Kitchen Garden Forum

Sue does that company have a web site sounds like just what we need

Mole,
Two Wests & Elliott can be found on
www.twowests.co.uk

Moles name just stuck in my brain from a previous posting I just looked at !
PLUM. www.twowests.co.uk
Sorry once again !

Hello Wellie
I tried growing carrots in blue barrels for the first time this year and have had a superb crop. They are the best 'raised beds' ever - you can even weed them standing up - and also the crop is out reach of carrot fly!
The barrels stand off the the ground on concrete blocks and I filled them with a mixture of old and new potting compost.

John

Good one John !
I do have some leaky/defective old grey ones that used to be imported fruit-juice butts that i could use.....

I have spent a fascinating evening (to me, but not Trousers evidently...) sorting through Joy Larkham's 'Feed the Family' and 'Gourmet' successional planting plans, and a variety of different coloured index cards, with all the veg varieties written on them, with the specific season of growth, and trying to get a really "tight ship" of follow-on crops out of each and every raised bed.
(if anyone is still awake at any stage in the future, once I've sorted out what's going where and what's planted after it and why, etc. I'd be more than happy to share what I've devised and learned if it could help in any way ?)

MY NEXT QUESTION is:
Is it really possible, successfully, to grow first and second early potatoes in a raised bed, and are there any things I should take into account/be aware of to make it happen ? or should I not even go there ?

Like Piglet, I grew Pink Fir Apple in sort of tubs this year, and achieved a 'half' decent crop, but I suspect not as good as it would have been in the ground.....

Any advice welcome for in a 1m x 1m raised bed.
Thank you in anticipation...(and not yet decided final varieties of firsts or seconds)

Hi Wellie - I'm having leeks with my tea tonight you will be amazed to hear Nice to know it's not just me who gets a bit carried away with the seed sowing.

I have grown early potatoes in the raised beds at home, but it's a bit fiddly to earth them up. I also found I did not get such a heavy crop. Don't know if that was because the soil was that bit drier in the raised beds, but I stick to growing them and any other bulk crops on the lottie now.

Sue

But I DID discover, quite by accident, that if you cook Black Tuscan Kale in boiling water till it's done, THEN stick it in the Raeburn and forget about it until you remember..... it's EVERY bit as good as crispy seaweed from a Chinky.....!
I'm still 'tempted' to try early potatoes though.... they MUST be better than trying to grow in a tub, surely...?

Wellie wrote:But I DID discover, quite by accident, that if you cook Black Tuscan Kale in boiling water till it's done, THEN stick it in the Raeburn and forget about it until you remember..... it's EVERY bit as good as crispy seaweed from a Chinky.....!

ooh great tip ill make sure to try that thanks wellie