• Welcome to the Land Rover UK Forums

    You are currently viewing the site as a guest and some content may not be available to you.

    Registration is quick and easy and will give you full access to the site and allow you to ask questions or make comments and join in on the conversation. If you would like to register then please Register Now

Growing your own Food.

Richie_asg1

Richie_asg1

Posting Guru
Site Donor
I've become more interested in doing this the last few years. Maybe it is old age that turns old men into gardeners or it could just be the shop prices for food that is making me do it. Either way it doesn't take much time to do it and the results can be good and worthwhile for a very small outlay.

With the growing season just about to start maybe now would be a time to start something if you have never grown anything before. Hopefully discussion here will give someone the nudge to try for the first time.

One of my first successes years ago was to buy a 99p grow bag, put it on a concrete slab outside the back door and grow a Lidl packet of mixed lettuce in it. Watered it if it looked like it needed it and that one small outlay kept me in fresh salad leaves all summer. Cost less than ÂŁ2, and saved me buying lettuce.

Something else that worked was buying 3 rather dead looking strawberry plants for 25p each from B&Q at the end of the season. As there were some green bits I took a chance and planted them at the edge of a raised bed. Well the next year they took off! Each plant didn't give any fruit, but put out loads of runners which I weighted down with a stone. The next year I got some strawberries! ...and about 12 more plants. 5 years on I now have them all around the raised beds - over 50 of them, and I've given away about the same quantity. Fresh strawberries most the way through the summer...all for that 75p outlay.

So if you are not growing any food yet, maybe give it a go? It is rewarding for your effort, and you get to eat it fresh.

If anyone is interested I will post what I am doing this year but would like to hear what others are up to if they do the same. :) Successes and failures - all useful.
 
We've grown our own selected veg for a few years now, can't beat it, fresh as can be, no pesticides or herbicides, enjoyable outdoors work and a real saving. :)
We've only a small plot in the garden and a 6x4 poly greenhouse but that makes us self-sufficient for most of the spring, summer and autumn.

Amazing what a small plot can produce - we use the 'square-foot plot' approach (type into Google) for broad beans, runners, French beans, carrots, lettuce, kale, spinach, chard, courgettes, tomatoes, spring onions, radishes, beetroot. Usually do a few sacks of new potatoes, but don't bother with brassicas as there are too many cabbage whites here, or longtime in the ground stuff like leeks, onions, parsnips etc. as I need the space for rotation. Would like to grow fruit too but no room for fruit trees or soft fruit bushes.
đź‘Ť
 
Good for you Richie, I think the biggest plus for growing your own is getting away from everything being soaked in pesticides.
I've pretty much given up growing outside (in the open) except for root veg, I got fed up with everything else getting to the crop before me ! Everything else I grow in a polytunnel.
I make my own compost, use rain water were ever possible. I grow mainly tomatoes, salads, courgettes, beetroot,peppers, kale cucumber and herbs. My principle being to grow things I can't get in the shops or if it is expensive to buy. I also grow produce that if I get a glut I can make it into meals and freeze it for the winter months. Roast tomato puree' is a good example of this, you can use it in so many dishes.
A mate of mine suggested growing kale in the tunnel, I was amazed at the results:
142295
and here's some of the tomato & basil crop
142296
 
I am not allowed any where near the greenhouse (12'x8') only to water with strict instructions if the lady wife is away, the same goes for the poly tunnel (30'x12'), at the moment the green house has a lemon tree with fruit, an orange tree, a peach tree in full blossom, (small ones) and other stuff in propagators, (the GH is heated), the polytunnel has raised beds for taters, strawberries, onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet peppers, and other stuff, various fruit trees in an acre of garden, I am allowed to cut the grass without instructions o_O so long as I keep away from the trees, lucky me!, the taste of the produce is great, no pesticides etc all organic.
Colin
 
We grow tatties, neeps, onions, carrots, peas and broad beans.
We have plenty of room to grow more but if i go offshore during summer it tends to get neglected and theres no point growing stuff just to feed the "doos" and caterpillars, so what we grow is fairly low maintenance, staples.
We still have a row of huge pumpkin sized neeps in the garden now.
 
Dug up our lawn and converted it into a veg garden about 10 years ago. It's about 30ft x 150ft so enough growing space to make us almost self sufficient for veg. Faces North so not the very best alignment but hey ho.

