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Down The Lane Forum
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Growing your own to lower food costs - 2023Re: Growing your own to lower food costs - 2023Dance caller. http://mo-dance-caller.blogspot.co.uk/p/what-i-do.html
Sunny Clucker enjoyed Folk music and song in mid-Cheshire Re: Growing your own to lower food costs - 2023No, my partner wondered why it was not shooting, investigated the issue and announced with a big grin the mistake I had made. She then dug it up and replanted it all! I have never been allowed to forget it  "Not all those who wander are lost"
Re: Growing your own to lower food costs - 2023 oh Trev, I can just imagine the leg-pulling thereafter. I know I've planted some garlic cloves or onion sets upside down before now (so easy to do) but luckily they recovered (or not many were lost)
Re: Growing your own to lower food costs - 2023I have several books in my collection but forgot to mention Grow Your Own Veg (RHS) by Carol Klein which is worth reading.
Re: Growing your own to lower food costs - 2023You Tube is brilliant for advice on so many things, Trev!
Aubergine - are they worth growing?I have attempted to grow aubergine so many times and been so disappointed. In the same family as the tomato, they grow more or less in the same conditions and have similar feeding requirements. However, harvesting the perfect aubergine like what you would find in the supermarket has eluded me.
Despite growing different varieties in a greenhouse or polytunnel (I did get one fruit from a long variety rather than the typical egg plant shape), my only success was an outdoor patio variety (with fruits about the size of large duck eggs) Clearly I'm not an expert in growing aubergines, so I bow to anyone else who has been more successful. I think it's possible my problem is that the greenhouse varieties need more sun which my garden with all the trees and tall hedge on either side do not provide. The outdoor dwarf plant surprisingly had a higher yield than expected. Like tomatoes, chillies & peppers, now is the time to sow the seeds indoors and keep warm and on a sunny south facing windowsill after germination. As a warmth loving plant, they should be kept indoors until all risk of frost has passed and hardened off before planting outside. If the plants are destined for the greenhouse, they can go in earlier but (i) be aware of frosty nights when it can get very cold even in the greenhouse and protect and (ii) be aware of sunny days and remember to open vents / door before the greenhouse gets too hot.
Onion from seed + LeeksI have grown onion bulbs from seed but the ease of planting onion sets instead has usually won. However, the range of varieties grown from sets are limited compared to the different onions that can be grown from seed.
If sowing seeds for this year's crops, then now is the time to sow but keep the seedlings indoors on a cool but sunny windowsill to grow until ready to harden off / plant in their final growing bed. Spring onions, pickling onion varieties and shallot seeds can be sown at the same time. If planning on growing onions over winter and harvesting in June / July the following year, seeds from cold hardy varieties are sown in early August. Considering the seedlings had to endure one of the longest coldest winters that I've ever known, the ones I grew bulbed up perfectly for an impressive harvest. Leeks are treated similar to onion seedlings until they are ready to plant out. Traditionally, leeks follow on from first early potato harvests. After lifting the potatoes, holes are made by pushing a dowel or end of a rake end into the soil to about 7-9 inches deep. The individual seedlings are dropped into each hole and then the hole is filled with water - at this stage it is worth gently holding on to the leaf tips as the water drains (when some of the soil from the sides of the hole fall in, they can dislodge the seedling and knock it over) The alternate to the hole planting is to dig a trench and after planting, backfill with the soil which is gently drawn up round the plants to increase stem length. Re: Growing your own to lower food costs - 2023If it had not been for You Tube we would have been unable to renovate this house as we had no idea how do most things, Bodge it and Leave it would have been the correct description of us and our DIY skills! "Not all those who wander are lost"
Re: Onion from seed + LeeksLike yourself we have grown onions from both seed and sets. When we grow them from seed we sow them in plastic guttering this makes it easier to free them to replant. Last year we planted both seeds and sets but a lot of our onion sets split and went to seed. "Not all those who wander are lost"
Re: Seed Potatoes - available to purchase from early JanuaryWe have grown potatoes both ways and have found that non chitted potatoes produce a slightly lower crop yield but are much more weather resilient. With the volume we are planting this year we do not have the storage place to allow them to "sit and chit" so I am planting them straight in the soil, one batch is in, hopefully the second will be done tomorrow. This is an informative thread and as well as a good read I am learning a few things and other information is being refreshed. Thanks for the effort taken to post it all on here. "Not all those who wander are lost"
Re: Growing your own to lower food costs - 2023I had noticed this with rogue potatoes that have got left behind after clearing the bed - they don't come up as quickly as the ones planted according to the recommended planting times, yet once growing (usually in a bed you really don't want them because you had sown other things in there and don't want to disturb the seedlings), they do seem much more resilient to whatever the weather throws at them. I know someone who actually plants his (non-chitted) potatoes in December (obviously deep enough to be protected from heavy frost / snow) and he just lets nature decide when they finally start sprouting and growing. I've always said that chitting is just something for gardeners to do in the middle of winter when there's not a lot else you can do at that time of year Aw thank you. I have picked up quite a lot of information and experience over the years but now that I am not as mobile, it seems a shame not to share my knowledge (even disasters teach what can or shouldn't be done) and ease first time GYO gardeners into growing their own. Unfortunately, I do realise that some of the earlier posts are a bit boring (even I remember skipping those pages about soil, pests and so on in books I have, going straight to particular crops I want to grow) but they are kind of crucial to successful cropping Re: Growing your own to lower food costs - 2023Back to aubergines. I don't have a problem growing these and usually get a good crop, and I have tried different varieties over the years. As you might know, they tend to need a long growing season so I sow aubergines in mid-February. I don't sow tomatoes until March. I use a small heated propagator for some bottom heat and this certainly makes a big difference for speed and rate of germination. We are fortunate to have a a bright utility room so that they can be kept indoors and potted on before they go into the greenhouse at the end of April. I most often grow them in 9" pots but I found last summer that ones I planted into the greenhouse border did much better. Possibly because of a better water supply compared to the pot grown. They do need to be well watered.
