few pics of my pumpkins,butternut squash and romanesco cauliflowers from the other day.
They have been mostly repotted and moved to the greenhouse now.
And replaced with 3 more trays of tamatos/sweet pea .

cuculainn · 20-03-2020 2:31pm

they look great

quick question for all the experts on here. i have germinated tomatoes and peppers in a heated propagator. they are about 2 inches tall now. How long do they need the heat of the propagator? i have been taking hte lid of during the day to avoid damping out.

I want to transplant into bigger pots but i wont be able to give them the same heat.
especially with the cold nights, am i better off leaving them in the propagator till they are stronger and the nights are warmer?

pconn062 · 20-03-2020 3:05pm

cuculainn wrote: »

they look great

quick question for all the experts on here. i have germinated tomatoes and peppers in a heated propagator. they are about 2 inches tall now. How long do they need the heat of the propagator? i have been taking hte lid of during the day to avoid damping out.

I want to transplant into bigger pots but i wont be able to give them the same heat.
especially with the cold nights, am i better off leaving them in the propagator till they are stronger and the nights are warmer?

You could take them out of the propogator now but leave them inside somewhere warm for another few weeks.

uck51js9zml2yt · 23-03-2020 12:06pm

I was just talking to a local farmer and have arranged for him to come up and plough the garden this week.

Just need to get it harrowed after than and I can start planting.

MacDanger · 23-03-2020 12:24pm

Planted my early spuds and a few sets over the weekend. Will plan some celery, leek and broccoli from seed this weekend with a view to planting them out in around 4 weeks along with carrots from seed (direct sowing)

bizidea · 23-03-2020 3:12pm

MacDanger wrote: »

Planted my early spuds and a few sets over the weekend. Will plan some celery, leek and broccoli from seed this weekend with a view to planting them out in around 4 weeks along with carrots from seed (direct sowing)

Do you mind me asking whereabouts you are I'm in the Midlands just a bit weary of the cold nights still didnt want to chance planting the spuds yet

MacDanger · 23-03-2020 3:28pm

bizidea wrote: »

Do you mind me asking whereabouts you are I'm in the Midlands just a bit weary of the cold nights still didnt want to chance planting the spuds yet

In North Mayo. Yeah, I was a bit wary of the cold nights myself but I figure it'll be a couple of weeks before there's any shoots above ground so I decided to chance it.

This is my first time growing them though so I'm not sure if that was the right choice or not......

bizidea · 23-03-2020 3:33pm

MacDanger wrote: »

In North Mayo. Yeah, I was a bit wary of the cold nights myself but I figure it'll be a couple of weeks before there's any shoots above ground so I decided to chance it.

This is my first time growing them though so I'm not sure if that was the right choice or not......

Thanks you might be a bit safer planting now as your closer to the sea might leave it for another week or two here

pconn062 · 23-03-2020 3:43pm

Keep in mind if you plant your spuds 15cms deep it will take them about a month or so to pop up, so that's mid to late April. If they do pop up and there is still a risk of frost you can always cover them with some fleece or if you have any old net curtains they do a good job too.

bizidea · 23-03-2020 4:20pm

pconn062 wrote: »

Keep in mind if you plant your spuds 15cms deep it will take them about a month or so to pop up, so that's mid to late April. If they do pop up and there is still a risk of frost you can always cover them with some fleece or if you have any old net curtains they do a good job too.

Sound thanks for that might chance planting so

CelticRambler · 23-03-2020 6:51pm

pconn062 wrote: »

Keep in mind if you plant your spuds 15cms deep it will take them about a month or so to pop up, so that's mid to late April. If they do pop up and there is still a risk of frost you can always cover them with some fleece or if you have any old net curtains they do a good job too.

That's pretty much the attitude that I take - except for the covering up. I aim to get my main crop in mid March (a bit late this year due to unworkable heavy wet clay soil) and I don't worry about a bit of frost damage to the shoots in April-May, as the plants seem to tolerate it well. It might be a different story with potatoes sown at a shallower depth, though.

