Big garden, horrendous builders rubble soil, I've had to create borders by digging out trenches and filling them with compost. There are several areas that are so terrible that not even dandelions want anything to do with them and they have been covered with bark in preparation for planters. The allotment has nice soil, is three minutes from my house and onlay costs me £7.50 a year
really cheap pots planters and veg grow bags, not poor quality either. I'm always surprised by the quality of wilcos stuff, just bough a value hoe from them for £6 and it's by far the best I have ever used.
Wow, it sounds like you have your hands full there I was u nder the impression you had to wait forever and a day to get an allotment how lucky that you got one, it's cheap and its couple of mins away from you!! I'm so pleased you have told me about wilkos I will click on link and have a look. I am gonna look at your checklist now that you sent me and possibly save the £50 voucher for one beautiful pot. Will keep you updated and let you know what I have got, thanks for spoon feeding me much needed advice
Third time of posting but this is my growing set up, it's a bit of an industrial chain line because it's not only my borders but the community garden flowers as well. I don't have much money, the biggest expense has been the grow house. It's a faff but if you take one example of oriental poppies, poppies big enough to survive being planted right out cost £5 each, a packet of 400 seeds costs 99p. So is that faff worth a potential saving of £1999.01? Oh yes.
What is even better is if you try something expensive to buy in the shops, physalis peruviana is a glorious berry grows like tomatoes, tastes like heaven. One tiny punnnet in the shops is £5, and to buy the plant it's £8. May take a whole packet to get one or two to germinate because they are annoying like that but even if only one makes it you have saved money. Pineberry is another one, it's a white strawberry that tastes of strawberry and pineapple.
step 1. Start seeds off in propitiators on my windowsill. I don't do the really complicated ones that need putting in a bag in the freezer and then dance round them three times at midnight. I also take cuttings from other plants because yay free plants. When they get big they get potted on into bigger pots
step 2 is to transfer them into the grow house, it's the wooden one at the back if the picture - wind is an issue here so the plastic ones would get taken out
step 3 is when they have got bigger they go in the poly tunnels - currently covered by a literal fleece blanket overnight because we have frost this week.
Just to add because I'm thinking you may be over thinking and the time to start planting if you want things this year is right now.
Don't be worried by your lack of space. You see these gardening shows and they have unlimited money, big borders, borders in full light, shade, clay, loam, sand, walls to grow stuff up, big piles of soil that never get depleted, and for some reason all garden rubbish just disappears as if by magic, and you sit there going "well that's pretty but I live in a council house in north Derbyshire with rubblesoil, and not an enormous small holding in the south, thanks for that".
What they are selling you in these shows are ideas, and the fact is that you can take the smallest space and do something with it. if you want a fruit and veg garden then go for it! You can get hanging strawberry planters and have them growing down the wall, you can grow peas or beans up the wall. Don't worry about the containers being ugly, the plants themselves take care of the pretty. Buy the cheap imported ones from china to start yourself off with and then upgrade later. Don't worry or procrastinate, the basic principle of gardening is stick a thing in some soil, give it water, give it light watch it grow. It's a slow process if you are starting from seed, get them germinating and do your research after.
Kitty, I grew 'minibel' last year - literally the first time I've grown toms. Despite my ignorance and occasional neglect they did really well! I had three plants to a patio pot, as they're really compact.
I couldn't find minibel seeds this year, but I'm growing 'sungold', 'heartbreaker, 'orange panache', 'garden pearl' and 'gardener's delight' instead (I may've bought too many seeds again ). Will let you know how it goes!
Posts
Big garden, horrendous builders rubble soil, I've had to create borders by digging out trenches and filling them with compost. There are several areas that are so terrible that not even dandelions want anything to do with them and they have been covered with bark in preparation for planters. The allotment has nice soil, is three minutes from my house and onlay costs me £7.50 a year
http://www.wilko.com/shop-by-department/garden/icat/wilkogarden
really cheap pots planters and veg grow bags, not poor quality either. I'm always surprised by the quality of wilcos stuff, just bough a value hoe from them for £6 and it's by far the best I have ever used.
Wow, it sounds like you have your hands full there
I was u nder the impression you had to wait forever and a day to get an allotment how lucky that you got one, it's cheap and its couple of mins away from you!! I'm so pleased you have told me about wilkos I will click on link and have a look. I am gonna look at your checklist now that you sent me and possibly save the £50 voucher for one beautiful pot. Will keep you updated and let you know what I have got, thanks for spoon feeding me much needed advice 
Ps. Keep me updated on your greenhouse I am interested to know what and how you go about making the most of it and how you get on
Hi LC, please can you advise me what to do with a potato bag and what I have to buy. I hope u had a good weekend. Did you get much done?
Here you are - this will show you what you need to do
http://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/grow-plants/how-to-grow-potatoes-in-a-compost-bag/
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Third time of posting but this is my growing set up, it's a bit of an industrial chain line because it's not only my borders but the community garden flowers as well. I don't have much money, the biggest expense has been the grow house. It's a faff but if you take one example of oriental poppies, poppies big enough to survive being planted right out cost £5 each, a packet of 400 seeds costs 99p. So is that faff worth a potential saving of £1999.01? Oh yes.
What is even better is if you try something expensive to buy in the shops, physalis peruviana is a glorious berry grows like tomatoes, tastes like heaven. One tiny punnnet in the shops is £5, and to buy the plant it's £8. May take a whole packet to get one or two to germinate because they are annoying like that but even if only one makes it you have saved money. Pineberry is another one, it's a white strawberry that tastes of strawberry and pineapple.
step 1. Start seeds off in propitiators on my windowsill. I don't do the really complicated ones that need putting in a bag in the freezer and then dance round them three times at midnight. I also take cuttings from other plants because yay free plants. When they get big they get potted on into bigger pots
step 2 is to transfer them into the grow house, it's the wooden one at the back if the picture - wind is an issue here so the plastic ones would get taken out
step 3 is when they have got bigger they go in the poly tunnels - currently covered by a literal fleece blanket overnight because we have frost this week.
Just to add because I'm thinking you may be over thinking and the time to start planting if you want things this year is right now.
Don't be worried by your lack of space. You see these gardening shows and they have unlimited money, big borders, borders in full light, shade, clay, loam, sand, walls to grow stuff up, big piles of soil that never get depleted, and for some reason all garden rubbish just disappears as if by magic, and you sit there going "well that's pretty but I live in a council house in north Derbyshire with rubblesoil, and not an enormous small holding in the south, thanks for that".
What they are selling you in these shows are ideas, and the fact is that you can take the smallest space and do something with it. if you want a fruit and veg garden then go for it! You can get hanging strawberry planters and have them growing down the wall, you can grow peas or beans up the wall. Don't worry about the containers being ugly, the plants themselves take care of the pretty. Buy the cheap imported ones from china to start yourself off with and then upgrade later. Don't worry or procrastinate, the basic principle of gardening is stick a thing in some soil, give it water, give it light watch it grow. It's a slow process if you are starting from seed, get them germinating and do your research after.
Great post Learnincurve
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Kitty, I grew 'minibel' last year - literally the first time I've grown toms. Despite my ignorance and occasional neglect they did really well! I had three plants to a patio pot, as they're really compact.
I couldn't find minibel seeds this year, but I'm growing 'sungold', 'heartbreaker, 'orange panache', 'garden pearl' and 'gardener's delight' instead (I may've bought too many seeds again
). Will let you know how it goes!