[wicked]

H Guys and Gals

Well, joined not so long ago, never grew anything before, and now I have, in a, now very, small raised bed lol.
For our first attempt we planted:
From seed: Mixture of Herbs, Radish, Spring onions, Normal onions, Cos lettuce, Iceberg lettuce, Chilli, Tomato and Pumpkins
Reduced plants from B&Q: Cauli, Carrots, Brussels, and Strawberries

First to come through was the radishes, me and the kids were so chuffed, cut the first one into 3 so we could share it hee hee
Spring Onions are doing great, especially mixed with somt Tuna and Mayo, and took advice from here by sowing every 2 weeks
Lettuces - Cos didn't do so well, got to about tennis ball sized then went mushy, and Iceberg is now about 2 foot tall    
Had an unexpected death in the family a month ago so didn't get chance to keep an eye on things as much as I'd have liked so think it's officially 'bolted'?

Normal Onions are growing well I think - wish there was such a thing as clear soil    The stems are still green and are looking nice and thick, but nothing's visible yet
Garlic.... put 6 cloves in about may time, after reading other posts on here realised I'd done them at the wrong time, but the stems are lovely and green and appear to be thriving, so I thought I'd pull one up and see how it was looking under there... 3 beautiful cloves had actually formed, not very big, but very very powerful! Can't wait now till the leaves start going brown so I can harvest them properly

2 of the 4 Cauli's now have golf ball sized heads, so have protected them with the outer leaves
Carrots aren't due to be pulled till end of August/September, but again, curiosity was killing us - pulled one up and it was the size of a chardonnay one    bit green inside and a bit bitter, but still very exciting stuff

Chilli plants are just all leaves at the moment, but are nice and strong, so not too worried just yet, although I have found some caterpillars on them

Pumpkins are confusing me - all the male flowers (the ones with the fruit?) have opened and are now dying off, just as the female flowers are starting to bud.  Keeping a daily eye on these, armed with a soft paintbrush just in case I manage to get to pollinate them as there is a distinct shortage of bees

Tomatoes have just this week started flowering, so am hopeful 3 plants will be plenty enough as I'm the only one that eats them unless they're cunningly disguised in spag bol  

Brussels are about a foot and a half (in old money) high at the moment

Strawberries have been and gone, a little dissapointed in them as we only had about 5 from 4 plants - but I blame myself for that, don't think I watered them enough, but getting lovely strong runners off them and am using aelf's milk carton design to pot them up
 
So all in all, very very happy.
Still loving the site, and all the advice and pointers make for interesting reading, so thanks guys

Chris x

[Dave Mack]

Good to hear your enjoying yourself ... i had a little chuckle about the radish 

[WirralWally]

. . . . Pumpkins are confusing me - all the male flowers (the ones with the fruit?) have opened and are now dying off, just as the female flowers are starting to bud. . . . . . .

You are confused  
It's the female flowers that produce the fruit.
Just think reproduction.
Male sows the seed. Female produces the desired result.  

Notwithstanding that slight glitch in your knowledge, you seem to have done exceedingly well with what you refer to as a 'small raised bed'.

Good luck and I certainly wish you continued success.

Oh . . .  afterthought.
Can't understand why you are looking for your onions under the soil. They should be clearly standing proud on top of it with only their roots below.
Did you sow sets deeply instead of with the tips peeping out of the soil?
or, are you growing Australian onions?  

[Paul Plots]

Australian onions are a brilliant and resilient crop especially developed for the drier climate – I’m surprised anyone over here has managed to get their hands on the seed, WirralWally. Have you grown them before?

They are bu**ers to lift though as they can go down quite a way in a dry summer!!

Yea...right 

Best of luck wicked - sounds to me as if you're doing really well 

[zazen999]

Good to hear that you are growing well.

If there is a lack of bees, you need some nectar flowers; borage, comfrey, anything daisy-like in appearance - these really help to bring bees to your plot and with the bees, comes pollination and it brings the garden alive.

[digalotty]

the only thing that tops fresh veg is telling everyone how you grow it yourself ,   this gives me top bragging rites over everything

[wicked]

Thanks for your comments, I've had a chuckle reading them 

WirralWally - Thanks for pointing out the reproductive system of the pumpkin for me lol, i thought it was something like that    Also, I didn't do onion sets, I grew them from seed, and planted the seedlings into the bed, I'm just waiting for them to swell and start pushing the soil up, although it is possible I put them down too far 
With the length of the stems it is highly probable they're doing really well in an australian garden lol

zazen - I'm planning on doing just that for next year, the kids did some californian poppys, livingstone daisies and lobelia but their results are nowhere as good as the veggies

digalotty - I know - I'm boring everyone to death with my progress lol, can't wait for the end results to pat myself on the back 

I'd really like to do some leeks and potatoes next year - we love homemade soup in the winter, can anyone recommend any good flavoursome ones to try?  A tad gutted I didn't think of it earlier on in the season but hey ho

[Paul Plots]

Leeks:

Giant Winter - sow March to April - Maturity Late October to January
Musselburgh - sow March to April - Maturity November to January / Mid February

I've grown both of these and found them good.