New Gardener needs advice - Lots of questions.

[S7ewie]

Hey folks,
I'm Stuart from Bury st Edmunds in Suffolk. Recently we replaced our garden shed and fence which gave us the perfect opportunity to cut back all the overgrowth and start from scratch on the garden. We want to try growing some vegetables, maybe some fruit and some flowers too.

Unfortunately we have a north facing garden but the bottom half of the garden still gets sun for the majority of the day so this will be our vegetable area. We also have relatively heavy clayey soils and the plan is to use a couple of raised beds for the plants with a basic 3 year rotation.

I'm a farmer working on some of the local arable farms so I have a decent knowledge on growing plants and crop/soil science. That being said though gardens operate differently and the soils in our area aren't ideal for vegetables, hence why the majority of farms around here grow cereal crops, so my veg knowledge isn't great.

A large part of my interest is in soil science, improving soil quality, nutrients, pest control etc. So I'm interested in what advice anyone can give regarding those subjects. This is going to be quite a long post so I'll try to split it into sections.

1. Raised Beds and soil
I'm planning on a rotation of 3 years, Roots, Brassicas and Others. Alternatively if I can't find the space for 3 beds I might settle for a 2 year rotation of Above ground plants & roots.

Improving the soil is one of the first issues we're going to face. Fertility of our soils is usually pretty good but the structure is poor. So we'll need to break up the soil and let the weather get into it, we'll probably need to get some more topsoil bought in to top up the beds. I'll test PH for liming and I'll also try and get some organic matter into it.

Any other tips? I've noticed there's tons of soil additives available for improving nutrients in the soil (e.g. Fish, Blood & Bone), Are any of these worth considering? Are they all just organic alternatives for chemical fertilisers?

I'm going to get a couple of compost bins and hopefully get them going for future use but that'll obviously take time.

2. Fertilisers/Feed
There's tons of options on fertilisers for veg gardens so what do people use and when (obviously plants differ in their requirement)? I've already got some all purpose soluble fertiliser, some liquid versions and a slow release variant. I understand lots of people like to add a general purpose before planting, and use high potash ferts for plants like tomatoes etc? But how do you compare liquid to solid etc?

What do you recommend?

3. Pests
I know a lot of gardeners are against chemical pesticides and a lot of the ones that are available to farmers are no longer available for gardeners, especially fungicides. So I was planning on taking a more preventative approach and then if for example an insect problem persists I'll consider getting an appropriate insecticide to treat it.

4. Other stuff
I'm also interested in growing chillis and fruit. I have my eye on a decent propagator which will be ideal for germinating seeds and growing the chillis. Fruit will probably just start with a strawberry pot. I'd also like to try some tomatoes in a grow bag as I hear that's one of the best ways of growing them. I don't have a greenhouse though so does anyone have experience without using growbags outside? Is it worth it? Or is it better to just plant in the raised bed?

Any advice and tips on anything would be much appreciated.

Thanks

[ESBkevin]

Hello Stuart and welcome to the vine.

I'm just east along the A14 about 25 mins. The MSD council do offer some free soil improver, but it was 2 weeks ago so you missed that.
Free compost giveaway to green fingered residents
Next year though! You are right that getting lots of organic matter into the soin is key, if you can find a source of old woodchips (new should only be laid on the surface as mulch because it robs nitrogeon), then dig that in. Can you get hold of any old/rotted straw bales? Essentially anything organic you cen get in there will break up the clay, bind the sand and aid moisture retention and help drainage! Some people have commenced composting in the earth, dig your trench, bury the green material and cover it over.
For fertillity I like to keep mulching and adding organic matter, the odd spot of well rotted animal manure, some fish blood and bone meal and thats about it, maybe a handfull of chicken manure one in a while. Then nettle tea, soak nettle tops in water (enclosed container - it stinks) 3-5 weeks then dilute and water the crop. Good for early and leafy development. Then Comfrey tea, similar method but used when fruit/flowers are developing. No shortage of nettles in the hedgerows (avoid those in flower to avoid seeding), cumfrey is harder to find but you can plant 'bocking 14' variety in a hidden corner for your own use.
Tomatos and chillies can grow in your raised beds, this year is going to be a short season (long cold spring) and I doubt much from outdoor chilies and peppers. Toms will be OK into September though then pick the green fruit and ripen on the kitchen window sill.

