i've dugged!

[laura g]

Spent yesterday digging over our vegetable plot.

its about 100 square foot in all. Roughly 12' long and 8' wide. Not huge but we've decided to leave it at that for this year. what with the greenhouse and pots and baskets etc we dont feel like we're overfacing ourselves.

I'm getting a bit twitchy that stuff should be going in. However reading my brand new herb and veg expert book, the soil should have been started in the winter and i should be enriching it and waiting a couple of weeks before planting.

In my mind, I was going to wander down the nursery mid week, buy a few sacks of something suitable, dig it all in and then spend next weekend organising the first stuff in and a bit of a timetable for the rest. I like to pretend i know what I'm doing!

We're thinking potatoes (not main crop), sweetcorn, runner beans (there's a frame with 10 x 6' poles in place), onions, cabbages. Plus we're open minded to anything else.

So questions:-

What d'you think I should be bunging in the soil to enrich? General compost? Manure?

Should I wait then to plant? Or am I missing my window of opportunity for planting?

10 canes of runner beans seems like an awful lot. If I did half runners and half something else - whats a good something else? Not peas though - got a special place for them!

Thta's it really. Although I'm swiftly beginning to see that timing and logistics in grow your owning must be a complete art. And ratios! I mean, is it one bean plant per cane? How many sweetcorns will I get from a plant? Making sure you've crops coming through in stages to keep larder full...where d'you learn that from?

thankyou!!

[joel]

Hello Laura.
I've 3 areas in my plot. 1 is new this year_ has been under black plastic- but has been dug for most of this winter. Its hard as f*^%.
It didn't stop me putting in a row of Potatoes (earlier) this year. Bit late for you! If the soil is moist and workable I'd give it a go because you've nothing to lose and potatoes really break up the soil. Your crop might be a bit small, but hey.
This weekend I put in runner and french climbing beans, peas, and a lovage plant. WITH A LOT of homemade compost. I then really watered them in. Its really dry in SE London. So I'm hoping this will do the trick. I suggest you do something similar if its as dry where you are.
Compost, dung, mushroom waste. Get it on, fork it in. Get the plants in and use more as a mulch. I raised all my plants indoors, but you could do seeds. Beans are are almost Autumnal_especially runners_ and with the late summers we're having. They grow fast too.
Try other beans. Runners, French, Broad, Climbing, borlotti. Peas grow fast and put nitrogen back in the soil.
In and around the bean canes_ rocket, radishes, (maybe) onion sets, salad leaves. If its nice soil get 'em in. I've not put my sweetcorn out yet (4 inches in pots) but I want to grow this alongside courgettes_ which will come up in pots in only a couple of days and will go on till late Autumn.
I've not started-off any cabbage type stuff yet but will in the next week or so. A bit late yes, but with any luck we'll have a good bit of rain by then.
One bean per cane. Maybe 6 cobs from a very big healthy sweetcorn plant.
Freeze any glut. Especially beans, they thrive when you keep them well picked. Big beans are tough to eat!
Chicken poo pellets are good.

All the best
J

[LostthePlot]

Why not do as I have done and use one side of the canes for runner beans and the other side for sweet peas. That way you wont end up with a glut of beans and you will be able to take home bunches of sweet peas once they are flowering. You can get pots of sweet peas for about a £1 with 8/10 plants in so no worries about starting late. you can get all sorts of stuff in the ground now from seed as this is the most beneficial time of the year to get going for most things. Don't worry about getting enough nutrients into the soil a lot of things will survive without or even with just a sprinkle of growmore at planting time. Some plants don't like rich conditions, others do and a lot will grow in just plain, regular soil, so long as they don't have to compete with weeds. Give it all a go and what will be, will be, after all even the 'experts' have their disasters from time to time and who knows what weather the summer will throw at us this year? Good luck and don't worry, just go and enjoy your plot.

[Flummery]

When I've grown on an A frame I've grown climbing french beans one side (prefer them to runners) and something like yin-yang beans on the other. This means you don't have 2 lots all needing eating at once. You can leave the yin-yangs on till they dry and use them in winter. There are lots of other types you can do this with.

