Veg growing newbie taking a leap

[Lamboluke]

So having bought my house last November and having the usual decorating to do I have now turned my attention to the garden. Decking has been ripped up and grassed over and I've got myself a nice little 8x6 greenhouse.

As a complete newbie to growing veg or anything in general I'm hoping for a bit of luck over winter. I haven't been able to grow anything in the summer due to lack of time/other commitments but now is the time. Shame it's winter but from looking around the forums and Google im going to try with some onion sets and broad beans.

I'm going to use a few bags of manure to improve my soil once I've dug the top soil off the area I'll be using to grow in. Any tips/tricks for winter onion sets or broad beans?


Photos and updates in due course. Wish me luck.

[Kristen]

Newbie Advice #1: Only grow what you like to eat.

Do you like Broad Beans?

Don't grow too many over wintering onions. They don't keep, so need to be used up "fairly smartish" when they are ready, next Summer.

Get the ground dug and prepared in the Autumn, leaving it open for the Winter will do it some good - particularly if it is heavy clay - and plan on what you will sow next Spring - not forgetting Rule Number #1: Only grow what you like to eat

[Greenleaves]

Rule # 2... don't forget rule # 1

Most importantly enjoy the experience

[Lamboluke]

If I'm honest I don't particularly like broad beans but I love the idea of growing them and giving them to people who do. That being said I won't be turning my entire garden into a broad bean heaven.
How long am I looking at the onions keeping for once they have been harvested?

Re digging the ground and leaving it open....does that stand for what I won't be planing in now but will be in the spring next year? Say I use 1/3 of the area I want to grow in now, should I still dig over the other 2/3 now and leave exposed?
Thanks.

[Penellype]

Autumn sown onions really are best dug as you need them and eaten straight away, but if you find they have ripened and you haven't finished them, chopped onion freezes well, so rather than risk htem rotting, freezing may be a better way to go.

As for digging, it depends a bit on the method you are going to use. A lot of people on here go for the no dig method, in which case if your land is not being used over winter, simply cover it with a nice layer of compost or rotted manure and let the worms dig it for you. Another alternative would be to grow a green manure crop, but I have never done this due to lack of space, so I am not sure if it is too late now.

[More basil]

Practicality aside, being a relative newbie myself, I was ludicrously pleased with seeing my broadbeans and over wintering peas appearing over winter as well as lovely huge garlic 'spears'. It was just such a lovely feeling to see that you can actually get stuff to grow. Hey, they may not actually have matured any earlier than the spring sown ones but that's not the point! So get something growing just for the joy of seeing something green in January

[Kristen]

Say I use 1/3 of the area I want to grow in now, should I still dig over the other 2/3 now and leave exposed?

Yes.

Although there are other options

You could sow a Green Manure on them, rather than leaving them bare.

You could cover them with some sort of membrane or cardboard (but I wouldn't, until Spring)

You could adopt a No Dig method, but personally I prefer the ground to be cultivated initially, and then adopt a no-dig policy thereafter. This allows any rubble (such as might have been left behind by builder) to be found & removed, and any "pan" [hard layer of soil, e.g. where the base of the farmer's plough compacted the soil over many seasons, although there are other causes] to be broken up.

[Feral007]

I'm mostly a No Digger.

I think you're right in putting something in so you've got that gardening feeling going. And a third would probably be more than enough for winter.
I usually put in what you call Plug Plants in autumn, they seem to do better. I've grown kale, a lacy red and green one, over winter, and had winter greens for cooking, and now in spring has taken off, so I'm always telling the kids to get stuck into them or they'll bolt to seed now. We also grow winter rainbow chard. The neon ones look fabulous! I've been known to put them in a vase for the ornamental look when I've had more chard than I could eat. Winter lettuce, the ones with loose leaves than you pick and they keep growing all winter are great.

I put in broad beans, which I do not really love - but am swapping the seed for other seeds
And I have started to find ways to cook with them, that we can eat.

Cabbages have been overwintered (also Plug plants) they were small and hardy, and just now with the sudden heat they have forged ahead. Which is nice as it is too early to expect anything sown now to be harvested.
I love to put bok choi in, in autumn, and it is ready late autumn/early winter. Then we let it go to seed.
It's very quick maturing and goes to seed equally quickly, so you will be scoffing lots of stir fries in the bokchoi harvest couple of weeks.

Garlic goes in on the shortest day of winter and out on the longest day of summer (or slightly before in our case).

That's lots that you can put in, not all will do well initially, but putting in a few of most things, then lets you know what is an easy crop in your soil.

As for getting the soil ready? We always go for cover with cardboard. Unless you have those hardy weeds with long roots. Otherwise anything else, we put down cardboard and then grow through the cardboard, with a hay mulch over it in spring. I find that soil covered, and if you put manure under the cardboard then it will be in and improved by the worms, by the time you want to use it.
We tend to mega mulch with hay on our site as our soil is fairly thin, so needs building up, and the mulch helps with that. We grew a green manure once. It was ok, but didn't seem to be better than the mulch and cardboard.

Enjoy!

[Guest]

If I'm honest I don't particularly like broad beans.

Growing your own also allows you the chance to make sure you don't like things and all you have lost is the cost of seed and a bit of effort.

For years I said I didn't like rhubarb then one day my dad offered me some as he had loads and I discovered I actually liked it and I had been really mean for years about it.

Another is leeks, real homegrown leeks are a lot different to the flavourless, odourless excuses you buy from the shops.

As for giving them away you could try swapping them or as my Mother did - carboot them

[Lamboluke]

Wow that's a lot to take in and I'm grateful for the time you've all taken to reply.
With regards to covering with cardboard, would that be done to the soil which isn't going to be used to grow in? Slightly confused by growing through the card board as you stated.

I've not seen many plug plants really at the garden centres I've been to, just seems to be Halloween and Christmas tat is on the cards now.

The area I'm looking at growing in will only be 10x10ft maybe to begin with so when I referred to using 1/3 it would be 1/3 of a 10x10ft plot of my garden at a maximum.

weather pending I'll be trying to dig it out Friday or Tuesday when I'm off work.

Cheers

[Lamboluke]

And having read about green manure I like the idea of that also.

[Two_Sheds]

Slightly confused by growing through the card board

cardboard or wet newspapers (which mat together into a kind of papier mache).
You simply cut a cross in the card with a sharp knife, and plant the seedling into a little hole. Here's the technique using weed membrane:



being organic in nature, they are going to rot down after a few months, and the remains can be put on the compost heap.

[Lamboluke]

Ah, that looks rather cool. Thanks!

[Kristen]

In case of interest here are some pictures of my experiment with weed suppressing membrane this year:


July 2014 - Cauliflowers far-left, and Chard near-left, and Sweetcorn in the right hand bed (the sweetcorn had been sitting in the greenhouse, very pot-bound, for at least a month longer than it should have been there before planting, so it looks very weedy)

Oct 2014


Leek Planting July 2014

Oct 2014

Some more pics on my blog:
http://kgarden.wordpress.com/project...table-patch/5/