Hi all
I'm haveing to grow everything in pots and one raised bed due to having no soil. Full rear of the house which is an ok size is either concrete or paved.
I've just invested in a polytunnel for shelter as I thought this would be better than a greenhouse.
Last year wasnt a good year for growing for various reasons including our lack of experiance but I think that some of the problem was depth of our pots.
Some nice people on here recently advised me on what is meant by pot size when described as 3", 7", 10" etc etc but could you advise on what depth of pot we should use for the following
spring onions ( can never seam to get these to grow )
lettuce
beetroot
onions
Peas
sweat Peppers
Carrots
Sorry for the long explanation, thought it might help if you knew what i'm up to
Thanks in advance
Mark.
Growing depth help please
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Westi
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Mark L I agree with you totally about spring onions - the seed packets say easy to grow..hmmm sometimes! I envy your polytunnel.. put them in the soil if you've got a tunnel.. 
Someone will come along & explain what you should so - I've only been doing this for 10 years or so the forum members here have been doing for 20+ years on my experience!
Westi
Someone will come along & explain what you should so - I've only been doing this for 10 years or so the forum members here have been doing for 20+ years on my experience!
Westi
Westi
Westi wrote:Mark L I agree with you totally about spring onions - the seed packets say easy to grow..hmmm sometimes! I envy your polytunnel.. put them in the soil if you've got a tunnel..
Someone will come along & explain what you should so - I've only been doing this for 10 years or so the forum members here have been doing for 20+ years on my experience!
Westi
We only started in late 2011 and its all a massive learning curve but we wont be beaten.
My Polytunnel is nothing flash its 7ft by 10ft and fastened down onto hard ground not over soil.
Raised bed at the back is a truck axle crate ( wooden) that i picked up but its fits just nice across the back. Everything else is in pots.
Will master the spring onions one day
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FelixLeiter
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Volume, not depth, should be what guides you. If you want long carrots, then you'll need a container as deep as the length of the carrots you're aiming for, plus a little extra. Everything else doesn't need much depth of compost, necessarily, not even beetroot, which form mostly above ground. But it depends on how you're planning to manage your containers. They're always a lot of work, whichever way you look at it, needing constant water and feeding. You can get away with quite small volumes if you're sure you can intensively water and keep constantly feeding. Growbags, for instance, can be pressed into use for most crops, as long as you put the work in. Whatever containers you use, not letting them ever dry out is key.
Allotment, but little achieved.
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sally wright
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Dear Mark,
It is not just about the size of pots you have available but the particular varieties of the plants you want to grow which will allow success or failure in pots.
Right, lettuce; there are two general kinds of lettuce that you can grow. The first are hearting lettuce such as cos, iceberg and butterheads etc. These are harvested when they have formed a heart and the whole plant is cut. The second type are the loose leaf or baby leaf lettuces. These are harvested leaf by leaf as you need them. For growing in small spaces and pots I would recommend the looseleaf etc types. These can be scattered directly onto the top of a pot of compost with a tiny amount of potting soil on the top (use a kitchen sieve for this). As these grow they can be harvested as the baby leaf stage when you thin them and then leaf by leaf as they grow bigger. I would scatter on the top of a 10 litre pot about 40-50 seeds. Follow the planting instructions on the packet for timings and sow a fresh pot every week to provide a succession of leaves through the summer. Lettuce will go to seed very easily and the leaves will be incredibly bitter if they are allowed to dry out at any time. During hot weather (here's living in hope!) lettuce seeds will not germinate in full sun so put the pots in the shade until they have done so.
Beetroot - sow about 20 to 40 of the seed clusters per 10 litre pot. This might sound like a lot but the thinnings can be used in salads, steamed and stir fries until you end up with about ten plants evenly spaced within the pot. These can then grow on until the roots are about the size of golf balls at which point they can be harvested. Some of the inner leaves will still be tender and the leafy part (not the mid-rib) will be tasty as above (cooked). I would probably sow a fresh pot every two weeks for these.