[Norm]

Yo Laura.
If you can still find seed spuds, chuck 'em in. Early crops should technically have gone in at the back end of last month, but you can still bung main crop in until the beginning of May. If there's none left, go to the supermarket and buy a cheap bag of spuds and put them in. A guy on our allotment does that every year and gets great results.
The other thing is that as spring is arriving earlier and autumn later, there's a longer growing season. Always remember, seeds can't read and nobody has given them a diary, so they just grow if it's warm enough and they're looked after.

[laura g]

thanks guys. Especially grateful for the 'dont worry, just bung it in' advice. Reading all this books and mags is fine but I've a tendency to end up with plenty of technical knowledge but little confidence in just getting on with it!!!

on a positive - starting - out note, my greenhouse stuff is heading upwards and outwards at a rate of knots! Ridiculous to get so pleased about flowers on a tom plant but there you go!! They were bought as small plants - even more pleased that a packet of salad leaves sowed FROM SEED are sprouting up! They work!

[JennieAtkinson]

Laura, I think most of us are still at the "bung it in and see how we get on" stage! Some years it all works, other times it doesn't.

I planted my potatoes today - First Early and Maincrop - as the soil has been too wet up to now. Most years I plant around this time of the year and always have a good harvest.

Like the idea of different beans on the canes. Great idea - thanks! Why do I not think of these things ????

[dexterdoglancashire]

Me too JA! I didnt think it was the done thing, but after all, lets face it, the lottie is ours and we can plant what we want where!
Bernie aka Dexterdog

[terrier]

And I havn't finnished digging yet! I'm digging about 3 to 4 square yards and then putting seeds in. Thing is, I'm digging too slow and the earlier seeds are catching up with me Five rows of beetroot went in Saturday, only some digging yesterday, back to work today and no time to dig. I'm sure this gardening lark is supposed to be RELAXING!

[JennieAtkinson]

Next year Terrier - next year !!!

[sweetcorn]

Different variety beans on same wigwam

Interested to read about beans - for the last 3 years I've planted French, Borlotti and Butter beans on the same wigwam, then I read somewhere that beans are notoriously promiscuous and will cross breed at will resulting in um, interesting results. However, I have never had anything other than beans true to the type I expected - anyone found any different????

I don't have a big plot, so I much prefer the multi-bean wigwam!

[Paulottie]

Hi, Laura what a lot of questions! well 1st is this new land? is it full of nasty weeds? if so-fertilizing will just make them grow! you need to get rid of those. In an ideal world you do dig in autumn- but hey ho we all do what we can and you'll be able to grow some stuff this year. The herb and veg expert is an excellent manual to start.

Dig a trench a spade or 2 deep where the beans will be. (Perhaps try 1/2 runners and 1/2 'blue lake' climbing french or if you like grow a courgette up the other half.) 1/2 fill trench with shedded newspaper; straw; old potting compost ;a bag of peat;koya or anything that with hold water. fill it in again THEN put your structure on top.

Usually i would say 'feed the soil not the plant' but given the timing just use top dressing of fish blood and bone. along your proposed rows. Onions like rich land but you can try, but buy some sets or raised plants and get em in quick. Leeks would be good for winter. Cabbages like it firm, put at the end where you have not dug yet & just scape off weeds or use the bit you have walked on. Plant you raised plants, no hurry, there are varieties for all seasons but protect them because everything wants to eat them. Perhaps try purple sprouting for next spring. Your in pleanty of time for Sweeetcorn plant in a block -i would say 2/3 cobs a plant.

How about a couple of toms? or a butternut squash. I would avoid spuds now- I think you've missed the boat and although they do break up heavy land they take up a lot of space, they are cheap to buy anyway and you'll probably get blight by the time the are ready. Maybe grow a few in large pots from Sept. in the greenhouse for Xmas when they are difficult to buy fresh. but I really advise against planting supermarket spuds in your plot you can introduce all sorts of problems.

Good luck, don't panic-enjoy-you'll soon get into the riddim and there is LOADS of info and willing advice on here

[Getoffmylande]

Laura we all have to start somewhere i planted a veg area for a couple of years and then it grabs you and you have to either get an allotment or take over the garden completely . Just to show what can be achieved in a small space please see the pictures.