Harry Palmr · 27-03-2020 6:23pm

Don't tell anyone but I "rescued" some Alpine Strawberry plants which had been transferred (as shoots by birds probably) from one bed to another and bought them home to stick in my own raised bed.

SnowyMuckish · 27-03-2020 10:09pm

I was thinking of planting out my spuds soon but it looks like frost is on its way. I don’t know what variety they are or if they’re early or main crop I inherited them from my late father after his untimely death so they mean a lot to me! Should I hold back a week or two?

pconn062 · 27-03-2020 10:33pm

SnowyMuckish wrote: »

I was thinking of planting out my spuds soon but it looks like frost is on its way. I don’t know what variety they are or if they’re early or main crop I inherited them from my late father after his untimely death so they mean a lot to me! Should I hold back a week or two?

Plant them 6 inches down and they won't pop up for a month or so and a lot of the frost risk will be gone by then. You could leave them a week or two but I would have them in by mid April at the latest.

[Deleted User] · 31-03-2020 10:23am

I overwintered about 40 onions.
Pulled one to see how they were doing.

A lovely spring onion to go with a decent crop of lettuce.

This is my first time overwintering anything and it's lovely having some fresh crops in the spring.
They do take ages though.Planted the onions in november I think.

uck51js9zml2yt · 31-03-2020 8:25pm

Go my garden rotovated today. I'm now making beds for the spuds.

tom1ie · 01-04-2020 11:50am

Karlee Magnificent Valve wrote: »

Go my garden rotovated today. I'm now making beds for the spuds.

do you own a rotovator or did you hire one in?
im trying the mittleider gardening method, 30ft beds, 18" wide, rotovated to 1ft deep. Not easy doing it with a fork and spade, especially when im digging up grass which is in the way! :eek:

Living Off The Splash · 12-04-2020 10:34am

All seeds planted out now except for my French Beans. It is recommended to wait until May to plant these out but I am tempted to do so now since the temperatures have risen. Have you planted out your French Bean seeds?

CelticRambler · 12-04-2020 11:28am

CelticRambler wrote: »

I've moved my pumpkins, gerkhins and tomatoes outside, putting them into holes in that heap of grass that I laid out the other day, and covering the plants and grass with a mini tunnel. I'm counting on the heat of decomposition to keep any frost at bay (I didn't measure it, but after just two days the base of the heap feels like it's about 15°C or more).

Our forecast here (central France) is for a two weeks of sun with temps in the high teens, so I've taken a chance and sowed a few lines of carrots today, along with a line of peas.

Well ... none of that worked out as planned. While I was away, we seem to have had a combination of exceptionally hot temperatures and extreme wind-driven drought. :eek: Unfortunately, whatever humidity was contributed to the tunnel by the freshly mown grass was blown away and almost everything reduced to shrivelled débris.

Fortunately, the slower/later germinating seeds still in the propagator (inside in the gloom) were OK (cherry tomatoes, jalapeño chilies, red/green peppers, charentais melons), and I have (hopefully) not lost too much time with the replacements for regular tomatoes, pumpkins and gerkins.

In the meantime, I've made the best of a week's unbroken sunshine and temperatures around 24-26°C

getting a patch of ground (planted for the first time last year) ready for this year's crop of potatoes harder than it needed to be!

before

after

This area had obviously been used as a materials depot for the building of a barn "back in the day" - it had a huge quantity of building stone in one area, and a massive amount of gravelly clay in another (by which I mean real clay, the kind the children would dig out of the ground and make pottery with :eek: ).

After strimming and rotavating last year, I planted it with potatoes, onions and beetroot, and regularly added grass clippings between the drills (at least until the grass stopped growing in June). The photo above shows it after two passes of the rotavator on Wednesday morning, which (with the additional help of a fork) brought another load of stone to the surface. Although it's still very clay-ey, it's already very much improved. No manure, no glyphosate.

