Grow Your Own Magazine

I have been trying to grow some edible stuff for a couple of years now not too succesfully Last year I tried to grow some Runner beans, Brussell sprouts, beetroot, leeks and pumpkins.

I did get a couple of excellent pumpkins for Halloween and also made some pumpkin soup.

I managed to grow enough beetroot to have beetroot all summer and enough pickled to see me through the winte. It tastes great so will definately grow that again.

Someone told me to grow leeks in toilet tubes which I did. The leeks I grew were not huge but were very tasty and I have some great leek and potato soup in the freezer.

I managed to get some shoots of runer beans and brussell sprout plants but when I put them out in the garden they were eaten by rabbits and deer. so no veg from them

For this year I have bilt myself a veg garden with chichen wire dug down into the ground. I have cleared the weeds from it and dug some compost in. I am hoping that the rabbits and deer will not be able to get in and I have put a mole scarer in so the mole hills are no longer appearing.

I was recently given some bean and pea seeds on the magazine which are overwinter varieties so I thought Oh can I grow something in winter and planted them. I have a row of very healthy looking beans and very unhealthy looking pea plants now in the garden. I have tied them to canes and am waiting to see what will happen with them.

As you can probrbly tell I am very new to gardening. I grew up in a town with back yards not gardens and just had a couple of pots with very drab looking flowers. Now I am living in the country I am determined to feed my kids some food out of the ground instead of the supermarket.

I really am growing stuff by trial and error so its all a bit of guess work at the moment. I got a garden shed for my birthday and I have been trailing around bootsales picking up essential garden tools.

I have a couple of the black plastic compost tubs from the council and I have been chucking my grass cuttings and vegetable peelings in but I am beginning to think thereis more to compost than that. Can anyone tell me how long it should take to compost. Should I be doing something else to it? How do I know when it is ready to dig into the garden? Will I also nee to buy something extra to add to it?

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Tina

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Try adding horse muck to your compost this is a very good activator.

Hi Tina welcome to this madhouse! I am sure that the chicken wire will make a big difference - make sure it is tall enough though. Vegetables are really easy to grow so good luck for the coming season!

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Hello Tina and welcome to the Vine. Sounds as if you've been quite successful so far and I'm sure you'll pick up lots of good ideas here. As for your compost bins, I wouldn't put too much grass cutting in all at once as it just goes green and slimey. You can add some manure or just earth. As this time of year when it's cold it won't compost quickly but as the weather warms up things will start to happen. It can take anything from 3 months to a year to get good compost, depending on conditions. You'll know it's ready when it looks like compost - brown and friable. Good luck and keep us posted.

Hi Peregrin,

Welcome to the Vine as merry Christmas etc. I think your optoistic with the deer as they can jump 6ft no probs. Maybe you make some sort of mini fruit cages to put over them that way you can protect them from some of the bugs as well ( Butterflies off your cabbages particularly). The rabbits are less of a proble & putting wire netting in will help no end.

As to your Compost problems, have a look at this linkm there is loads of info on composting and it is very satisfying when you get it right. Basically oyu should treat your compost bin like yourself, and give it a mixed diet. If you put all grass cuttings in you'll end up with a slimy mess so mix in something like straw or shredded paper as this will add a bit of air into the mix & soak up some of the excess moisture.

http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/orga...ng/gh_comp.php

Hope it helps.

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ntg

Never be afraid to try something new.
Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark.
A large group of professionals built the Titanic

http://grief-encounters.blogspot.com/

Hello Peregrin

I think you've done fantastically well and you will find, as everyone else has, that growing your own is a learning curve. You will have some failures, but even the best gardeners get it wrong now and again! You have already had some success and I think you are motivated by the right reasons, i.e. feeding your family with nutritious food, grown by yourself .

Welcome to the vine and may all your veg be tasteful and productive!

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My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

Hi Tina, and a warm festive welcome to the vine! Sounds to me like you've already done really well, and as we too are newbies I'm afraid we cant add anything to the excellent advice so far given, but did just want to say hello!

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Blessings
Suzanne (aka Mrs Dobby)

'Garden naked - get some colour in your cheeks'!

The Dobby's Pumpkin Patch - a blogspot work in progress!
Last updated 26th November2008 - more new piccies!

sounds like your doing well welcome to the vine too if you would like a worthwhile hobby the I would suggest bonsai.

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Hi Tina, don't worry about the peas, I'm sure they'll be O.K. If they are 'Meteor' which I think are the ones I got they don't grow as tall as normal peas (only about 18ins I think) but watch out for the rabbits & mice who will love them! With your compost I'd add a bit of shredded paper or torn up plain cardboard (toilet/kitchen roll inners) to stop it getting too soggy. You can buy compost accelerator from garden centres or just throw in the odd spadeful of soil to get things going but it will not really do much until the weather warms up again so you'll just have to be patient. Good luck.

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Into every life a little rain must fall.

As I'm new to the vine I'd first like to say Hi to everyone.

In this, and other links, I've read the advise to add paper/card to the compost heap, but does this include those that have printed (written/photo) designs - due to presence of toxic inks -?
Most inks used to contain heavy chemicals , or has this all now changed.

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The Polar sea's are melting, We live in Holland - HELP

Hi Wapentake! A very warm welcome to you our first member from Holland. I hope you enjoy your time on the Grapevine!

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Hi Wapentake & welcome to the vine. We've had a few discussions about the type of cardboard & paper to add to compost heaps/bins & in general I think it's best to add only plain unprinted cardboard & newsprint, not coloured card or magazines because of the chemicals in the inks as you say. I dare say it wouldn't do much harm but it's always better to be on the safe side & try & improve the environment not add more chemicals to the earth! Know what you mean about Holland & climate change-perhaps you should read the thread someone started on here about growing rice-you might have your own paddy fields one day!

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Into every life a little rain must fall.

Thanks for all your emails and good wishes. That link you sent Nick was very informative as was all the compost advice I received. I didn't realise I could put cardboard in I will make sure I stick to unprinted. Certainly seems like a good way to use the old toilet tubes so my daughter can't paint any more of the damn things. I also need to move it around more to get air in and mix up my layers. I'm loking into the horsemuck as well. I can get cowsmuck in the summer as we have a field of bullocks over the back at that time of year I guess this will do just as well. Mind you my kids will die of embarrasment seeing me trudgung around in the field with my wheelbarrow and spade.

Also leaf mould looks like a good option wegets loads of leaves. How long does that take to make in black bags? What should it look like when it is ready to use?

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Tina

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Hi peregrin - welcome to the Vine! Looking forward to hearing how you get on - and as you can tell everyone is really friendly with lots of advice. Happy New Year! Dexterdog

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Appreciate the little things in life because one day you will realise they are the big things

Hi Wapentake - another "howdy and welcome to the Vine". Happy New Year! Dexterdog

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Appreciate the little things in life because one day you will realise they are the big things

Hi Peregrin and welcome.
We are newbies at composting, and still learning but have found out that there are many other uses for toilet roll/kitchen roll inners - you can grow seedlings in them, so please don't compost them! send them to us if you don't want them
I've just got Mr MB away from buying peat pots every time he wants to set some seed
Egg boxes are good for tiny seedlings too, but can be composted and go down quite quickly.
All the best

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Regards, Jane
What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy? The creative adult is the child who has survived.
Ursula LeGuin
http://www.etribes.com/madderbat

Hello Peregrin, leaves rot down very quickly in a bin bag. When their ready they look like well rotted leaves. Don't use beach leaves though - they never rot!

Hello Peregrine and Wapentake - and welcome to the Vine. Lots of helpful information here as I think for most of us its a trial and error business!