[KathyM]

I know it sounds daft, but have found an old bath on the allotment site that is up for grabs, so have dragged it back to our plot (or rather the boyfriend has).  I have done my back in so the idea was to use it for planting something in that I can maintain a bit easier than in a normal plot.  My initial idea was to grow carrots in it (or to fill it with blueberry bushes, might be a daft idea), but I wondered if there were any other crops that prefer a raised bed or container such as this?  I don't want to fill it with things that do better in a normal row, as we've got loads of room for them already.  I really would like to grow something that would really prefer this kind of container.

Thanks

Kathy

[griff]

Grow any thing spring onion radish lettuce.. you  can make a cover and use it as a cold frame. Don't forget to take the pluck out

[peterjf]

carrots , pasnips lettuce, whatever you want really

[JayG]

Carrots would be good because you could fill the bath with sieved soil and know that your carrots would not fork due to stones.
A bath is probably not quite high enough to guarantee freedom from the dreaded carrot fly but would be quite easy to cover with fine netting.

Blueberries are not a bad idea especially if your soil is not suitable for growing them in the ground as you can provide the right ericaceous medium for them to grow in, although filling a bath with it would be quite expensive.

Not easy to think of many things which actually prefer growing in containers though.....

[boosh]

If you have a ready supply of horse poo or simlar, fill half full and top of with compost or soil and plant two courgettes, they will really love it.

[gypsy]

Carrots would be good because you could fill the bath with sieved soil and know that your carrots would not fork due to stones.
A bath is probably not quite high enough to guarantee freedom from the dreaded carrot fly but would be quite easy to cover with fine netting.

I know from experience that carrot fly can get as high as a bath. 

[Mosslane]

Hi Kathy, blueberries isn't a daft idea. We were given an old bath a few years ago. My OH buried it in the garden and we filled it with soil and eracacious compost and planted my blueberries in it as they didn't seem to be doing well in our ordinary soil. They loved it, and we had brilliant crops year after year.

[Jamie Butterworth]

[/quote]
I know from experience that carrot fly can get as high as a bath. 
[/quote]


I know that htis is probably a stupid question but, ive heared people say that the carrot fly can smell the carrot plant from half a mile away, but if it cant get that high, how does it get into gardens and allotments, surely it would have to fly over a fence or two to get there 

[jimmytheshed]

Maybe put carrots in there and fleece it with bungee straps around under the lip? a chap on our site had his carrots under fleece all year, just held down nice and tight to the soil, with plenty of loose so the leafs can push the fleece up. best carrots ive ever seen. guess what im doing this year

[Babstreefern]

I've heard that you can plant onions along with carrots as the onions mask the scent of carrots :blink:

But with the bath, you can plant anything you like - why not make it into a herb garden.

I've got a 6x4 raised plot, and I dug out all the soil, then lined it with plastic sheeting, used a fork to put some holes in (not a lot), then filled it up with Irish Peat Moss and planted with various carnivorous plants.  This is my first year, so I'm hoping by summer they'll look like triffids - hence the "few" holes, it should be a bog garden.  These will hopefully catch the dreaded carrot fly, white fly, wasps, cabbage whites, etc . 

[BADBACK]

EY UP
all the books you read.
all the tinternet sites you go on.
all say the same the carrot fly can only
fly 18 to 36 inch high.
nobody says how high the little sods
         can  crawl 

[JayG]

Good point Badback!

(For the right carrot I suspect they can crawl further than an MP caught with one house and two mortgages!) 

[blackbob]

EY UP
all the books you read.
all the tinternet sites you go on.
all say the same the carrot fly can only
fly 18 to 36 inch high.
nobody says how high the little *
         can  crawl 

from what i remember of me college days,they will only crawl short horizontal distances before taking flight again.

[mumofstig]

EY UP
all the books you read.
all the tinternet sites you go on.
all say the same the carrot fly can only
fly 18 to 36 inch high.
nobody says how high the little *
         can  crawl 

Or how high a friendly breeze will waft them

[compostqueen]

I inherited an old cast iron bath (roll top, very naice) in my garden when we moved here. It was filled with muck and old, rotten leaves. The soil and leaves have been chucked in the shrubbery and I plan to divert water off my greenhouse into it.  Mind you, it looks rather fab, it's got lovely feet so maybe it'll be going back in the house