Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: twhincup on March 12, 2006, 14:03
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Hi everyone, my name is tony and I've recently taken up an allotment. Its been ploughed and cultivated and pretty much ready to go.
After some searching on the net I cam across your site and registered.
My partner and I are absolute beginners, but are quite keen and like all novices will probably bombard u all with the same old questions:)
I've purchased seed potatoes (king edwards) which i'll start chitting, some lettuce (in the shed for now).
Am going over toady to plant carrot seed, raspberry stems, broad beans and onions. My first question will be "what needs protecting from what?", I've been told to keep the raspberries close together to net them when they flower, what about the onions, beans and carrots?? I notice some of the plots have wire panels put up to deter foxes but not sure what crop. I've also already picked up on CD's and plastic bottles on sticks for the birds.
Anyway, I'm off to make my first plantings (that is of course once i've sketched my plan), speak to you soon
Regards
Tony & Tor
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Hi Tony and Tor, nice to see some more newbies joining. as well as cd's and plastic bottles to frighten the birds, Last year I copied what I saw in someone's garden, they had cut plastic carrier bags into strips and tied them onto canes which they had stuck around their plot. So I did that. Had a lovely collection of Tesco and Morrisons fluttering around!
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Thanks for the tip grannie,
we've just got back (me tor and the 2 kids) from putting in onions, broad beans, carrot seed, raspberries and a couple of rhubarb plants.
Not sure how successfull or correct they are having only just read the weather report of temp's to 1c, but they are in and we're keeping our fingers crossed.
We're all actually excited about our efforts, hopefully we'll reap the benefits, my philosohy being 'if there in the ground, they'll grow'
Next a question about how do I plant my spuds using a tried and tested method?
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Hi twhincup, Welcome
See that you mentioned the temperature. The magic temp for the germination of most vegetable seeds is 7c (45F). If the soil does not reach this temp, then the seeds just rot in the ground. Not sure what part of the country you are in, but in my part of the world (North Wales) the soil at present is too wet, and cold to plant up. It may be worth watching what the old timers on your site are planting up, to give you a good idea when the conditions are right. If you want to get started early you can use cloches to warm up the soil, I got some really cheap ones from Aldis around this time last year. Enjoy your gardening, the vegetables taste great
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Hi and Welcome :)
I'm sure the beans will be OK and probably everything else. Still too soggy for planting here grrr.
If you use the google search on many of the main pages (search planting potatoes) you'll get how I do it popping up all over.
We're more than self sufficient in spuds so I must be doing something right. I'd try and get some Anya if you can. We've just run out of ours so I can hardly wait for next years. Wonderful salad spud.
Cheers
John