balcony: chayote, greens, wooden pallets

[jdlondon]

Chayote is really ambitious. Wouldn't you be content to grow something like salad leaves? (much more achievable on a UK balcony)

Definitely growing salad leaves, quite bemused by how many varieties of seeds I've got - have to be careful, avoid x-pol as advised by Real Seeds peeps.

Ambitious, I know, didn't know how hard it'd be until I read up, but since the chayote was what got me thinking about gardening, it seems only fair to keep on. Besides, it's interesting! I never knew seeing a tiny leaf unfurl from a chunky green veg would be so fascinating, but here I am.

[BroadRipple]

JD I'm so with you. Who cares if it's a bit...well...unlikely in a titchy London garden, I completely agree that you're right to go with what you want to cook/eat, and sod the rest of it. I'm increasingly abandoning carrots/cabbages for the same reason, so have a bonkers tiny garden with kale herbs and tromboncino squash (which I really recommend btw) mixed up with everything else. Mark Diacono, whose book is both inspiring and disappointing for those without lots of space, is at least vg on the idea of growing 'transformers' and exciting things to scoff. Really want to know if your chayote works and if it does maybe I'll try it next year. I'm growing tomatillos this year and LOVE them - doing fantastically well in a big pot. Chinese chives? Shiso/perilla (seeds hopeless, I found a plant)? weird orange tomatoes? Where are you getting your seeds? And any good books? I'm still searching for the perfect one; I think the secret is to buy a food book that has growing advice, not the other way round.
Nice chatting with a fellow novelty-vegetable fan...

[BroadRipple]

by the way Chickbob and I have emailed about the same thing, look up those posts mebbe?
oh and the Michael Guerra book (if you don't get too annoyed with all the raised bed info) has a useful table in the back about which depths different plants need in containers. (Although it's all debatable - he says kale is tricky in a container and I've got a dwarf curly kale out there right now in about 15cm of soil looking very happy, and bigger kales in deeper pots so bah to that.)
And look at the Vertical Veg website.
And I say do what the hell you like re: washing up liquid etc. After all we use newspaper/non-organic vegetable peelings in our compost, get loooads of lovely London pollution, and still call ourselves organic, so it's a relative term. Innit.
Enough now. THE KILLING (danes not slugs) is calling to me.

[Two_Sheds]

Definitely growing salad leaves, ..have to be careful, avoid x-pol

Cross pollination is only an issue if you intend to save your own seed

do what the hell you like re: washing up liquid etc. After all we use newspaper/non-organic vegetable peelings in our compost, get loooads of lovely London pollution, and still call ourselves organic, so it's a relative term.

The issue with washing up liquid is that it kills/damages the plants. The thing you're meant to use (for efficacy, not for saintliness) is soft soap, not Fairy

As to the term "organic" ~ it means 'not derived from petrochemicals' ie, a growing living thing, not made in a lab. So veg peelings & newspapers are organic but Fairy is not

Do your own thing and don't get hung up on labels, but make educated decisions

[jdlondon]

BroadRipple -

Well, definitely with a small growing area, it seems best to grow what I want than anything else *g* - and I just googled tromboncino and they look insane. I was already going to hook up chicken wire on my balcony ceiling as well as the walls, for the chayote (being wildly optimistic), and those troms look like they'll like that set-up too.

I just got seeds online from Real Seeds and More Veg, and the former website especially is really educational. I want some Hunan Winged Beans and that's available from America, so I might get them sent over or maybe I'll get lucky and go over there sometime. I was tempted by eBay but I have trust issues with eBay.

Any recs where to get seeds and gardening stuff in London? There are no garden centres near me so I'm going to take a hike out to the B&Q and Homebase at Old Kent Road. I don't have a car, and I'm trying to get fit so avoiding the bus, so I'm looking at numerous trips with my rucksack - that's over 5 miles, roundtrip, I think. So a recommendation to somewhere more inner City will be helpful for my lazy days.

