[billathome65]

As a newbie to this gardening lark I have many questions worries and concerns about sorting out the soil which I wrote in my previous thread.

This thread is a move on from that and asks what veg to plant and when so I have veg all year round.

As I'm in the NW wet ground is an issue even if I manage to improve the drainage.

Any expert advice is appreciated and as a newbie I know some of my questions may seem obvious but not to me

Cheers Bill 

[Kleftiwallah]

Wadya mean North West ! ?   Carlisle is N.W. your in the Midlands ! ! ! :happy: 

Grow what you like to eat, grow what is expensive in the shops and grow veg with a short shelf life.  When you get to grow things all round the year.  . .  tell the rest of us your secret !    Cheers,   Tony.

[billathome65]

  last time I checked Manchester was in Lancashire which is the NW of England  As for growing stuff all year round forget the winter months and Ill be happy with most of the year round...

Happy new year

[Jamie Butterworth]

You can still grow veg in the winter months like brassicas and winter spinach and lettuce, and green manures 

[SG6]

Beans, Peas, Beetroot, Broccoli, Brussels, Cabbage, Cauli, Celery, Garlic, Kale, Leek, Lettuce, Marrow+Courgette, Onions, Parsnip, Potato, Radish, Spinach, Swede, Tomato, Turnip,

Left Carrot out as your ground isn't really suited - too heavy at present from your other post. Other post I said try a big pot with carrot in.

Dig/create a couple of beds and start with a row of whatever. Onions come in sets so just keep planting several rows. Potato take a fair amount of space, so perhaps a bed or half bed of potato's. Marrow/Courgette also take space.

Radish are quick, good first crop.
Get some garlic in, tends to be easy.

Get a book and see what takes how long and plan (small amount only) what to try.

[Christine]

Don't grow it if you don't like it and won't eat it. Try an item off the don't like list in a couple of years when you have some experience - you may find it tastes better fresh out of the bed than not so fresh out of the supermarket.

[billathome65]

Beans, Peas, Beetroot, Broccoli, Brussels, Cabbage, Cauli, Celery, Garlic, Kale, Leek, Lettuce, Marrow+Courgette, Onions, Parsnip, Potato, Radish, Spinach, Swede, Tomato, Turnip,

Left Carrot out as your ground isn't really suited - too heavy at present from your other post. Other post I said try a big pot with carrot in.

Dig/create a couple of beds and start with a row of whatever. Onions come in sets so just keep planting several rows. Potato take a fair amount of space, so perhaps a bed or half bed of potato's. Marrow/Courgette also take space.

Radish are quick, good first crop.
Get some garlic in, tends to be easy.

Get a book and see what takes how long and plan (small amount only) what to try.

Great stuff thanks for that I have some pictures up of the garden area so take a look and advise away.

Regards Bill

[SG6]

For all year round crops you need to work out when the various veg crops.
Started guessing at the relevant month but there must be a list that I can reorder on the web somewhere.

From my experience I would mark out 2 beds of 2.4x1.8 meter, actually a little over.
The split each into 6, say 1.2x0.65mtr, could do 0.8x0.9mtr patches.
Each patch will be small but for more simply use 2 (or more) patches.

For a single bed, and if you like/want them try:
1xOnion1
1xOnion2
1xParsnip
1xSwede
1xLeeks
1xTurnip
All basically root type crops some of which you harvest late in the year.

Try 2 varieties of onion, at this stage I would recommend not trying red onions, most seem to have difficulty.

Get the second bed done to the same size, optional but looks good, and put potato's in half of it. Or better 2 types of potato in 2 thirds of it.

The other half/third can be again whatever you feel like. Beans, Peas, Cauli, Brocolli, Brussels, Cabbage.

May be better to use the first available bed for potato's as they are earlier the the root crops I suggested for the first bed.

The 2 beds mentioned I find that I can grow what I have said for No1 and cannot grow what I have said for No2. Never tried beans and Peas as I cannot stand the things.

Reason I said 2.4x1.8 is that I use the 2.4mtr and 1.8mtr gravel boards from Wickes to separate my growing area up with. I make up simple 2 prong "things" to hold the boards in place. Makes altering the layout easy.

Add another bed when you recover from making and planting the first 2.

Do you have a Wilkinsons around you?
They will soon start doing things like onions sets and seed potato's. The advantage is that they often do their stuff in smaller amounts. Bit easier for the home veg plot.

Time to get digging I am afraid, that's the start.

[billathome65]

Thanks SG6 but I only have a small patch of land to use maybe 12ft by maybe 9ft to be honest I haven't measured it so may be smaller so I need to know how to make the best use of as much as I can.

