Which plant food do you use for veg?

[Ananke]

Thanks Kevin, very true.

[rary]

BFB is the organic version of National Growmore. Both are a balanced fertiliser with equal quantities of NPK. Growmore is cheaper to make and inorganic,that's why it was heralded as the cure all for the Dig For Victory campaign in the last war.Organic gardening was less important then than crop yields.

Snadger, I am not against inorganic feeding, and of them all growmore is still considered one of the best, but I do think the farmed veg today has something missing, possibly mineral content, I don't know, but having been fed on the cheapest food when young, (its all my mother could afford) I think it contributed to me requiring replacement knees (lack of mineral content)

Thanks, that's interesting rary.
I didn't give seaweed a thought, thanks.

Of course it could be nothing to do with feeding, the weather up here hasn't been great the last two summers.

Ananke the friend I am talking about is a neighbour, and we stay in the wettest part of Scotland ( apart from Fort William)

Lazy beds that were common on the Scottish Western Isles were basically based on seaweed and they were successful , I just can't be bothered to walk a mile to the beach with a wheelbarrow to collect it lol.

It's not just the beds that are lazy then

[Snadger]

Snadger, I am not against inorganic feeding, and of them all growmore is still considered one of the best, but I do think the farmed veg today has something missing, possibly mineral content, I don't know, but having been fed on the cheapest food when young, (its all my mother could afford) I think it contributed to me requiring replacement knees (lack of mineral content)


Ananke the friend I am talking about is a neighbour, and we stay in the wettest part of Scotland ( apart from Fort William)


It's not just the beds that are lazy then

I've got dodgy knees also Rary but I'm trying to hang on to them as long as I can after seeing you tube videos of knee replacement! I seem to remember as a kid living on doorstep slices of bread lathered with margarine and the cheapest jam available......rhubarb and ginger!on't think thast affected my knees though!
Never had butter until I was married and won't touch marge now!

[Scarlet]

I thought you oldies ate dripping not marge!

[JustPotteringAbout]

Depends what's free/cheap if I can be bothered carrying it if from a shop, if it can be delivered or if it fits in with my space/rotation if I'g growing it.

Grown / found feeds.
Comfrey
Phacelia
Mustard
Red Clove
Sainfoin
Rye
Drowned weeds
Garden compost
Banana skins

Bought feeds:
Tomato feed
Chicken pellets
Blood Fish & Bone
Potassium Sulfate (on fruit)

I got manure a few years back when a farmer delivered it but I don't drive.

[Ananke]

Justpottering....drowned weeds was a revelation for me. Being a lazy, untidy gardener, I often left buckets of weeds lying around the plot and they would fill with rain water and get an oily film on the top. I just knew by the rancid smell that it would make a good feed

[JustPotteringAbout]

Justpottering....drowned weeds was a revelation for me. Being a lazy, untidy gardener, I often left buckets of weeds lying around the plot and they would fill with rain water and get an oily film on the top. I just knew by the rancid smell that it would make a good feed

I have two barrels. Odd year and even year filling (same as compost bins). I tend to empty them in the spring, when new weeds are emerging and it's dry enough to clear out the compost heaps and shoogle out the lumps, so last month I emptied the 2016 drowned weeds.

A shorter drown time - maybe 3 or 6 months would work but my system works with the size of the barrels I get free, the amounts of weeds I have and how frequently I can face emptying stinky barrels.
Don't put anything too brown and sticky* in it

The liquid goes on my soft fruit, rhubarb and Bocking 14, some of the slurry goes in the compost bins on top of dryish material and lumps from 'finished' compost to act as a starter and the rest I hide under hungry shrubs.

(I mean sticks)

[Snoop Puss]

One thing you don't want to do is feed too much nitrogen to your beans. You'll get lots of lush leaves and very few if any beans. I made this mistake one year and had a jungle of Rocquencourt plants that looked amazing, but hardly any beans.

[Greenleaves]

I thought you oldies ate dripping not marge!

Still do Scarlet...you don't know what you are missing....

[Greenleaves]

I fill an old hessian sack with comfrey leaves and bung it in a water but....lid on of course. Other than that it is mainly BFB