Intro Post

[eien_herrison]

Hi everyone, I'm new to this strange world of gardening and thought I'd better introduce myself. I live in South-East England, hardiness zone 8 bordering on 9, AHS heat zone 2, and about 600mm of rain annually; most of my issues with growing stuff is forgetting to water often/on a regular basis, but I'm going to be aiming to grow some fruit and veg

Comments

[momomom]

Welcome to the gardening group

[eien_herrison]

Thanks for that info -- I have considered a couple of irrigation systems (I think the best for us would be the jugs as I'm not sure we can easily fit seeper hoses and the like in). I'll make sure to get organic matter/potting soil when I take a trip up to my local gardening centre.

[mallt]

If you don't want to do a lot of digging, raised beds are AWESOME and it means you can easily control what mix of dirt & organic matter goes into them.

Soaker hoses are great too, I just haven't got them figured out at my new place yet so I've been watering by can from the water barrel... time consuming but free! ;)

[eien_herrison]

I believe the plot I've got will be a raised bed, so I'll be able to control what goes in (we've got professional landscapers in and doing all the work, it is a complete revamp of the garden).

We've got an old water barrel here, we probably need to look at whether we can use that or whether we need to buy a new one.

[singeaddams]

Welcome! And good luck with your produce.

[eien_herrison]

Thanks :)

[eien_herrison]

Yeah, in my garden we've got heavy, stony soil although that should be amended by the fact that I think the garden plot is going to be in raised beds. I'm aware that peppers may be hit or miss (the pack I've got says it'll do better in a greenhouse, but with landscaping there's no room to have one).

I noticed the amount of rain we got when I tried planting some basil and parsley, and it rained nearly every day afterwards (of course, I should have remembered it was Wimbledon the next week. Tennis in Wimbledon = a lot of rain :P).

That's bad news regarding the weather this year :( I hope you do get some beans off your plants.

[sea_of_flame]

I've found - having tried to grow tomatoes and peppers/chillies outdoors in London, & then under glass in Kent - that even down here in the south, the growing season is a bit short to get best results from these plants outdoors

[eien_herrison]

The garden bed is right next to an approximately six-foot high wall, so there is quite a bit of wind protection, which should help. I'm certainly aware that peppers can be hit or miss outside of a greenhouse, so I shouldn't be too disappointed if nothing comes of it.

The tomatoes I'll be growing will be normal-sized and again out in the open (no real space for a greenhouse). One of the books I've read says that if frost is incoming you can pull the plants and hang them upside down in the house to let them ripen off, so that might be something I need to be aware of.

The salad leaves and such I'm hoping to be able to grow in pots inside the house, so I shouldn't have any issues with slugs and snails if that's the case. I'm certainly growing stuff I'd want to eat/can be preserved in some form, which is one reason I decided against cucunbers (don't eat often/can only really be pickled to preserve them). We do have a few neighbours that we can give stuff to, although I can see us potentially needing another freezer in the house if we get

[dandelion]

Mm, depending on the variety you might well need to protect the tomatoes by taking them indoors. I moved my tomatoes from Bath to Hampshire in June and found that they'd really been suffering outdoors - brought them inside and their leaf discolouration, legginess, etc cleared up straight away. They hated the night temperatures we'd been getting, plus bouts of ridiculous overwatering from the rain. I have to move back to Bath in a month where they'll have to live outdoors again, and I think they won't be at all happy! Not sure why these tomatoes are so particular...ironically the cultivar name is "The Amateur".

[eien_herrison]

The ones I'm going to be growing are the moneymaker variety -- I'll keep an eye out for any problems when I grow them.