This is the year ...

[Ross]

Hi i joined the site last year but was unable to get on as often as i would have liked.
I grew vegtables for the first time last year, i built two big planters and had a great harvest of potatoes from one and lettuce from the other some of which grew to the size of small footballs, i tried tomatoes in a grow bag but they did not do very well infact i did not see a tomato !!! and my strawberries were eaten by two very clever magpies who even went under my netting much to my wifes amusement.
This year i cant wait and im going to try leeks king richard earlies and autumn giant argenta, carrots early nantes and amsterdam forcing, spring onions ishikuro, potatoes undecided as yet, lettuce undecided, strawberries and tomatoes which i am building a small lean to for and this year i will succeed i hope
I am going to grow everything from seed or at least try to and will try and give weekly updates and photos of my progress any advice would be greatly appreciated and finding out what everyone else is growing ... looking forward to the sun.
Ross.

[stupo74]

Hi Ross,
Welcome back

Good Luck with the growings

Quote; "Looking Forward" to the SUN

Will we get that back this year as well

Bloody Marvellous, just after the "use by date" on my "sun stuff"

Had it five years Only opened it "Once"

Mind you, i seem to remember, that the first try of it, Resulted in me looking like "Mr Blobby" after about 10 minutes of applying it, Blotches of diffrent shades of coppery brownish/red, Didnt go out for a week would have been arrested

Anyway, Happy Gardening for the coming season, and fingers crossed for the sun,,, cheers stupo.

[Nicola_D]

Oh good luck Ross, looking forward to your updates. It was my first time growing last year too, we did quite well with tomatoes, I had 6 gardeners delight plants in a long plastic planter, i was worried it wasn't deep enough, but the plants grew well and we got over 100 tomatoes, would have probably got more if I'd looked after and pruned the plants better, but I just let them do their own thing really, just built a cane frame for them when they started getting big. My back garden is a bit of a sun trap though, maybe that's why we did so well with them.

We are planning on building a raised bed along the otherside of the patio wall this year,my plan is to try onions, leeks, carrots and green beans (or maybe sugar snap peas) in it and maybe some radishes, lettuces and spring onions that we use through the summer. It will be about 3 meters long and half a meter wide so plenty of room.

I grew some alpine strawberries in a handing basket and they did quite well, I was worried aboout birds too, but then realised that as we have 3 cats and there's quite a few cats on our estate we don't get many birds venturing into our garden! so they survived. Our problem is slugs and snails, we get loads of them and I hate them can't bare to look at them never mind pick them off stuff.

I'm going to try potatoes too, I noticed our local Wilkinson's had a few varieties in I was tempted by pink fir apple as i read they are delicious but you don't often get them in the shops, but i have no idea if they are earlies or not and we will be growing them in those potato grow sack things on the patio.