How to Grow Food Fast! - A Challenge :)

[veggiechicken]

Calm down, there's no quick fix waiting for you - just a peep inside a supplement that came with GYO magazine several years ago.

The cover says "Crops to sow now! From plot to plate in under 8 weeks".

Anyone fancy joining me in an 8 week experiment to see whether we can meet these targets? The crops are Carrots, Radishes, Lettuce, Coriander, Basil and Mizuna.
The advice is that these can be sown during February and March and will prosper under any protection you can give them!

I'm going to try carrots in a flower bucket, radish in a marg tub (as I'm doing for the Radish Challenge), lettuce and mizuna in large flowerpots, coriander and basil in smaller pots in the kitchen. Will start them all indoors and move them into the unheated GH when they're big enough.

Dunno if it'll work but my fingers are itching

Anyone like to join me in a scratch?

[Dorothy rouse]

I'd love to VC, but I don't have a greenhouse, and all those veggies takes ages and ages to grow for me, I will watch with interest and support you all.

[veggiechicken]

I can't grow carrots to save my life, Dotty. I'll be growing most of them on the windowsill for a while.

[skeggijon]

.... just a peep inside a supplement that came with GYO magazine several years ago.

Thinking someones got too much time on their hands

[veggiechicken]

I've been trying to recycle (ie giveaway) all my old gardening magazines - but I have to read them first
If anyone living local to Cardiff would like a wheelbarrow full of gardening magazines, PM me (wheelbarrow not included).

[muddled]

I'll play!

Nothing that promises to be ready in eight weeks ever has for me.
I'll play along, write dates down and see how I get on.

As an added complication....
Bourbon the Bastid (my mental Lurcher) runs round the house on the windowsills (and he is not a small dog!) and loves to dig out plant pots so my seeds will have to go from a prop on the table to outside in a draughty unheated greenhouse.

I think I'll try radishes with you and also some broc raab, those little round carrots (what are they called again? parm something?) and kohl rabi.

My plot is claggy clay and like you, I need to be growing somat

[Snadger]

I've been trying to recycle (ie giveaway) all my old gardening magazines - but I have to read them first
If anyone living local to Cardiff would like a wheelbarrow full of gardening magazines, PM me (wheelbarrow not included).

Because they are gardening magazines...........mulch em!

[veggiechicken]

Its glossy paper, Snadge

[Bohobumble]

What carrot varieties are recommended? I've bought mine already but not sure if they'll be ready in 8 weeks...

[Penellype]

Hmmm, I could try carrots, lettuce and mizuna. I'm not keen on coriander or radishes and I already have enough basil. Might get time to sow some tomorrow.

[veggiechicken]

What carrot varieties are recommended? I've bought mine already but not sure if they'll be ready in 8 weeks...

Nantes 5, Paris Market, Amsterdam, any finger carrots. Reading the article, it says that you could be pulling them in May (or 12 weeks). Not quite the "under 8 weeks" on the cover but something to aim for perhaps

[Penellype]

Incidentally I already have some Lollo Rossa lettuces (loose leaf, cut and come again type) that were sown on 24th Jan and have been in my grow light garden. They are currently forming the first true leaf, and I will keep an eye on when they are ready to eat.

[veggiechicken]

I have some mixed lettuce sown 11th February; germinated indoors, now in the GH under a plastic cake box lid.
I'll start some more off tomorrow, along with the other veg.

[ColourMeSurprised]

those little round carrots (what are they called again? parm something?)

I've got some of those called Paris Market (Atlas), dunno if they're the same as yours or if there are different ones?

I might play. I could try with radishes, lettuces and carrots, once my delivery of compost gets here. FINALLY. I'd like to add basil, but I don't have any basil seeds yet

[Thelma Sanders]

parmex are little round ones

Oops I forgot the link
http://www.mr-fothergills.co.uk/Vege...l#.VOZR-8uzXIU

other seed suppliers are available