Growing my own herbs and veg

J

jbj

Poor old Geordie's array...
I may live to regret this but I've built and filled a 4m long raised planter out back that I'm hoping to grow fresh herbs and veg in, with plenty of help from chat gpt. :embarrassed:

Bought and planted some tomato, cauliflower and spinach plants yesterday. Also started germinating basil seeds (being very optimistic with these and the tomatoes but only cost a few quid so no biggie if they don't come to anything.

Going to sow carrots and spring onions this morning and hopefully some garlic and red onions when I find the bulb packs my wife thoughtfully stored somewhere, then forgot where!

Some more seeds arriving this week too for more herbs.

Should be a fun experiment if nothing else plus it's given me an excuse to spend money and spruce up a really sad, neglected part of the garden we inherited.

Updates to follow!
 
You're probably too late to grow basil and other herbs from seed this year. For reference, I'm at about your latitude and started in February/March.
You've got kind of an odd selection of plants for a first garden, which is fine--the first rule is "grow what you want to eat"--but know that some of your picks are kind of expert-level, low-yield, or otherwise unsatisfying.
There's a lot of information pollution on gardening as it is, I imagine AI is gonna duck this up pretty good.
 
Growing herbs can be worth it. A lot of them last forever if you tend them properly.

Veg?

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dodgechargerfan said:
Growing herbs can be worth it. A lot of them last forever if you tend them properly.

Veg?

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I don't even know if you break even growing your own vegetables but, you chose tomatoes in particular. You just can't put a price on a good tomato. They don't sell good tomatoes in stores or, farmer's markets and they don't serve them in restaurants.
 
Bob411 said:
I don't even know if you break even growing your own vegetables but, you chose tomatoes in particular. You just can't put a price on a good tomato. They don't sell good tomatoes in stores or, farmer's markets and they don't serve them in restaurants.
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That’s fair. I guess.
I don’t eat tomatoes unless they are an ingredient and mashed up almost beyond recognition.

I might eat the chopped up stuff for tacos and such but I’d rather not.

It’s mushy middle that grosses me out.
 
dodgechargerfan said:
That’s fair. I guess.
I don’t eat tomatoes unless they are an ingredient and mashed up almost beyond recognition.

I might eat the chopped up stuff for tacos and such but I’d rather not.

It’s mushy middle that grosses me out.
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That's kinda the point. I make a point to have tomatoes removed from anything I order in a restaurant. They're an abomination that exists only because people are chasing the ecstacy of tasting a proper tomato, which is fairly easy to grow but impossible to package, ship, display, and sell.
 
Whole Foods here sells great tomatoes for the two weeks of the year that real heirloom tomatoes are in season. But the goddamned things go bad overnight so I only buy them if I’m going to use them for dinner the same day.
 
Very cool. I've never had luck with tomatoes (other than cherry tomatoes, which had too tough of a skin for my preference) and basil. Basil worked out great, and is also delicious and required for nearly any Italian dish.

We also have done cilantro (coriander) and parsley. They aren't hard to grow but it's hard to have enough at the right stage of growth just when you need it.

BTW, mainly it was my mom and wife doing the growing in these cases. The harvesting/cooking/eating is where I contribute. :grin:
 
Chicken Man said:
You're probably too late to grow basil and other herbs from seed this year. For reference, I'm at about your latitude and started in February/March.
You've got kind of an odd selection of plants for a first garden, which is fine--the first rule is "grow what you want to eat"--but know that some of your picks are kind of expert-level, low-yield, or otherwise unsatisfying.
There's a lot of information pollution on gardening as it is, I imagine AI is gonna duck this up pretty good.
Click to expand...

I'll be the first to admit I'm doing this all a bit arse over elbow. Looks like I'm too late for garlic and onions which would be 90% more useful than anything else I manage to grow.

Ill get the use out of whatever herbs I get going though I probably didn't need a planter that holds almost 2 tonnes of soil and compost for that tbh :embarrassed:
 
jbj said:
I'll be the first to admit I'm doing this all a bit arse over elbow. Looks like I'm too late for garlic and onions which would be 90% more useful than anything else I manage to grow.

Ill get the use out of whatever herbs I get going though I probably didn't need a planter that holds almost 2 tonnes of soil and compost for that tbh :embarrassed:
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Onions should be ok. And garlic is worth putting in in the fall--it's super satisfying to grow your own, and cool to pull a commodity straight out of the ground. I like potatoes for the same reason, even if it's not a huge money saver.
 
I started growing vegetables when I was 12 and kept it up my whole life. A few years ago we decided to ditch the vegetables and pivot the gardens towards native pollinators. It’s working out quite nicely. The yard is filled with bees, butterfly’s, moths etc.
 
jbj said:
I'll be the first to admit I'm doing this all a bit arse over elbow. Looks like I'm too late for garlic and onions which would be 90% more useful than anything else I manage to grow.

Ill get the use out of whatever herbs I get going though I probably didn't need a planter that holds almost 2 tonnes of soil and compost for that tbh :embarrassed:
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I have a suggestion for a lovely ornamental to utilize your excess capacity:

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BTW - "veg" is such a northern Britishism. Reminds me of my late step-father-in-law (from Yorkshire - a retired RN man who had served on ships with Prince Phillip).
 
I've had really great results with a series of raised beds and tomatoes in 5 gal buckets.

My biggest issue is water; it's expensive on city water and our summers are dry & hot. Currently, I collect in the neighborhood of 440 gallons of rain water that I use for watering. I run out before the fall rains. Probably adding another 55 gal collector but that still won't last through summer.

This year I've flipped most of my raised beds over to flowers for a change of pace.
 
I never had much luck w tomatoes in beds or pots. They always wind up w some disease or other esp by the 2nd season and you wind up having to always replace the soil every year for any chance of success.
My parents always planted a half acre garden and I had to plow, weed, and help harvest a couple chest freezers full of the stuff every summer. Sweet corn, green beans, butter beans, squash, okra, maters, cantaloupe, watermelon, bell peppers, chili peppers, eggplant, various herbs, you name it if it grew in the South we had it. I swore when I moved away I would never farm again no matter how much I missed the home cooking, lol.
We always moved the tomatoes a few yards every season to help avoid diseases.
Herbs are mostly just weeds, not that difficult to grow anywhere really. Peppers are pretty easy at least in my climate.
Onions are usually pretty easy long as the soil is decent and well drained.
Idk but in a cool place like Scotland you shouldn’t have much trouble w cool season stuff like broccoli and various greens like turnip and collards.
 
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