Good luck and enjoy eating fresh organic home grown fruit.

[S7ewie]

Hey ESBKevin, thanks for commenting.

I should be able to get ahold of some rotted straw without too much trouble, always see them lying around haha. In future though I'd like to plan to be more self sufficient with composting if that's possible?

In all honest I don't think I'll be planting much this year anyway. We'll focus on clearing the garden, getting some raised beds up, improving the soil quality and from there we'll see if we have time to plant anything. I don't want to rush breaking down the soil though because that can take time.

Thanks for the advice on organic fertilisers

[Scarlet]

Welcome to the vine S7ewie!

It sounds like you know what your doing already! im on clay, I didn't want to wait so, I dug the area over taking out all the perrenial weeds, made some beds up with scaffolding boards. Laid a very thick layer of newspaper, then a good layer of card. I already had some compost bins going so the compost went on top, and a friend had a well rotted pile of alpaca muck I covered the card completely then added another layer of card and planted courgettes and squash through the card. The clay soil hasn't hindered me much to be honest. I mulch heavily all the time, layers of newspaper and grass clippings are brilliant for this. Straw or hay I've heard can work better.
I keep chickens so that gets composted. I use blood, fish and bone, just before planting up. I have a worm bin that gives great feed, I also use nettle and comfrey tea as above.

As for pests, I don't really have problems that I need to resort to chemicals. I get a lot of pigeon damage, so I use nets. This also stops carrot fly, butterflies, alium leaf miner etc. slugs and snails can be a pain but I generally spot them in the evenings and get rid of them.

You can get great results with a couple of chillies on the windowsill.

[S7ewie]

Hey Scarlet, thanks for the advice!

I've read about the method you described and it definitely caught my interest then! Maybe I'll give that a try.

I'm assuming then that the Fish, Blood and Bone mixes are a very popular thing to add to the soil before the planting? Is this instead of any chemical fertilisers?

On that note though I think I need to add another point...

5. Compost
Okay so I'm planning on getting a couple of bins to make our own compost, I've never done it before. I know what you can and can't put in them but the more I read up on it the more confused I'm getting. The vast majority of our garden waste will be grass cuttings. The thing getting me is the posts that suggest using something like 30:1 Browns:Greens. If im reading that right that's suggesting I used 30 times as much Browns as grass cuttings? That's simply not possible for me without buying in loads of straw and stuff which partly defeats the object of doing it in the first place.

Is this just over complicating it? Can I get away with much more grass plus some occational cardboard and leaves in the autumn? Do I need to add anything else? I've noticed miracle gro sell a "Compost Maker"? What's that all about?

Thanks

[vixylix]

Hi Stuart and welcome to the vine! You'll get lots of amazing help here.

I'm a newbie so probably not much help - but the best advice I can give is to not do too much too fast. You are prob spot on in getting your soil / garden sorted first. Potatoes are great for breaking up soil but I don't know if its getting a bit late for them now.

Fertiliser - I started just with tomato feed and fed what needed feeding with that. It did me well in my first year and I'm now slowly expanding into other feeds - for me its taking a lot to get my head around! start simple is what I'm saying!

Toms - I grew mine last year in large plant pots and in the raised bed with no noticeable difference - your only issue with pots / growbags is making sure you dont let them dry out. I believe chillies are better in a pot - they like to be a bit rootbound and dry.

Pests - I havent used any chemicals because I havent really needed to. The only thing I really had a problem with was earwigs and I made organic traps for them. there are lots of organic methods you can consider before you need to consider chemicals but its a personal choice. I also think for newbies it takes a while for the pests to realise you are providing food for them - so they probably increase in subsequent years!

Good luck!

[S7ewie]

Hey Vixylix, already a very friendly community so far

As for the tomatoes I'm temped to try them in a grow bag but using some of these "grow bag pots" that basically water them gradually over time. I'm hoping this will make light work of the watering and along with the simplicity of the growbags, should be really easy, and something I can do now whilst I wait for the raised beds, providing they're fine outside.. That's my theory anyway haha

I have actually grown chillis before but I wasn't very knowledgable about pruning and maintaining them properly. So I'm up for giving them another go now.

