Selfsufficientish.com

Susie wrote:

Big Al wrote: Give up susie and sell to Tes&^ !!!

Excellent idea! Ringing them now!

i've just spent 10 minutes giving a less tounge in cheek post and it's gone... oh well here goes again.

Susie,
Take time out to think what you want from your gardening experience and where it will all go. It is easy to read websites etc and buy lots of things and find that they are good individually but don't work together. When you have you list of things that tyou want and NEED in your garden then take measurements of your garden and do a rough sketch of where you think things will go. Over the months keep a note book of the weather and where the sun shines in your garden etc and then you can put things into place when money, time and effort allows. Until then grow food in buckets, tubs and troughs etc. Doing it this way will enable you to design your plot with the minimum of effort but maximum potential...

There are lot of similarities between gardening and cooking,but number one is(provided you can read) there is no reason to be crap at it,if you get thr right book(any one of about a zillion)and here's the rub,follow the instructions to the letter you will become an average gardener.In time,with the experience you can't get off the library shelf,you'll become a good gardener.
I've just re-read that and it sounds really pompous,but what I'm trying to get to is,I learnt to cook that way(and I'm still average)but it's basically the same.Don't be daunted,it's pretty easy to be average.

I have given up on the idea of growing veg this year. I spend too much time at work and don't have enough time in the garden. So please do keep us informed of how you get on, at least I can dream about your veg instead of enjoying my own.

I will, hopefully, have loads of fruit though. I really would recomment a few fruit bushes and trees if you have room. A lot of them have pretty flowers as well as scrummy food. They sometimes take a year or two to get established but they're worth it.

Good luck
Zoe

And if the garden fills you with so much dread, move the growing space indoors. Herbs, chillies, small salad stuff can all be grown in pots on a sunny windowsill. It's the only way we can grow some of that stuff - no greenhouse and a climate more suitable for growing moss and ferns than tender herbs and veg.

You aren't crap, just learning!

I don't think I am a great gardener, but I have far less disasters now than I did when I started (with the exception of Basil - I still can't grow the bloody stuff).

I think the number one thing is don't try too hard - by this I mean if a plant isn't going to be happy in a spot in your garden, don't change the environment to suit the plant - change the plant!

For example, I was desperate to have a lovely rose garden in my north facing front garden once, which was surrounded by 6ft high fences on all sides. After digging up the grass, spending a fortune on plants, weed proof membrane and woodchip, they only put on a couple of inches of spindly growth and none of them flowered. The fact is, roses need sun and no amount of wishful thinking can change the fact.

Likewise planting bog plants in a sunny boarder because they look nice - no matter how often you promise yourself you will get out there and water them more than the other plants, you won't, and they will just look scorched and pathetic! (in my experience).

I am sure this is obvious, but IMO learning to accept the landscape and go with it has been much more successful for me than anything else I have learned.

Good luck and happy gardening. It really is the best thing in the world.

What kind of things were you thinking of planting?

I´m restricted to veg. herbs and some fruit. for finncial reasons.

Flowers would be nice, but apart from some marigolds ladt year and myabe some nasturtiums as well this year ( dual purpose) pretty stuff, is not possible )(space and money)

Maybe try different veg........ The satisfacton of eating your own produce. well whatan incentive. it´s worked for me!

Thomzo wrote:I have given up on the idea of growing veg this year. I spend too much time at work and don't have enough time in the garden. So please do keep us informed of how you get on, at least I can dream about your veg instead of enjoying my own.

I will, hopefully, have loads of fruit though. I really would recomment a few fruit bushes and trees if you have room. A lot of them have pretty flowers as well as scrummy food. They sometimes take a year or two to get established but they're worth it.

Good luck
Zoe

no need to give up this year, get an old plastic bin and fill it with sand. Ram a broom handle into it and wiggle it around to make a conical shape. Do this several times then fill these holes with fine compost. Grow two carrot seeds or parsnip seeds to each hole and leave. Water a bit each night when you come home from work and in a few months you will have fine carrots or parsnips. Meanwhile on the top of the sand put 2" of compost and grow som lettuce in there.

Not only works for a small garden / balcony set up but also over worked people.

I'm so glad I started this thread now, you're all so helpful. I feel better. .

I am thinking (especially since it's raining :-) ), that what I need to do is some planning first and perhaps engage with the direction the garden faces and what type of soil I have got (scary!!!!!!!!). One of the things that is difficult is that the layout of our garden is completely mad (the whole house is completely mad, don't get me started on this one. I do count my blessings about having a house at all ;-) ).

{Feel free to skip the next boring bit}.

We have a long garden because we are in an end terrace. The front 'garden' faces east, and is where we park the car. We have a hedge on one side and a complete mess on the other (someone knocked our hedge down, so I am getting it replaced, not sure what with yet).

We have a small garden at the back next to the house (this all faces west) - lawn with a border - I would like to dig the border up and plant herbs. So far I have got lavender and rosemary growing very successfully, indeed it has taken over.

Then we have a public access path (because we are a terrace), and behind that, more lawn with border, but the border is entirely taken over by blackberries. I know I should get rid of these but we love the blackberries so it's not top of the list.

