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Hello Everyone, - Tony from London

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  • Hello Everyone, - Tony from London

    I've been buying the Grow Your own magazine for nearly a year now, & finally decided to join the forum this month,

    I would like to say a big hello to everyone & introduce myself.

    My Name is Tony, I live in London, and work as a healthcare professional.

    My gardening "credentials" are as follows:

    I used to live in a house with a big garden in which i grew roses, honeysuckle, begonias tulips & fresias - with the occasional fruit & veg such as tomatos, runner beans, cabbages, gooseberries blackcurrants & raspberries.

    I now live in a ground floor flat, which has a very small garden, for the first few years of living here, I did nothing with it, but last year decided to exercise the green fingers again after I started buying the GYO mag. As it is such a small garden, i decided to concentrate on the fruit & veg side of things, - you cant eat that many types of flowers!

    I successfully grew, Runnerbeans, Peas, Dwarfbeans, red & white onions, (red baron & Stuttgartner giant) spring onions, carrots (Chantenay red cored 2 as my soil is very shallow) beetroots & white swiss chard - (first time) tomatos & radishes. - the radishes were Ravanello Rosso Gigante - very big & excellent flavour, but I lost a lot of them to slug damage - I wanted to keep the garden as organic as possible.

    I could only grow small quantities as theres limited soil, & some brickwork similar to a patio, which i used growbags for the tomatoes - (far too many tomatos!!)

    It was such a pleasure to be able to go out into the garden & decide which veg to have with my dinner, & the fact that it was all home grown & organic, semed to make them taste all the better.

    over the winter months, i've grown winter cabbage, lettuce, - good success, but the over winter onions havent really come on at all quite feeble , The cauliflowers show promise, & are already 2" high. fingers crossed for them!

    I hope that we have good weather for the coming season, as i'm thinking of trying to grow spuds in some thick green plastic round sacks that I got from B&Q. - but I'm still trying to decide on which varieties to try.

    I look forward to being a member of this forum, as you all seem such a happy friendly bunch!

  • #2
    Hello there Tony ...and welcome to the Vine!!!
    "Nicos, Queen of Gooooogle" and... GYO's own Miss Marple

    Location....Normandy France

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    • #3
      Hi there, and welcome
      WPC F Hobbit, Shire police

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      • #4
        Hi Tony, welcome and have fun x Belle

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        • #5
          Welcome to the vine Tony, good luck for the forthcoming year.
          http://www.robingardens.com

          Seek not to know all the answers, just to understand the questions.

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          • #6
            Welcome Tony! I want to grow spuds too - I'll see how much I can move between farnham and canterbury...

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            • #7
              Hi Tony, don't worry about your over-wintering onions ... nothing grows much in the winter, but they will take off once it warms up.
              Last edited by Two_Sheds; 13-02-2009, 07:53 AM.
              All gardeners know better than other gardeners." -- Chinese Proverb.

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              • #8
                Welcome, I was just going to say exactly what Two-Sheds said...keep the faith with those onions!

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                • #9
                  Hi and welcome to the vine.
                  Happy Gardening,
                  Shirley

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                  • #10
                    Hello and welcome - we ARE friendly! And you seem to have had loads of success so far in a rubbish season. If we get decent weather you'll really be off!
                    Whoever plants a garden believes in the future.

                    www.vegheaven.blogspot.com Updated March 9th - Spring

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                    • #11
                      Hi Tony - Good to hear from another Londoner with only a small garden - you certainly seem to be making the most of it! Is it completely given over to veg, and does it catch the sun for most of the day? I tried spuds in green bags last year, but they were hopeless. I think I made the compost too rich - and they needed more hours of sun. Huge haulms like triffids but not much else!

                      Fran

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                      • #12
                        Thank you for the warm welcome.

                        Many thanks to everyone for the warm welcome

                        Yes Fran, my garden is totally given over the fruit & veg, i really do have limited soil & I could do with a much bigger garden (couldnt we all?), If i did, then i would grow flowers also. i suppose I could grow some flowers in pots outside the front door, but its in a very shaded position & north facing. The back garden does get sun for most of the day as its south facing. This is the first time that I'll be growing spuds this way so I'll see how they do, i was thinking of two varieties - earlies being Kestrel & main crop as Maris piper - I do like my roasties & chips not on the same plate

                        I'm going to stray away to different varieties of carrots & tomatoes this year,
                        As my soil is shallow, i grew Chantennay red cored 2 carrots last year with good success, this year i'm going to try Carota Pariser Markt 4, which are ball shaped, similar in size & shape to tomatos & baby beetroots.

                        My tomatos this year will be Pomodoro Saint Pierre - never tried this variety before. The seeds were from a company called Franchi - their french dwarf beans were good last year, & seem of good quality.

                        Thanks to everyone, for the advice on the onions, i was going to pull them up as a bad job, but they've won a stay of execution on your advice

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                        • #13
                          hi tony

                          welcome, seems there are quite a few of us in london, I'm in the north and have found a fellow grower on the vine who lives near me. I've been investigating an allotment this week as ran out of room inmy garden last year! although it is amazing how much you can grow in pots, sounds like you had a very successful season last year

                          claire

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                          • #14
                            Originally posted by spennysaint View Post
                            hi tony

                            welcome, seems there are quite a few of us in london, I'm in the north and have found a fellow grower on the vine who lives near me. I've been investigating an allotment this week as ran out of room inmy garden last year! although it is amazing how much you can grow in pots, sounds like you had a very successful season last year

                            claire
                            Hi Claire, thanks for the welcome; Yes I did have a good season, last year - I live west of central london (westminster) so theres no hope of any allotments around me i'm afraid, so with my limited soil, i can only do 1 or 2 sowings per veg, small quantities but a nice variety. the growbags & containers were a godsend to increase my yield they were on the patio & the path near the back gate - I even had one on top of the manhole cover thats almost in the middle of my soil!

                            The "containers" i use are actually plastic rectangular storage boxes that i got from my local Asda something like 4 for 3 quid, or 3 for 4 quid, I then made drainage holes in the bottom & filled them with soil. I put my garden mint in one of them to keep it contained - its now starting to grow again..

                            - more mint sauce - yummy

                            who is your council where you live? im curious to know how much the rent would be on an allotment. I dare say it varies from council to council...


                            Regards
                            Tony

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                            • #15
                              Hi tony

                              it's enfield council. I emailed them an enquiry form re allotment and they have emailed me asking to phone them ,so will do that tomorrow and let you know how i get on.

                              Claire

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