As for the chemical fertilisers and persticides .. I think I get that from my farming background haha. I didn't want to go into too much on it because I know that subject sparks a lot of debate and I didn't want to turn it into one of those posts .. I'm not expecting to need any pesticides though. Only as a last resort. I'm more interested in comparisons for fertiliser.

[Greenleaves]

^^^ That lot are cleverer than me so I will agree

Welcome to the vine, enjoy the benefits of the advice and humour

[SusieG]

Hi, welcome. You already sound very knowledgable - but we can all learn from one another's experiences!!!

Hope get everything answered here, and enjoy the random fun too!

Re: compost -I don't do it on a large scale, but I just bung all kitchen veg waste, tea bags, kitchen roll, odd bits of torn up cardboard, contents of vacuum cleaner, hair from grooming dog, cut flowers, weeds, grass cuttings - turn it, chuck some water over it if it's too dry, then bingo! Lovely black gold!!

[S7ewie]

Thanks Greenleaves and SusieG for the welcome!

Ooo i didn't realise you could add vacuum cleaner contents to a composter? I'd like to get chickens at some point so the used shavings and beeding from them would be idea, but they're still a way off yet and I'm still undecided whether it's doable yet.

[spamvindaloo]

There's lots of things you can add to compost. 30:1 is high and I think relates to the ratio between carbon and nitrogen, I'd aim for 4:1 or at least 2:1. Grass can get very slimy in a compost heap so if your green is mainly grass clippings then the more brown the better. Anything organic and now dead is classed as brown so cardboard, paper etc is perfect. Shred or tear up all of your paper and any old cardboard boxes and you'll probably get enough browns quite easily.

Blood fish and bone is an organic fertiliser/feed. Along with pelleted chicken manure it is the main feed I use. When plants are fruiting, you want something higher in potash. Comfrey and wood ash are both organic although lots of people use tomato food as it is easily available and cheap.

The best defence against pests is probably netting (although fruit may need pollinating so can't be left constantly netted. If you google organic pest spray you'll probably get a million results. The most common ingredient is the juice from boiled garlic which has been allowed to steep to release the compounds. Things like basil, chilli powder and tomato leaves (so why do my tomato leaves get aphids if it is a repellent ) can also be added.

[S7ewie]

Thanks spamvindaloo

Ahh okay so that ratio isn't by weight?
Is cardboard okay even if it's printed on? Like cereal boxes? Or does it have to be plain brown?

I like the idea of using a base fertiliser encorporated into the soil before planting. Fish, Blood & Bone seems like the common choice for this? Growmore also seems very popular. What are the other options?

I have some high potash feed for tomatos and "fruity" plants. I have a really good book actually when guidelines on when to feed. on most things though it doesn't suggest using it. What about the first growth stages? Roots, stem, leaves etc? Do people fertilise during this stage or leave it up to the base nutrients to provide all that the plant needs?

[spamvindaloo]

Is cardboard okay even if it's printed on? Like cereal boxes? Or does it have to be plain brown?

I believe most inks these days are vegetable based so it would probably compost okay but I wouldn't know for certain.

I like the idea of using a base fertiliser encorporated into the soil before planting. Fish, Blood & Bone seems like the common choice for this? Growmore also seems very popular. What are the other options?

BF&B and growmore are both balanced fertilisers. BF&B is organic, growmore is not. They tend to be cheaper than brands such as miracle-gro.

What about the first growth stages? Roots, stem, leaves etc? Do people fertilise during this stage or leave it up to the base nutrients to provide all that the plant needs?

Seedlings get all of their energy from the enyzmes in the seed so you do not need to feed at first. Seeds planted in seed compost will expand their roots looking for nutrients as there is very little in the compost. Once the root system has been established and you are ready to pot on, new multi purpose compost will feed for approximately six weeks.

[S7ewie]

Awesome thanks!

So most plants don't really benefit from any extra fertiliser until the development of the fruit?

[dru`s haven]

just waving hello stuart and welcome to the vine