Kitchen Garden Forum

To counteract our worst growing mistakes can we share some of our best growing hiints:

1. Create new basil plants by snapping off shoots of existing straggly plants and keeping them in water for s few days. New roots grow within days and csn quickly be potted up in fresh compost.

2. For a cheap and quick way of growing a mixed lettuce patch, plant out a £1 punnet of Living Salad 'Snip off' leaves available from supermarkets. Ignore any "Don't plant out" advice. Plants will droop badly at first but keep them well watered and they will soon establish themselves into heslthy plants.

cover them with fleece to prevent the droop.

Do not keep plants constantly soaked, especially at the early stage of their lives, or they will not make a decent root system.

If there is a large amount of seeds in a packet, do not be tempted to sowthem all. Just think how many plants you can use, and just sow a little extra than that.

Again with seed sowing, sow little and often, so you don't get them all harvesting at the same time.

Don't give up!

Just because one variety doesn't suit your area or soil don't be despondent - try a new variety of the same plant.

Don't spend more than necessary.

Remember it's a veg patch or allotment, not a stately home kitchen garden. Yep tackle the weeds but don't angst, it's the veg you're after not the pristine clear ground surrounding them.

Google, (or other) away but mind where the advice is coming from, keep it local. KG Forum is a good start!

Westi

Growing veg is 90% common sense and 10% luck.
Listen to all advice and do what is best for you.
When digging start and finish at the same pace to avoid strain.
when pruning if in doubt do nowt.

Beryl.

Coffee grounds kill vine weevils

Check the weather forecast before transplanting seedlings into the soil - if scorching temperatures are expected in the coming day or two, put off the job until it cools down again.

On a similar vein, don't transplant your leeks into holes if torrential rain is forecast. Wait until the risk passes, otherwise all your carefully-made holes will fill in again immediately. Also, it's much easier to make your holes in a bed that's just had a good soaking (as I discovered today), and the rain usually does that job so much better than any hose or sprinkler.

Don't you just love it when classic irony applies and bites someone bum.

My hint is to mark everything you plant with its variety name.
I have an allotment holder friend who whenever I asked what variety she had planted would reply, Tomato, Cabbage, Sprout or whatever.

Recently she was offered some tomato plants and upon saying yes please she also asked the donor what variety they were.
"They are all marked on the pots" he replied and duly sent them to her.

He was right, all the tomatoes were indeed marked on the pot................
Red...... Black.......Yellow

Oh how I laughed when she told me and I said it couldn't have been more justly ironic.

Especially important to mare up your tomato varieties if you are growing a mixture of cordon and bush - you don't want to get them planted in the wrong location. The same applies to Climbing and Dwarf French beans.

I've grown several different varieties of cordon tomatoes in a row this year and marked on a sheet of paper the order in which they were planted. I've since lost the piece of paper but hope when the fruits start to crop I will recognise which is which.

Read everything you can on Kitchen Garden Furum and don't be afraid to ask what appear to be daft questions.