Re: Growing your own to lower food costs - 2023We tried this at our other place, but I cannot remember how, I actually think I posted on here about it so I will have a look for it. If I recall, it worked but there was a lot of foliage and a minimal crop, but my mind maybe playing tricks on me. "Not all those who wander are lost"
Growing your own to lower food costs - MushroomsNow I am definitely no expert in growing mushrooms but is something I'd personally really like to get into and I am actually thinking of a project for myself! My foraging is limited to just Shaggy Ink Cap (an unmistakably identifiable mushroom that appears about mid-September - it is different to other ink caps which can cause unpleasant symptoms particularly when alcohol is consumed) though if I ever saw one, I think I could perhaps identify a Penny Bun Cep and of course the Giant Puffball. I would not ever attempt to eat others as too many look like they are edible but are deadly poisonous. I would never recommend anyone forage for mushrooms without expert guidance first (I was lucky to have a couple of friends who helped me to identify the Shaggy Ink Cap and gave me a Penny Bun)
I once got a little crop of mushrooms after digging in spent mushroom compost into beds on the allotment plot (the "compost" resembles more straw than the more recognisable compost, and it also contains lime which is needed to grow mushrooms - the combination did wonders for the soil. I had the best growing season that year ... but it is not the cheapest compost to buy though, particularly as there was a minimum purchase and I was lucky to share the cost with my friend) Many years ago there was a fad of "mushroom kits" on sale. I got one from B&Q and followed the instructions. 2 massive mushrooms (about the size of saucers appeared but then no more after that - the kit cost £5 at the time which seemed a bit expensive for what I ended up with. However, there are now many kits available to "seed" logs (which are drilled in numerous places and dowels are tapped in) or straw / sawdust which look do-able. Only time and experience will tell. I have never used any of these companies below, so I don't know anything about the quality (or how much they really produce) or salesmanship, but if interested, they do have some very useful information worth reading about growing specialist mushrooms like oyster mushrooms (yellow, white, pink, pearl to name a few) and shitake using sawdust or straw. Dowel plugs for logs include Chicken in the Woods, Lions Mane and some I've never heard of before. And some sites also sell the growing media required. Gourmet Mushrooms Urban Farm It Rustic Mushrooms Fat Fox Mushrooms And some ideas: How to set up a low tech mushroom farm Again, I have no personal experience so cannot say how cost effective growing your own gourmet mushrooms can be, but it does look a possibility. I think the problem may be the setting up costs (locating sources such as sawdust or straw though one site mentioned pet stores), siting your kit and of course, delivery costs for some things. As for logs, it is highly recommended that they are freshly cut (that is, less than 3 months) and different tree wood are better than others (oak and birch seem to be the best for most, pine the least): How to grow mushrooms from spawn plugs Re: Growing your own to lower food costs - 2023I get field mushrooms popping up on the part of the garden that Jim put a lot of chopped up wood prunings. White on top, biege underneath, and white flesh which doesn't stain yellow (my book says the ones that go yellow cause upsets).
We had a giant puffball come up for several years after my son brought on home. Tried shaggy ink caps but they seemed tasteless. Dance caller. http://mo-dance-caller.blogspot.co.uk/p/what-i-do.html
Sunny Clucker enjoyed Folk music and song in mid-Cheshire |
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