Plans for Veg - 2016

[ed_in_kent]

Hi,

Attached is my plan for veggies for 2016. I am complete beginner so would welcome any advice. Most particularly could anyone tell me:

1) When should I plant all the different veggies from seed (and can I plant them all outside)

2) My planter is filled with organic peat free compost - do I need anything else.

Thanks.

Ed

[Bigmallly]

Hello again Ed. I take it from your plans that you browsed the square foot thread. Your planter is 6ft x 2ft so you should have been able to make 12 squares. Garlic, Spring Onions & Leeks could have 16 in each square. Everything you are planning to grow in your planter could easily be grown in containers.

[WendyC]

As to when to sow seed the best guide is the back of the packet. The colder the area you are (assuming UK) the later you will sow. Worth finding out when your last frost date is and working back from then to calculate sowing date. There are various online frost date calculators.

[veggiechicken]

There's lots of useful advice about growing different veg on the GYO Guides at How To Grow Vegetables & Fruit | Growing Guides & Tips | Grow Your Own Magazine. Have a browse.

If you're growing for your children, and I don't know how old they are, have you considered strawberries or peas. Kids and Big kids like me, love eating those.

[Bigmallly]

Do you like Garlic Ed. Over 100 cloves will be enough to keep an Italian restaurant going..............

[vixylix]

Hi Ed, all of the above is useful information - you can definitely fit more spring onions in your squares - I find they seem to do best growing in clumps - so they don't need a lot of space - they can take forever to grow too!

For your radishes - that's a lot of radishes to be grown in one go - have you had a look at successional sowing?

Have you already got your garlic cloves ready for planting? Some garlic should have been planted already depending on your variety.

Ask lots of questions - its all trial and error

[lolie]

As to when to sow seed the best guide is the back of the packet. The colder the area you are (assuming UK) the later you will sow. Worth finding out when your last frost date is and working back from then to calculate sowing date. There are various online frost date calculators.

I find seed packet guidelines pretty useless.

This site is pretty good and allows you to set UK regions. It gives you the soil temperatures required as well as general planting windows. You can also sign up for emails which remind you what to plant now and whether to direct sow or start seeds.

Planting guide and reminders to keep your kitchen garden growing