Onions- use sets for these as seeds will be too complicated for a beginner in pots. Sets are little bulbs which will grow into proper sized onions. If you put into a 10 litre pot 10 little bulbs you can harvest 5 of them as spring onions although they may be a little strong to eat raw they will be very nice in omlettes (fried first), stir fries and other dishes. Another option is to sow some lettuce seeds and other saladings such as radish, cress etc in between 5 onion sets. As for spring onions - buy them! They can be difficult to grow even for experts although the Japanese types are said to be easier. If you want to try then about 50-75 seeds per 10 litre pot will be enough.
Peas - hmm I would think that the best kind for this sort of excercise would be dwarf ones and mange tout kinds. Sow about 20 peas per 10 litre pot to allow you to take out some as a salad ingredient at the four inch size. Leave around 5-10 to grow on with sticks in the pots to allow them to grow up. Keep the pots protected from birds and mice as both love peas at any stage. The shoot tips can also be picked as salad ingredients or for steaming or stir fries. Sow more at two week intervals.
Sweet peppers - one per 10 litre pot. Again you can sow small salad things around the edge of the pot and as these will be in the poly tunnel
some basil to go with them wouldn't go amiss. I would also plant some dwarf nasturtiums in these pots, not only to eat but to attract pollinators in to play with the pepper flowers.
Carrots - I would go for amsterdam forcing, chantenay (any kind) or a round kind such as paris market. These can be sown thinly using between 40-50 seeds per 10 litre pot. As they grow some tiny carrots can be removed to eat and the rest about 20 can be left to get bigger. Do a couple of 10 litre pots at a time every 2 weeks.
I have used a 10 litre pot as an example with all of the plants you have named so you can plant larger or smaller amounts as necessary to fit in with your space and available pots.
Regards Sally Wright.
It is not just about the size of pots you have available but the particular varieties of the plants you want to grow which will allow success or failure in pots.
Right, lettuce; there are two general kinds of lettuce that you can grow. The first are hearting lettuce such as cos, iceberg and butterheads etc. These are harvested when they have formed a heart and the whole plant is cut. The second type are the loose leaf or baby leaf lettuces. These are harvested leaf by leaf as you need them. For growing in small spaces and pots I would recommend the looseleaf etc types. These can be scattered directly onto the top of a pot of compost with a tiny amount of potting soil on the top (use a kitchen sieve for this). As these grow they can be harvested as the baby leaf stage when you thin them and then leaf by leaf as they grow bigger. I would scatter on the top of a 10 litre pot about 40-50 seeds. Follow the planting instructions on the packet for timings and sow a fresh pot every week to provide a succession of leaves through the summer. Lettuce will go to seed very easily and the leaves will be incredibly bitter if they are allowed to dry out at any time. During hot weather (here's living in hope!) lettuce seeds will not germinate in full sun so put the pots in the shade until they have done so.
Beetroot - sow about 20 to 40 of the seed clusters per 10 litre pot. This might sound like a lot but the thinnings can be used in salads, steamed and stir fries until you end up with about ten plants evenly spaced within the pot. These can then grow on until the roots are about the size of golf balls at which point they can be harvested. Some of the inner leaves will still be tender and the leafy part (not the mid-rib) will be tasty as above (cooked). I would probably sow a fresh pot every two weeks for these.
Onions- use sets for these as seeds will be too complicated for a beginner in pots. Sets are little bulbs which will grow into proper sized onions. If you put into a 10 litre pot 10 little bulbs you can harvest 5 of them as spring onions although they may be a little strong to eat raw they will be very nice in omlettes (fried first), stir fries and other dishes. Another option is to sow some lettuce seeds and other saladings such as radish, cress etc in between 5 onion sets. As for spring onions - buy them! They can be difficult to grow even for experts although the Japanese types are said to be easier. If you want to try then about 50-75 seeds per 10 litre pot will be enough.
Peas - hmm I would think that the best kind for this sort of excercise would be dwarf ones and mange tout kinds. Sow about 20 peas per 10 litre pot to allow you to take out some as a salad ingredient at the four inch size. Leave around 5-10 to grow on with sticks in the pots to allow them to grow up. Keep the pots protected from birds and mice as both love peas at any stage. The shoot tips can also be picked as salad ingredients or for steaming or stir fries. Sow more at two week intervals.