I will grow only what we will eat i.e pots onions sprouts peas runners cabbage

I can use the back walled area where bricks where dumped and covered for herbs what herbs can survive frost etc.

Cheers Bill

[Yabba]

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[billathome65]

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Thank you

[Kristen]

I will grow only what we will eat i.e pots onions sprouts peas runners cabbage

Potatoes are not a good value crop - they need quite a bit of space to grow, and (maincrop) are cheap in the shops. (although you would be able to plant Leeks in the space used by the First Early Spuds provided you had started the Leek plants off in a reasonable sized opt, or using DD's cat litter tray method [details elsewhere on this forum]), and "new potatoes" at the start of the season are not that cheap in the shops (I grow Aran Pilot which always seems to be in a furious hurry! and I think Rocket is another very early variety - keep the frost off the tops, once they come though, though).

having said that, one of the benefits of growing your own is you can choose a variety you like the taste of, which might be hard to find in the supermarket.

You could grow spuds in large tubs or bags (you can buy special bags for the purpose) which might increase your growing area? Definitely worth growing extra early - the bag can be indoors until the spuds are up and wanting light, and you can bring it in for the night if frost is forecast (they don't need light during the night, of course )

You could grow some carrots in pots too.  I sue the old compost from growbags etc mixed 50:50 with sharp sand, sow the seed, water them occasionally - but otherwise ignore them! until harvest.  Talking of growbags - you could use them if you have some space, but its not suitable for growing - an old patch of concrete for example. Tomatoes perhaps?

Long time since I bought runner beans, but my recollection is they were relatively expensive in the shops? Probably the labour cost of picking ... they are a very prolific crop. So I reckon that is good on harvest-to-area, flavour, and price

[TheSpartacat]

Great advice from Kristen.
I'd also suggest climbing french beans (start them early and plant out in June- they take a little longer to start cropping, but give a long cropping period and prolific.... French beans are more expensive than runner beans to buy, and well... i'm pretty partial to them, particularly the less stringy varieties.

Things like Kohl Rabi are pretty quick growing, and Pak Choi, you could succession sow them well into late Summer.
And when you havent got the floor space- use the wall space? Cant see how high your other wall is but you can get nice trailing varieties of cherry tomatoes for hanging baskets... or put a  trellis/support along the wall and grow an outdoor ridge variety of cucumber?

Succession sowings of lettuce can keep you in salads all Summer and will mean you're continually harvesting- which feels nice when you're starting off. And there are some decent iceberg/crisp head lettuces that will outsmart (and out flavour) the rather expensive supermarket varieties? (And they wont wither in the fridge... just pull a few leaves as you need em!!

Spring onions I think are more space effective than regular onions, which are cheap to buy... You can get varieties that 'bulb' up a little too... just thin them as you pick and the later harvests will be more 'onion like'.

Turnip (not swede) grow fast and can succession show for a long time.... better use of space than swede that sit there for a year growing at snails pace? You can buy turnip varieties that are a double crop as they produce v tasty leaves too (cook like cabbage or kale... steam it +knob of butter, crack of pepper.... mmm)

I also got a good crop from Kale- i grew Nero di Toscana from realseeds... they are 'cut and come again' (like a lot of Kales i believe?) When you harvest the Kale, cut it instead of pulling it, just below the head... and leave the stalk with about 3 or 4 fair sized leaves still on it in the ground.... it will then sprout 3 or 4 more heads.... so you get another harvest before the spring. (and its hardy, so you can leave it growing all winter)

Use intercropping!!! Sow your radish in between your rows of Kale (for eg) when you're sowing... the radish will get harvested in 6 weeks, just at the point where your kale starts to need the space. A neat thing about doing that is the affect on flea beetle... i was growing some japanese greens and kales that flea beetle will happily ruin... but they far far prefer tucking into radish... they go mad for radish!!! So they attack the radish, leaving your other leafy veg alone (and they eat the bits of the radish you probably werent too interested in anyway? (Though i still use mine for radish top soup... no-one will ever know those leaves were riddled with flea beetle holes!!!)
 
Rocket is another great fast fast growing one thats great for intercropping- and ridiculously expensive in the supermarkets given how little time it took to grow it, and the fact that its well.... leaves?!!

Perpetual spinach is another 'all year round' cropper. I presume it slows down in the winter? I grew it this year for the first time... i didnt like it... its like chard. If you like chard, you might like it... Its a member of the beet/chard family so... not actually a spinach (but waaaaay easier to grow)

And how about a strawberry planter?

[Kristen]

In terms of "maximum crop from area" you might want to google "square foot gardening" - those folk aim to get extraordinary yields from their plots