[ness]

Hello
Having recently acquired an allotment (well 1/6th of one!), we are getting very excited about what crops to grow.  But we have a very basic veg book and ofcourse the invaluable advice of fellow allotmenteers, but they don't always agree plus I guess a lot is down to location and soil.
Sorry to ramble :oops: but is  swede easy for a newbie? We are down in sunny (?) Devon and the soil looks nice and brown!?!  I dont know what has been grown on the patch before.
Any help gratefully received.
Ness x

[DD.]

There's only one way to find out - and that's not just by looking at the soil!!

I've tried now for 3 years and like the rest of the plot holders on my site I'm going to give up! If you've got a club root problem - you can certainly forget it as swede is a brassica. However, club root or not, they don't seem to grow in certain soils.

Others are more fortunate & probably wonder what the fuss is about.

In theory they are easy to grow, sow in a drill, protect from birds if they are a problem, thin them out when large enough & watch them swell! Buy some seed, stick them in next year, then you'll have your answer!  

[noshed]

Purple-topped turnips are really easy - and quick. But my flatmate hates them.

[Aunt Sally]

I love sweed, so I'm going to have a go.  I'll look out for purple top ones thanks noshed  

[muntjac]

you have to rotate the soil for 7 years without putting in any brassicas to get rid of club root , and the only thing thats kill it is Terraclor  75% in soluble form  but you gotta find it on the net  
another thing is to heavy lime the soil for 4 yrs on the trot
this just stops it migrtin to other areas ,you can cover the soil for 6 mths with a black plastic heavy duty sheet and the heat generated kills it as well .i heard that from old fella on our plot he had it bad and it werked he planted the following spring .he did it in thirds on his plot, he brung it in on some plants he bought at a car boot sale

[Gwiz]

i started my swedes of in the greenhouse at home. just like you`re not supposed to do.
they were luuurrvley.

[Eristic]

i started my swedes of in the greenhouse at home. just like you`re not supposed to do.

So why are you not supposed to? Who said that?

We usually sow the seeds straight into the ground as this is the way its always been done, but it is just a cabbage with attitude and we think nothing of growing cabbages in seed trays to transplant later. While ground conditions are favourable, sowing direct is probably the simplest method, there may be an advantage to sowing a bit early in pots for transplanting.

I will put this on my list of experiments for 2007. Whatch this space.

[milkman]

I have always found swedes difficult to grow, don't have clubroot fortunatley.  This year I got my best ever results sowing direct at precisely the right time in the year (don't ask me when that is 'cause it'll probably be a different time of year next year), covering them in viromesh and thinning them out at intervals and watering them everynow and again.  Removed the viromesh when the mealy aphids appeared to be taking hold.

Interestingly the biggest and best specimens are growing on ground which sported runner beans last year, the smaller ones are where my french beans were.  So next year I'm going to try sowing a nitrogen fixing green manure before hand to see if it makes a noticeable difference.

[Gwiz]

i started my swedes of in the greenhouse at home. just like you`re not supposed to do.

So why are you not supposed to? Who said that?

We usually sow the seeds straight into the ground as this is the way its always been done, but it is just a cabbage with attitude and we think nothing of growing cabbages in seed trays to transplant later. While ground conditions are favourable, sowing direct is probably the simplest method, there may be an advantage to sowing a bit early in pots for transplanting.

I will put this on my list of experiments for 2007. Whatch this space.

all my books say sow where they are to grow.
just goes to say , dont it?

[muntjac]

I sowed mine in egg trays . the six pack recycled paper jobbies . just cut them into six and planted them in last years manured ground they came up great .no thinning out .i lost about 5% due to natural causes ( my grand daughter helping with the weeding ) and they are at a guess 2lbs  by now .one thing i did find during the hot weather we had was they wilted at the end of the day and had to be watered every morning extra i planted mine next to my turnips and they kind of look good together .and  being fortunate to have my plots at the bottom of my garden i have  60 mtre hose that i can run from the house to do my watering .. much to the annoyance of the plot holders  at the other end of the housing block

[ted_woodley]

Tried and failed, so tried something else. It is hard to generalise, some things books call "easy" I have failed totally with, and some "difficult" things have been no problem (celery).

[DD.]

Tried sowing them in 3" individual pots and planting them out as decent plants. All goes wonkey as soon as they hit my soil!

[noshed]

I've found a lot of things benefitted from starting off at home - I got some cheap modules that fit into seed trays and they've lasted well. It's easier to keep an eye on things until they're big enough to stand up for themselves.
I have learnt this year that you really do have to thin stuff out. A lesson for next year.

[DD.]

I start all my brassicas off at home in seed tray inserts, one seed to each cell, 40 to a large seed tray. One packet of seed would last years, if they kept long enough! One packet will do 2 or 3 years though if kept well.

I then pot them up into 3" pots and they subsequently hit the allotment as good sturdy plants.

Don't work with swede though!!!

[ness]

Thanks for all your replies, it doesn't sound too hopeful for me though! I'm going to give them a go but maybe not devote too much of our plot to them in a "suck 'em and see" approach!
Cheers
Ness x