Sweet peppers - one per 10 litre pot. Again you can sow small salad things around the edge of the pot and as these will be in the poly tunnel
some basil to go with them wouldn't go amiss. I would also plant some dwarf nasturtiums in these pots, not only to eat but to attract pollinators in to play with the pepper flowers.
Carrots - I would go for amsterdam forcing, chantenay (any kind) or a round kind such as paris market. These can be sown thinly using between 40-50 seeds per 10 litre pot. As they grow some tiny carrots can be removed to eat and the rest about 20 can be left to get bigger. Do a couple of 10 litre pots at a time every 2 weeks.
I have used a 10 litre pot as an example with all of the plants you have named so you can plant larger or smaller amounts as necessary to fit in with your space and available pots.
Regards Sally Wright.
Thank you all for the guidance.
Sally
Thank you for taking the time to explain.
Everything will be grown inside the tunnel as we have a 1 year old Staffy who loves to help harvest everything,, usualy well before its ready
Atleast she's getting her 5 a day
Do you see any problems with growing the above inside the tunnel ?.
I will also be putting a few pots of tomatoes inside and potatoes outside in bags & pots (out the way of casey).
Thanks again
atb
Mark.
Sally
Thank you for taking the time to explain.
Everything will be grown inside the tunnel as we have a 1 year old Staffy who loves to help harvest everything,, usualy well before its ready
Atleast she's getting her 5 a day
Do you see any problems with growing the above inside the tunnel ?.
I will also be putting a few pots of tomatoes inside and potatoes outside in bags & pots (out the way of casey).
Thanks again
atb
Mark.
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sally wright
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- Location: Cambridge
Dear Mark,
if you are going to grow carrots in the polytunnel I would think that you could start them off at least a month earlier than stated on the packets. It will get too hot in there during the summer months so I would find an old table to put the pots on outside. This should keep them out of reach of the pooch. Do the same with the beetroot, onions and peas if you can. These pots can occupy the space for your tomatoes until the middle of May at which point the tomatoes will be planted into their final containers (15L or more is best). if you plan on more than 5 tomato plants or several varieties I would try to grow your own plants if you can as they are generally £1 each from most places. These need to go into a seed tray to germinate 7-8 weeks before you need them to be put into their final containers. When they are around 2-3" high separate them into 3" pots and grow on. A tip for better tomato plants is to plant them up to the base of their seed leaves at the separation stage and to the first pair of true leaves when they go into the big pots.
Sweet peppers take a long time to grow from seed and I think it would be best if you bought plants in the middle of May and planted them then. Give them a spot on the sunny side of the tomatoes and feed them every time you feed the tomatoes but only water them every other day as they do not enjoy nearly as much water as tomatoes do.
Potatoes in sacks can be started off in small pots (about 6") inside by early March and put into their big sacks in the middle of April. As they grow the soil can be topped up. Keep them in the polytunnel until the tomatoes etc are planted and then carefully drag them outside. Frosts until the beginning of June are likely in the North East so keep some old sheets/blankets etc or commercial fleece handy to cover them on nights which are predicted to go below 5C.
The Hardy herbs such as coriander, parsley and chives can be started into growth in the p/t by the middle of March. I would use those blue boxes and crates mushrooms come in for this purpose. Line the slat sided ones with newspaper to stop the compost falling out. These can be evicted outside in May. Sow one new crate each month of the coriander and one every 2 months of the other two. Basil likes to be inside all summer and I would sow at least two crops a small early one say the third week of April and a larger one one at the end of May.
Towards the end of the year when the tomatoes have finished the outside vegetables can be taken back inside the p/t to continue growing, probably until the end of October. Leave the parsley crated in the p/t over winter and there will be some very early leaves the following year before it flowers and dies. Coriander will overwinter as well and Chives are perennial and will continue growing for many years.
I would recommend that you have a notebook and mark the dates that you sow and harvest. These will be helpful for following years to perfect the growing times for all these plants.