Absolutely determined to get a polytunnel, hope to manage that this year. As Richie said, growing season very close so time to get started.
 
Last edited:
My friend had a greenhouse that was south facing, built up against an old stone boundary wall. His veg always grew well in the garden, but best were the grapes he had in the greenhouse.

Might have had something to do with the graveyard the other side of the wall?

We have a greenhouse, mostly storage for chicken food though. We have very little soil, at best a couple of inches. Could cope with that but the stags destroy anything we grow, and they are very difficult to keep out.

Freezers full though....
 
Had an allotment for 11 years doing very well now grow plums, apples, raspberries, blackberries ,grapes ,gooseberries and good selection of vegetables.
Beans are one of my best items as they freeze well and see us through the winter.first pic is the way it was when I got it. Others how it is now.
 

Attachments

  • DSCF0641.JPG
    DSCF0641.JPG
    252.2 KB · Views: 130
  • DSCF3864.JPG
    DSCF3864.JPG
    212.7 KB · Views: 142
  • DSCF3869.JPG
    DSCF3869.JPG
    302.9 KB · Views: 102
With a bit of rearranging I could make a 5x1' sunny bed for soft fruits but what is recommended as easy, tasty and compact? E.g. raspberries, blackberries ,gooseberries? Strawbs along the edges?
 
capoj said:
With a bit of rearranging I could make a 5x1' sunny bed for soft fruits but what is recommended as easy, tasty and compact? E.g. raspberries, blackberries ,gooseberries? Strawbs along the edges?
Click to expand...

If you are limited for space I would suggest strawberries around the edge and possibly blackcurrant bushes centre.

All the others you are thinking about make large untidy bushes or need wires and supports.
 
Hanuka Japanese goose beries are black and nice and sweet need no support only fruits on new growth so have to be careful how much you prune.
If a branch is pegged into the soil it will root so easy to propagate more bushes.
 
jenks69 said:
I agree - but need the bees in to pollenate any fruit bearers (strawbs etc). I've grown Chives and Cress and a little Basil and mint - but I want real food LOL.
Click to expand...

Keep your eye on the strawberry plants at the nearest garden centre, only buy them late when they are in flower and have been outside a while.
 
I used to grow loads of stuff. Had s big plot in the back garden that I grew veg in, carrots, giant parsnips, tatties, peas, broccoli etc etc. Never bothered with neeps, I'd always just one out of the coo shed if I needed one!

The the leylandii grew taller... And taller and taller. Robbed all the light from the garden and I have up and just stuck with the greenhouse.

Greenhouse was 12x10 in the end as it ended up being a couple of big ones made into one. Grew loads of tomatoes, courgettes, aubergines, cucumbers and chillies. Was always a nice way to unwind after work but a couple of nasty storms took out too much of the glass. I tore it down and built my workshop there instead.

The leylandii have just been cut down from nearly 40 feet tall to about 8 feet for most of it and 5 for s good chunk. All the old logs, sawdust, land rover tyres, fuel tanks and other crap that built up over the years is gone and there is a nice bit of ground which is south facing where the shed was before it burnt down. I'm thinking of some hard landscaping with raised beds for growing again.
 
Starting point for this year in Feb. -
142444
Fence was broken so bought timber for that, plus enough for raised beds.
Today -
142445
Beds are 11ft by 5ft = which is about the maximum that will fit widthwise, and uses up the timber which is in 16ft lengths perfectly. Rear bed against the fence is made from the old fencing. (rear fencepost was a pig to replace as it sat in a 2ft lump of concrete :mad:
Centre bed will be a pond/ water tank...more on that later. ;)

Before I dug that middle bit out, I used the cut turf to make a charcoal oven, and turned all the old fencing and quite a lot of scrapwood into charcoal and wood ash. The large bits I have bagged up in the shed for summer BBQ, but about half the small stuff and wood ash has gone on the beds. Other bagged up for later.
Bit dark, but maybe you can make it out -
142446

Meanwhile.....inside....
142447
Home made LED lights (3W 65ook and colours stuck to Asda baking pans and sheets) allow a crop of lettuce and my seed starts. Deep water culture in cat litter trays with airstones to provide extra oxygen.....Yes there are tomatoes in there too, a couple of cucumbers and trays of mustard, broccoli etc.
Also propagating mint and basil from shop bought plants.
 
Back
Top Bottom