Gardening, the simple metaller's simple pleasure

[Bigmac]

If you have a sunny window, it's worth giving it a shot. The bush varieties would probably be handier to grow indoors than the vine ones, I have a cheap and fairly battered poly tunnel , and they do grand in that. As far as I know they should technically be grand to grow outdoors in Ireland, but might not be as productive as when they're provided with a warmer environment. I could be wrong though.

Of all places, I saw Varg and Marie growing them outdoors, before his channel was nuked. Sightly different climate in France, I suppose.

[Trev]

Ah cool, the front of the house is south facing so gets all the sun, I'll give it a shot and hope for the best

[Kurt Cocaine]

We had an amazing tomato crop in 2018 but that summer was amazing. Last year the summer was just okay and the tomato plants were quite low yielding. Remember to trim them if you do grow them. You'll get bigger and more tomatoes that way.

[Bigmac]

Yeah that was one of the bigger disasters for me the first time I grew tomatoes, I had no idea how to prune them, so the leafy growth was crazy, and took over the whole polytunnel.

When trying to get in and water them, I'd often damage them trying to get around, and eventually they got some kind of disease.

Feels counter intuitive to be lopping bits off your plants, but it's definitely a must.

[Bigmac]

Made the most of the few bits Lidl had in, and planted 4 rhubarb crowns, and 12 strawberry plants. Won't be eating the rhubarb until next year, but should hopefully have a decent little harvest of strawberries.

The vast majority of places where I'd normally get supplies... Woodies, local garden centre, Quick Crop, The Garden Shop... are all closed or sold out of most things.

Decided to start making my own fertilizers as it seems I can't buy them. Went to the coast yesterday (it's within 2km), and gathered a load of seaweed, popped it in a big bucket, covered in rainwater, and in about 6 or 8 weeks it should be ready to use. Tends to have an NPK of only 1, 0.5, and 2.5, but has loads of good minerals and growth hormones.

I'll be drying out banana skins and making a powder for a bit of a phosphorous and potassium boost, and while it's often balked at, the nitrogen content of urine is comparable to many commercial fertilisers you can buy, so that watered down will take care of the nitrogen needs. Obviously don't use it on leaves that you'll eat raw like lettuce. Or do, if you're into that.

Kind of enjoying how this is forcing me to be more resourceful.

[Bigmac]

Nice to see things starting to really kick off at this time of the year.

[Eoin McLove]

Wow,  great setup!

[Kurt Cocaine]

Yes, top notch that Mac...

[mugz]

Nice to see things starting to really kick off at this time of the year.

that's a nice set up, just enough to grow all your stuff but not much you get worn out by it.

[astfgyl]

Nice to see things starting to really kick off at this time of the year.

Something is missing.....

But seriously, nice neat work there

[Bigmac]

Cheers all!

Yeah I'm really happy with it so far. It finally feels like I've a handle on things this year, other ones have been pretty chaotic.

For anyone doing similar, I found taking an hour or two at the start of the year to fill in a calendar with sowing dates, harvest dates, various jobs etc really helped.  You can see what's coming up at a quick glance.

[mugz]

Cheers all!

Yeah I'm really happy with it so far. It finally feels like I've a handle on things this year, other ones have been pretty chaotic.

For anyone doing similar, I found taking an hour or two at the start of the year to fill in a calendar with sowing dates, harvest dates, various jobs etc really helped.  You can see what's coming up at a quick glance.

I enjoy the fact that there's no key to whether you're taking that photo from upstairs or if everything  is 30% smaller than normal and you're 6ft 4" tall

[Eoin McLove]

We ended up redoing our veg box.  Fired in the basics- spuds,  carrots and lettuce.  Spuds and carrots coming along.  Nothing from the lettuce yet,  but let's see.  I planted an apple tree but I'm not sure if any of our neighbours have one, and apparently you need to have at least two in close proximity for them to fruit. I wanted to fire in another one but my wife was concerned they'd block too much light out of the veg boxes.  I might have to sneak another one in when she's not looking.  I might even plant another apple tree,  what what!

[jobrok1]

If you've a wall or fence  you can plant the apple trees against it and train the branches along it.
Helps to keep it from growing too high if you want to restrict that, and makes fruit picking easier, too.

[Eoin McLove]

Ah no,  I'm all for letting them grow as big as possible! If I had my way I'd plant the entire little garden we have with trees.  But I don't.  And I'm a cis white male.  It feels like something has gone awry in my household!