[ian05]

I am very new to growing my own,as we have only recently moved into a house with a garden. I was hoping to start very basically and to use a couple of grow bags,can anyone tell me when i should start to plant? i am going to be planting Tomatoes and Strawberries.

[compostqueen]

You need to do this bit for yourself.  A book from the library, or a book by John Harrison who hosts this site and is available here, will tell all. 

First thing to think about is what you and your family like to eat. 

Folks normally plant either seed raised plants into growbags, either home raised or bought in, as growbag compost is manure based and very strong, so not suited to seed sowing.  I would hold off for months yet unless you can put the growbag into a cold greenhouse or coldframe.  If you have cover, you could plant your growbag up with hardy leafy salad plants or oriental veg plants

[JayG]

Hi Ian, welcome to the forums. 

Couple of thoughts - could you edit your forum profile to give us some idea as to your location (often makes a difference to the answers given to growing questions.)

Not sure why you are choosing to use growbags when you now have a garden, but if you go ahead make sure you buy nice plump ones rather than the cheap skinny ones, otherwise you'll struggle to keep your plants sufficiently well fed and watered.

Strawberries could be planted now, tomatoes not until all danger of frosts have passed, but in general I suggest you first peruse some of the articles in the main (i.e. not forum) part of this site.

[stompy]

Hi ian05,

I would also recomend buying one or 2 of the magazines on sale, Grow your own, kitchen gardener or grow it maybe.

They are prety good and will give you planting ideas for the month they are issued!

The best thing you can get though is a good book as they are usually full of ideas of how to get your plot up to speed and growing on a month by month basis.

Anyways welcome, good luck and most of all enjoy 

Andy

[bigben]

To add to what JayG says - you can grow in growbags that are upright so you get a greater depth of compost - even split them in half and stand upright with drainage holes will probably give more depth. You can also sink a pot with the bottom cut out into a flat growbag, fill the pot and then plant your pre grown seedling. This can be useful for plants that need a bit more depth.

Morrisons sell the pots they get their flowers delivered in - 8 for 99p The big ones are a decent depth and are thin enough and cheap enough to cut for just this job. I grew toms this way last year and they did better than my previous attempts because of the extra nutrients and space for bigger root systems.

[Yorkie]

I wouldn't put strawberries in a growbag for the simple reason that they are permanent plants (well, for several years at least) and the compost in growbags only contains enough fertiliser for 6 weeks.  You won't get good strawberries from that level of starvation.  They do far better in either the soil, or a John Innes compost - probably #2.

[shoozie]

We had a glut of first year strawberries plants (from previous runners) last season that were temporarily planted into grow bags for the summer.  They fruited ok but needed regular watering and were fed from time to time with tomato feed. As a one season solution it was fine, but they are now planted into their permanent space - as Yorkie says, I find they are better in the ground.  Used the cheaper bnq bags for the strawberries.