Help and advice needed!

[The hand that feeds]

Hi All

I recently put my name on the waiting list for an allotment and am next one on this list. I have been growing vegetables and fruit in the garden in pots (tomatoes, peas, beans, aubergine, courgette, cucumber etc) and it was overtaking so hence the allotment.
As a kid I used to have a huge veggie patch in the garden and loved growing and eating all the stuff. Now my daughter is 5 and loves helping out, I thought to go for the allotment.

I have a small greenhouse where I am growing veg from seed in, and then eventually, will use those to put into the allotment.

What I am looking for is:
1) Do you all grow your veg from seeds or do you buy the 'baby' plants from somewhere and if so where from? (i.e. internet site link)
2) Is there a list somewhere that shows in which months you sow which seeds?

Many thanks for all your help and going to have a good read of all the other topics now!

[Lesley Jay]

Hi and welcome on board! I grow all my vegetables from seeds except potatoes, onions and garlic. Asparagus is normally grown from crowns as well as rhubarb. I can post links to some of the seed companies that I use if you want. Where a seed sowing guide is concerned I would recommend that you buy The Vegetable And Herb Expert by Dr.D.G.Hessayon. Every vegetable has its own page with a sowing and planting guide for each one.

[nick the grief]

If you've got a greenhouse I wouldn't bother buying plants THTF. As LJ says the Hessayon book is a good one. Some other one's are

The Allotment Handbook by Caroline Foley (bit ricey at £12-99)
ISBN 1 84330 583 6

& the other one that is a must have

Grow your own Vegetables by Joy Larkom (£9-99)
ISBN 0 7112 1963 x

for a little leaflet that you can print & keep in the greenhouse have a look on our lottie's website There's a couple on there.

[Squirrel]

Have been loaned a book printed in 1947! called "The Gardener-Smallholder for Profit" by WPA Robinson. What a lovely little book! Of course it will be way out of print, but it even gives dates for what seeds to sow when! When I say dates I mean dates e.g. Peas Jan 15 Earlies (in the south only)
Feb 15 Early
March 15 Early
April 15 Maincrop etc. etc.
and also gives varieties. Would be interesting to see if the varieties mentioned are still avalable!

[nick the grief]

I've got one called Practical Gardening and Food Production in pictures by Richard Sudell cost me £2-50 from an "antique" shop. It doen't say when ift was published but it meations the ministry of foods campaigns & how to diguise your air raid shelter as a rockery so I'm guessing 1940 ish.

As you say fascinating, but the varieties have long since gone unless there is some old boy on his allotment keeping his own strain of things.

The biggest killer was the EEC when they introduced these bl**dy lists!! All flowers & veg had to be approved & the cost was prohibitive so a lot of little seed companies closed down & it was only the big commercial companies that could afford to get things registered as they produced stuff for commercial Horticulture/Agriculture.

They also lumped certain varieties together e.g. James Long keeping Onion became Bedford Champion (I think) as they looked the same despite the fact they had different characteristics !!

I bet they wouldn't say that Champagne & Lambrusco were the same ANyway I'll not get started on the EEC