Then a block of really crappy paving which needs relaying, which I thought I could put grow bags or something on just for this year,

Then a 'veg patch' which is overrun with weeds - I thought I could perhaps just cover for this year and lay some kind of a path over so I can actually get to the back of the garden,

Then a very challenging bit which gets no light at all, under some big trees. I thought I might put a shed here, sort out a compost bin and put it here as well, then perhaps put mulch down to suppress weeds and have it as a place for sitting (nice and shady).

We have some nice trees - apple, laburnum, cherry blossom - so even though I am crap the garden still sometimes looks quite pretty ;-). We have every perennial weed ever invented, though, apart from Japanese Knotweed, fortunately.

{end of boring bit}.

What I would love to grow this year is herbs in the bit near the house (not sure what yet but have got a book), perhaps dig up a section of the overgrown blackberry bit and plant a fruit bush, and then grow salad leaves in a pot and perhaps a Very Easy Vegetable in a grow bag. I know that sounds pathetically unambitious but, hey, it would be more than I've managed so far!

I am reading The Thrifty Gardener by Alys Fowler, so far I am admiring her dress in the pictures and drafting the pattern in my head, that is no help at all.

I am going off to the garden centre this pm to do a recce, it is possible I will manage not to hyperventilate and get no further than the tea shop, in which case the credit goes entirely to Ishers. Thank you all again. xoxo

Right confession time, I can be a crap gardener too! I think everyone can at times, its hard work to have a huge really well managed plot. A lot of the ones you see without a weed on them and with 100's of varieties of top notch veg have been so heavily fertaliseds and so plastered in chemicals that its a wonder there are any nutrients left!

It sounds like you have a lot of space to cover. Last year I took on an extra allotment and ended up having two allotments that were over grown rather than just one that was pretty much in order. I think the key to good gardening is to concentrate your efforts, be realistic with how much time you really have and don't be afraid to admit you have taken on too much and cut back. So don't worry about leaving the space under the trees, perhaps just prune the backberries a bit to get them in order. You could grow soft fruit by the hedge, take cuttings off friends and neighbours plants now. And... then just put most of your efforts into getting a really great herb garden.

Anyway, I'm not saying you must do this, just suggesting an approach that won't involved busting a gut and will hopefully have you raring to do more next year after this years overwhelming success!

Have a look at this
http://gardenplanner.suttons.co.uk/

FREE to use for 30 days, and can print out the plans.......

Get measuring first. so can insert the details for them to give you a plan. ( havent done it yet myself, as can´t find a (working) measuring tape!)

Consider getting some chickens. Let them free range the garden. ( under supervision)they´d help with weeding, iinsects, and not only provide lovely fresh eggs, but manure too!

Susie wrote:

Big Al wrote: Give up susie and sell to Tes&^ !!!

Excellent idea! Ringing them now!

That'll teach them a garden full of weeds

Hey I'm sure all this is right. I'm really good at growing all sorts on my allotment that has years of good gardeners prepearing teh soil before me, left unweeded it's wild but anything I put in pretty much blossoms. However at home on the rank clay nothing will grow, except ground elder of course.
I've spent 7 years digging in home made compost kidly donated by my horse in vast quantities and I can manage the occasional poorly looking lettuce now (wrapped in nettles and chick weed) but boy is it hard work compared to the allotment- sprinkle seeds, come back later, bit of weeding and hey- more lettuce than you can want. At home- sew 6 packets, beat off giant slugs with large axe daily, tend hourly and savour two leaves in eight weeks time.

When we first talked about veggies in the garden my OH wanted to do raised beds full of nice compost but I was ever the optimist and could do it for 'free' with proper gardening (yeh right! ). Get some good compost and save 6 years heart ache!!!

I'm only just down the road from you in Godmanchester Susie, I reckon your soil may be the same clay. Stuff that has managed to survive in my back garden has been Blackcurrent and Raspberries. In fact they are pretty much equal to the allotment versions. I've also managed Spinach and parsley but don't be put off when parsley doesn't germinate, they say it's the third sewing that works. Stick a lump of manure down and plant a courgette- they get stuck in without too much trouble with slugs either. I've also had a surprise success with sage although admittedly one can only eat so much of that Other than that the snowdrops seem happy and cheer me up in January

I don't know how much room you have but a green house is WONDERFUL compare to a shed. Sorry mine was new las year and I'm still playing with it like a new toy. At least you can get lettuce quite big before you put them out for the slugs to eat.

Peggy Sue, sage makes great beer


Susie, when I first started growing and gardening it was very hit and miss ( and still is), but I found the grow your own magazine really helpful and you frequently get free seeds too

You have been well advised to get going with some raised beds. They help a great deal, especially if you have got heavy clay like me. The first year I had the beds I just emptied bags of horse manure onto them and then covered it with black polythene. I cut little holes in it and planted corgettes. I had a bumper crop and the worms had a whole season to work their magic on the earth under the polythene.

Let nature do its thang baby , it saves you the back ache too if you opt for the no dig method.

Get your head out of that People's Friend is what I say gardening is much better and more rewarding too.

Keaniebean wrote: Get your head out of that People's Friend is what I say gardening is much better and more rewarding too.

Keaniebean wrote:Peggy Sue, sage makes great beer


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Mmmmm sage beer, now you've got me thinking!