Grow Your Own Magazine

As most of you know this is my first year of growing vegetables. Owning a greenhouse and making the best use of it is also new to me.
Like every new person I was excited to be finally growing my own, from seed.
This year I have learnt a lot by actually doing things some of which I know I will try to avoid next year.
I thought I would start a list of the things I learnt the hard way. Perhaps others could add to it?

1. Watering seed trays with rainwater grows more slime than seedlings.
2. Fit bubblewrap in greenhouse at the start of autumn before you do anything else. Moving loaded shelving is a real pain later on, when you can't put the plants outside to carry out the installation.
3. Sowing two seeds per cell in a large module results in large blank blocks of earth with nothing growing in them. The old method of sowing seed in a small pot and pricking out seedlings takes more time but gets better end results.
4. Starting off seed sowing in an artificially warm place before there is enough light for the new seedlings to photosynthesise produces week leggy growth. Seeds sown later catch up, as they have enough natural heat and light to grow stronger.
5. It's always better to sow more seed than you need, choose the strongest seedlings and throw the rest straight on to the compost heap. Pricking out seedlings you don't need leads to pots you have to care for that will never be planted out. If you only have room for ten tomato plants don't keep fifteen.

I would be interested to hear others lists of things, they have learnt the hard way.
Jax

Keep mice out of your nice warm dry greenhouse or they WILL eat your sweetcorn.

Be tidy

Do ventilate, lots

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Kindest regards, David.

http://pigletsplots.blogspot.com/
updated lots - Sunday 28th at 1640hrs

Apparently, you can have too many courgettes and (new last year) cucumbers!!

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Manda.

"Wouldn't it be nice
For maybe an hour
To not have a care."

1. Cover your carrots (carrot fly)
2. Cover your brassicas (cabbage white butterfly)
3. Sweetcorn is a b****r to germinate (damping off)
4. Concrete your shed to the ground (Theives)
5 Grow more fruit than you need (children)
6. However hard you try you will always have left a bit of couch grass root in your newly dug veg beds. !!"**!!?!*!!!**?

Buy a greenhouse bigger than you need cos the one you buy won't be big enough !!!

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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/

I'll go with that too Nick, I thought mine was quite big untill a few weeks ago. Now I spend more time trying to squeeze in one more pot!!!!

If you want the soil to feed you, first feed the soil.

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Geordie

Te audire non possum. Musa sapientum fixa est in aure

Gardening with a stinkin' hangover is no fun at all

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Rat

British by birth
Scottish by the Grace of God

Blog updated Wednesday 17th September

Always sow runner beans the right way up. I have just been out to the greenhouse and discovered half a tray of runner beans growing upside down. It has never happened before and it will not happen again!

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[

Be continually vigilant against slugs. And indeed, all pests. And weeds.

Don't leave your wonderful teenage kids in charge of watering whilst on hols for 2 wks!!!

LJ
Wasn't aware that there was a right way up to sow runner beans - I sowed a heap last week and now you've got me worried - what is the right way up ?

Maybe the ones you sowed upside down would work on Geordies inverted wigwam !

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Rat

British by birth
Scottish by the Grace of God

Blog updated Wednesday 17th September

Rat I wasn't aware that there was a right way either. I just push the runner beans into cells - always have and they always come up fine. This year though I got a right surprise when I went into the greenhouse and half a tray had a big bunch of roots sticking up out of the cells. I dug them up and turned them around so they were the right way up and they have grown fine.

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Seeds normally right themselves, I can only think that the cells didn't give them enough space to do that. they send their roots out and then use this to pull themselves over.

Invest in chestnut compound, helps prevent dampining off when doing mass seed sowing.
Clean the greenhouse in early autum and set up your bubble wrap when its dry, you can move everything out while it still warm enough to do so.
No matter what you sow some stuff germinates and others don't, sweetcorn is a pain in the ******* to germinate and best started off in propegator and then on a sunny windowsill as soon as is breaks the surface. Use a root trainer or toliet roll to plant it in but take careful note of planting depth.

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http://gardenfan.blogspot.com