Books, no recs yet, very early days, but I am loving the websites I'm coming across, especially the budget gardeners, do-it-yourself types, where I've learnt to make cheap self-watering containers of all shapes. Such sites like instructables dot com.

I'll check out your convos with ChickBob, thanks. And Guerra's book with the depth sounds good. I have tried to stick to less depth, less soil-hungry veg, but I have given in to pumpkins since I love Halloween and it's not Halloween without pumpkin-carving

The Killing danes - you mean The Killing American-remake-danes? I heard the original Dane one was good, but that the American one had an ending that angered the nation. Be warned. *g*

Two Sheds -

I do intend to try and get seeds, because new skill to learn and all. It'd be nice to learn to be as self-sufficient as I can be. I have dreams to go off-grid one day, be that mad hermit in the haunted farm and live happily ever after.

Educated decisions, I totally agree.

[Two_Sheds]

You're into exotic veggies ... do you count kidney/soya beans and chick peas?

I've had iffy results with soya beans, they really aren't suited to our cool damp summers, but chickpeas do better ~ very pretty plant, but the harvesting is a faff and you don't get much

Kidney beans (the dried seed of French beans), now you're talking: short ones, tall ones, yellow ones, black ones ... if you want any seeds, PM me

[jdlondon]

I have a pallet! It was literally like a gift from above, because I'd just stumbled home after lugging 20L bag of compost from B&Q, legs and back killing me, when right there by the stairs it was. Pretty clean too. Then all I did was drag and roll to my balcony. How's that for luck?

Two Sheds -

I would love seeds, and once I figure out how to PM, I will be PMing.

[BroadRipple]

congrats on your pallet! now I want to hear what you do with it...
yes you have to go for those tromboncinos (i?) - they rock.
garden centres - am in the other half to you so hard to say...B&Q/homebase type places can be good, mail order great but expensive, um...exchanging seeds one-to-one with people on here...i'm game if you are.
if you're really ditching public transport to get fit, you're going to be the incredible hulk by the time you've dragged home all that garden stuff. if you were feeling REALLY adventurous there's a fab place in, er, enfield, yes miles from me too, called the Clockhouse Nursery which is huge and by london standards very cheap...but there must be great places on the southernmost fringes too, just ask around...

[jdlondon]

Pallet's too big to fit! - so I'm going to chop it in half, either to get two, or slot one slightly on top of the other so as to get a deeper soil depth.

Clockhouse Nursery. I want a blueberry plant, so I might venture out that way. There's supposed to be a nursery in Clapham or Wandsworth, forget which, which seems walkable so I'll check that out first. I think for compost/materials, best value is B&Q and since I survived that hike, I think I'm set there. I wish I were Hulk - that was quite a strain for piddling me, I can tell you.

[Two_Sheds]

I think for compost/materials, best value is B&Q

Nah, best value is free = leafmold, if you have room to store lots of black sacks for a year

Otherwise, can't you buy in bulk and get it delivered? I used to get 3 large sacks of compost for £20 from local independent DiY place, free delivery

[jdlondon]

Nah, best value is free = leafmold, if you have room to store lots of black sacks for a year

Ah, you people in the wilds of Norfolk with space! *g* - Trust me when I say, my decent-sized balcony is decent for London, which means width is a man's large stride, and length is three of them.

However, I was wondering if I could get a compost bin going. It's just me so waste isn't a large amount, and also no lawn to get green wastes either (but I can nick greens from the park below), and also I read the bin is supposed to be on the earth, whereas I have concrete. Thoughts?

[Two_Sheds]

Lots of people site their compost bins on concrete: it still works

[jdlondon]

Just been reading up on it - honestly, it's all I ever seem to do these days, read read read, and apparently I can just use a storage box with holes and something to catch the fermented liquid. I'll try it.

[jdlondon]

Thought I'd post a pic of the chayote before I planted them - and they're meant to be a spreader more than a tunnel-downer, so I'm going for a container at least 12 inch depth and as long as I can get.