Regards Sally Wright.
if you are going to grow carrots in the polytunnel I would think that you could start them off at least a month earlier than stated on the packets. It will get too hot in there during the summer months so I would find an old table to put the pots on outside. This should keep them out of reach of the pooch. Do the same with the beetroot, onions and peas if you can. These pots can occupy the space for your tomatoes until the middle of May at which point the tomatoes will be planted into their final containers (15L or more is best). if you plan on more than 5 tomato plants or several varieties I would try to grow your own plants if you can as they are generally £1 each from most places. These need to go into a seed tray to germinate 7-8 weeks before you need them to be put into their final containers. When they are around 2-3" high separate them into 3" pots and grow on. A tip for better tomato plants is to plant them up to the base of their seed leaves at the separation stage and to the first pair of true leaves when they go into the big pots.
Sweet peppers take a long time to grow from seed and I think it would be best if you bought plants in the middle of May and planted them then. Give them a spot on the sunny side of the tomatoes and feed them every time you feed the tomatoes but only water them every other day as they do not enjoy nearly as much water as tomatoes do.
Potatoes in sacks can be started off in small pots (about 6") inside by early March and put into their big sacks in the middle of April. As they grow the soil can be topped up. Keep them in the polytunnel until the tomatoes etc are planted and then carefully drag them outside. Frosts until the beginning of June are likely in the North East so keep some old sheets/blankets etc or commercial fleece handy to cover them on nights which are predicted to go below 5C.
The Hardy herbs such as coriander, parsley and chives can be started into growth in the p/t by the middle of March. I would use those blue boxes and crates mushrooms come in for this purpose. Line the slat sided ones with newspaper to stop the compost falling out. These can be evicted outside in May. Sow one new crate each month of the coriander and one every 2 months of the other two. Basil likes to be inside all summer and I would sow at least two crops a small early one say the third week of April and a larger one one at the end of May.
Towards the end of the year when the tomatoes have finished the outside vegetables can be taken back inside the p/t to continue growing, probably until the end of October. Leave the parsley crated in the p/t over winter and there will be some very early leaves the following year before it flowers and dies. Coriander will overwinter as well and Chives are perennial and will continue growing for many years.
I would recommend that you have a notebook and mark the dates that you sow and harvest. These will be helpful for following years to perfect the growing times for all these plants.
Regards Sally Wright.
Hi Mark,
Although I have plenty of room to grow in the vegetable beds I have a salad table on my patio which is 6 feet x 4 feet x 9 inches deep and protected with fine netting and stands 30 inches off the ground in which I grow lettuces of the loose leaf varieties and salad onions around the margins with two small basket size tomato plants down the middle. To me it is a lazy bed because I don't have to walk many yards to get enough produce for my daily sandwich.
I appreciate that you have invested in a tunnel but you have concrete and paving that can be used to great effect for things that prefer to grow outside during the summer (assuming we get one!)
One of my daughters used to be in the same predicament as you and she used to grow her carrots in 2 gallon buckets to great effect and Tumbling Tom tomato plants in a window box along with lettuces in other window boxes.
You have the scope to produce many things although you sadly have concrete and slabs. I admire you for getting to grips with your situation.
I wish you great success in your endeavour.
JB.
Although I have plenty of room to grow in the vegetable beds I have a salad table on my patio which is 6 feet x 4 feet x 9 inches deep and protected with fine netting and stands 30 inches off the ground in which I grow lettuces of the loose leaf varieties and salad onions around the margins with two small basket size tomato plants down the middle. To me it is a lazy bed because I don't have to walk many yards to get enough produce for my daily sandwich.
I appreciate that you have invested in a tunnel but you have concrete and paving that can be used to great effect for things that prefer to grow outside during the summer (assuming we get one!)
One of my daughters used to be in the same predicament as you and she used to grow her carrots in 2 gallon buckets to great effect and Tumbling Tom tomato plants in a window box along with lettuces in other window boxes.
You have the scope to produce many things although you sadly have concrete and slabs. I admire you for getting to grips with your situation.
I wish you great success in your endeavour.
JB.