This year's foray into container growing......

[IanNW]

Been a while since i have posted but always lurking and reading the advice offered by many on here...
Last year was my first year attempt at growing Veg and soft fruits in containers, some with success, some not so succesful. I also have my name down with the local council for an allotment i am 12th on the waiting list for a site that only has 24 plots, even though the council have said as they become available they are splitting these in half due to the size of each plot...the wait continues.....

This year i have branched out a bit further and am trying for more things...Also splashed out on a small greenhouse....

What i have got so far.
after reading about some people growing potatoes in buckets i decided to go one step further and use a Bin(have 2 on the go) and earth(i think that is the right term) the potato up as they grow. I have started with the early variety of Scottish Lady christl, planted the end of February and they seem to be doing well. These will be earthed up end of May. And i will go onto a main crop variety. To be decided on yet.
The Rhubarb which was planted last year in a 15 ltr tub has come on it leaps and bounds this year, i also managed to get hold of some Victoria Rhubarb seeds and they have started to show some promise as well.
Onion set has been planted in what was my daughters Baby bath, thing is she likes to dig them up and then plant them again, so far they seem to be ok as she manages to put them back in the same place and the right way up. Will find out come October time.
Nantes carrots in toilet rolls, must have about 40 of these stacked in the childrens playpit.
Soft fruit seems to be doing well this year after last years failure of not netting them from the birds. I have expanded on these and have gone a variety of Strawberry plants so that i have early, mid and late fruiting plants seen as the children as well as the birds pull them off the plants and eat them whilst playing in the yard.
Bluegold blueberry bush, have planted this into a 20ltr Tub, hopefully this will be big enough!!!
Gooseberry and blackcurrant bushes planted in planters, these seem to be doing better than last year as i seemed to get a dud blackcurrant bush that died as soon as it was transplanted to a new area.
in the greenhouse i have Masoka(spelling) and tumbling toms starting to sprout, with some cucumber, can not remember the types.
A couple of varieties of Chili peppers and sweet peppers.
The herbs are out in the yard and surprisingly managed to carry on throughout the whole year, basil, Mint, Thyme and parsley all doing well.

Have also managed to fill a bin with the kitchen waste and pet rabbit waste and spent compost from pots and tubs from last year and are now fermenting into a nice compostable material over the past 7-8 months.

Have also decided to grow a few items to attract the gardeners friends, i have some borage (got this from the eden project last year) on the go in the greenhouse with some Sweet peas, african (mind blank) and the french marigolds (remembered now), will also try to pinch a honey suckle plant from my parents garden, that seems to attract the bees.

I also plan to get some runner, stringbeans, parsnips and sweetcorn into the propagator the end of April, its just that space seems to be at a premium....

The daughter just reminded to make sure i get the sunflowers which she grows, down as well.....

[oldherbaceous]

Dear IanNW, may i just say what a wonderful write up that you have done. I'm sure that it will give a lot of people so much encouragement to persist in there second year of gardening, even if they have had the odd failure.

Sounds as if your Daughter is still enjoying helping.

[macmac]

all i can say ian is if there was an apprentiship to achieve to get an allotment you'd pass with flying colours.i hope you get one soon .we've got a waiting list of app. 50 with 5/6 changing hands annually.maybe the increased interest and demand will encourage local councils to allocate more land.meanwhile keep up the good work and keep posting your progress

[Primrose]

Sounds as if you've made a pretty impressive start to your veggie growing career. I think it's always encouraging for people to read about other peoples' efforts in container gardening because with so many people having tiny gardens these days, more people will be wanting to grow using this method.
Good luck with this year's crops.

[Urban Fox]

[quote="IanNW"]
Have also decided to grow a few items to attract the gardeners friends, i have some borage (got this from the eden project last year) .....[/quote]

Keep an eye on the Borage it will spread everywhere!

I put some in our back garden and it seeded itself all over the place. It took ages to get it under control. It even managed to migrate to the front garden! I assume I carried its seeds on my muddy boots.

The bees do love it - but it is a bully and the hairy leaves can irritate the skin. I now grow foxgloves instead (of course). Just as beautiful and the bees love them too.

UrbanFox

[Primrose]

Yes, I love foxgloves too. It's such a delight to watch the bees foraging in them. But what amazes me most is the outrageous price charged for a single foxglove plant in a pot at a garden centre, when, for the price of a packet of seed which you could sprinkle around your borders, you could have more foxglove plants than you know what to do with.
I indulge in a little bit of guerilla gardening in this respect. I dig up a few of my surplus foxglove plants when they're small and replant them in the bank of a nearby public footpath. Not many survive as they seem to get swamped by nettles and other tall weeds, but I like to think that a few will and self seed so that there will be a few more plants for the bees to forage in in future years.

[IanNW]

Foxgloves also a nice plant, but having youngsters 7 years old, 2 years old and 7 months old play in the same garden as i grow in would not make me feel comfortable as they are occasionally left unsupervised, which is when items tend to get dug up and replanted in other pots and tubs. As to borage it should not be too much of a problem as my garden is really a concrete oasis except for the containers and a small greenhouse.

When looking for a house one of our main things to look for was a decent sized garden - this never really materialised.
The wife has now stated that next time we move that we WILL get a good sized garden so that the children and the Gardener can play happily outside.

[IanNW]

Hurrah, at last I have an Allotment. The Council sent me a letter out asking if i was still interested in an Allotment and have been diggin it over since Friday 13th November (ominous date). Will just turn the soil over and get the worst of the weeds out to begin then leave to overwinter and start the sowing come January/February. Will transplant my Fruit canes and Blueberry Bushes end of November though. Have built a compost bin from some pallets which the council kindly provide.
It was also mulched as it is a new part of the allotments the council have opened up due to increased interest.

As to how the growing went this year, I had a few Blueberries, Lots of Strawbs, The gooseberries and Blackberries need another year before i can harvest as no old growth to shoot from.

Onions in the baby Bath came out really nicely and have a few bulbs left to use up in the kitchen.

tats Harvest was really good getting about 20kgs of salad and new tats which other members of the family enjoyed and seemd to pinch on a regular basis, The brassicas and slads unfortunately succumbed to Cabbage butterflys and caterpillars, they seem to multiply in the thousands overnight.

Rhubard was good again this year, will split the crown and transplant to a section of the Allotment.

Tomatos grew really well as did the Cherry and small plum tomatos in the hanging basket, the wife loves these with cheese and crackers.

The Peas seemd to start off well and then just died away(maybe my growing and watering technique)

As they say onwards and upwards and time to start to planning what to grow next.

[Primrose]

I've decided next year I'm going to use my potato sacks for growing Mooli. The potatoes weren't terribly successful, or prolific, but the depth of the sacks should be ideal for the long roots which Mooli have. We eat them a lot raw in salads, and cooked in stir fries and hopefully the containers will protect the roots from slugs.

[oldherbaceous]

Evening Ian, so glad you have got yourself an allotment, now the fun will really start for you.

And congratulations with your pots and containers, you seem to have done rather well.