And all that stone ... ? Barrow after barrow taken to the courtyard ...

... and used to tidy up a raised bed.

(and there's still about three times as much looking for another project).

gnf_ireland · 12-04-2020 11:34am

BrownFinger wrote: »

Here a few pics of my pumpkins,butternut squash and romanesco cauliflowers from the other day.
They have been mostly repotted and moved to the greenhouse now.
And replaced with 3 more trays of tamatos/sweet pea .

Just wondering, do you not have these in very early. That was ~20th March, so must have been planted since early March. It seems very early for me, given its difficult to plant these out until May/June timeframe. Would love to hear your experiences to date with them.

Is your glasshouse heated? Did the cool spell impact them at all?

FYI - I only planted my butternut squash and 1 set of pumpkins yesterday (the other pumpkins sat last weekend), so we can compare how we get on later in the season (assuming I can get back into my allotment to plant them on!!)

*Note* I did defer some of the planting by a fortnight, as I am unsure of when I will be able to access my allotment at this point.

[Deleted User] · 12-04-2020 6:40pm

Yes it heated but I did lose a chunk of them.
Live and learn I suppose!!
It was mostly the pumpkins and the BNS I lost.
Going to sew a few more soon and try again.

Really want to get an Atlantic giant this year.

The Red Ace · 12-04-2020 7:02pm

Made a nice bit of progress this past week, got two different plots ready by rotovating the soil virtually into powder. Smaller lot a ridge of Queens, three ridges of onions, a ridge of carrots and then some swedes. Larger plot 2kg of Maris Pipers put in. It will be a few more weeks before my next lot are ready which include, Cauliflower, Broccoli, Cabbage, Beetroot, Lettuce, and Corn .

uck51js9zml2yt · 12-04-2020 7:52pm

tom1ie wrote: »

do you own a rotovator or did you hire one in?
im trying the mittleider gardening method, 30ft beds, 18" wide, rotovated to 1ft deep. Not easy doing it with a fork and spade, especially when im digging up grass which is in the way! :eek:

Sorry, just saw your post.
I've a 1/4 acre veg garden. I had a local farmer in with a plough and then he came back to rotavate it. He grows, spuds locally.
I'm going no dig this year so this was the final year to plough it.

Bought an electric propagator this evening... This lockdown is dangerous!

tom1ie · 12-04-2020 7:55pm

Karlee Magnificent Valve wrote: »

Sorry, just saw your post.
I've a 1/4 acre veg garden. I had a local farmer in with a plough and then he came back to rotavate it. He grows, spuds locally.
I'm going no dig this year so this was the final year to plough it.

Bought an electric propagator this evening... This lockdown is dangerous!

i ended up getting one in lidl for 80 euro.
Great little machine, helped me shape my new three 30ft vegetable beds!

gnf_ireland · 13-04-2020 12:39pm

BrownFinger wrote: »

Yes it heated but I did lose a chunk of them.
Live and learn I suppose!!
It was mostly the pumpkins and the BNS I lost.
Going to sew a few more soon and try again.

Really want to get an Atlantic giant this year.

I had the same issue myself last year. I had great success in germination, but struggled beyond that point as the glasshouse was not warm enough to sustain them (mine is not heated), and lost a lot of stuff.

I delayed the sowing this year, outside of peppers really, until now so will see if that makes a difference.

Good luck with the pumpkins

Seve OB · 13-04-2020 12:46pm

Living Off The Splash wrote: »

All seeds planted out now except for my French Beans. It is recommended to wait until May to plant these out but I am tempted to do so now since the temperatures have risen. Have you planted out your French Bean seeds?

I actually planted some seeds in pots last week. No real room in the house to keep them and weather I good so I just have them in the patio for now.

Also stuck in a few sharpes express potatoes and some beetroot seeds.

Veg plans for 2020

Comments