Grow My Own Food

[trooper]

I'd like to start growing my own food but I haven't got a clue where to start.
Are there any good sites that could teach me?

Also can I grow food indoors as the UK weather is usually shit and I don't have much of a garden?

[the itinerant shrubber]

Just chuck some spuds in this year.Chuck all your peelings and stuff on the patch through the year. Dig em all up in the autumn and turn over the soil and you'll be ready to put a winter crop in.
You cant go wrong. It's a piece of piss.

[trooper]

Sounds good but the little bit of garden I have is concrete. I'll need to grow veggies in pots, just haven't got a clue about it.

[stickwhistler]

Sounds good but the little bit of garden I have is concrete. I'll need to grow veggies in pots, just haven't got a clue about it.

Growbags.
Big plastic planters.
Tree pots - ask at garden centres
(pssst! Look in their work/waste area)!
Square-foot-gardening - google it.
Square frames made from pallets filled with compost.
Old tyres filled with compost.

Share a garden with somebody else
e.g. old people, disabled people, people too lazy to garden.
You use their garden, and share the produce.

Look on the seed packets for sowing time.
You have a couple of weeks behind the last date given to sow.

No excuse at all really! ;)
When would NOW be a good time to do this? :D

[motleyhoo]

My neighborhood doesn't technically allow vegetable gardens. This year I am trying tomatoes and peppers in grow bags (by Sunleaves), and I built 4 raised beds with dirt and compost using the Square Foot Gardening method. I'll be putting various herbs, green beans, beets, cucumbers, squash, and egg plant in those. Now...if I can only catch those pesky voles that have been chewing things up!!

[white horse]

Hi there,

I commend you for giving this a go! If only we all did...!

Any kind of container (even thos plastic boxes used for kiddie stoys etc, just puncture some holes in the bottom.)

Get some seeds. GEt some compost.

My hint for tips and asdvice is get down your lcoal charity shop, they are bound to have tons of gardening books real cheap, they always do have!

Anyway, first step is sowing the seeds;

1 - In some shallow containers start the seedlings

(I have used some old draws from some furniture found in a skip)

Fill with compost. Sow your seeds. (The back of the packet will tell you how deep etc.)

For some seeds (liek carrots, lettuce, spring onions etc) you can sow a few, and then a few weeks later sow some more for a perpetual harvest through the summer.

I have made some closhes to go over the top (found an old kids broken trampolene, and then some clear plastic, all rubish from skips.) Also using pallets and plastic made a poly-lean to frame!

Keep moist. [Edit - the compost, not you!] After a few weeks the seedlings can be thinned out (keep the best, throw the rest away - try making your own compost Excellent idea!)

Get some deeper pots.

2 - in some deeper pots transplant the seedlings

Mix some compost and soil, and transplant (be very gentle with the little ones!) the best of the seedlings after a few weeks. (Again, a good gardening book will give you more of an idea - just remmeber there are no concretes in this game, it is all opinions and grey areas.)

You can even grow in bin liners; double them up and put compost in.

This year I am growing - carrots, radishes, lettuces, sprouts, potatos, tomotoes, sprin onions, parsnips, beans, peas, spinach, broccolli, cauliflower.

And I haven't got a big garden!

Honestly - these plants will do their very best to try to grow for you if you give them some soil and water, they can be promoted with better conditions, but you have to try really hard to prevent them from giving you a crop!

My hot tiip - I am making grow boxes from old pallets. These throw aways are a god send, and you find them thrown and lying around all over the city, in skips, building sites etc. Just pick the wood apart, even use the same nails again. Saw the planks in half, and put back together into boxes; make some shallow and some deeper.

HAve fun!

But yeah - get down that charity shop for veg grow books!

[trooper]

Cheers Guys

Some excellent advice. Well I'd better go start :)