How is your veg growing?

[oliveview01]

I took the neighbour to the garden center in the autumn and we bought cabbage, cauli and broccoli plants. I bought 12 of each- I have just 2 broccoli and loads of cauli and 12 cabbage! The neighbour bought the same and has no broccoli. They obviously muddled the seeds/plants up at the garden center

The peas are flowering well and I have a lot of pods coming, the same with the mange tout peas. I sowed the peas in the autumn. The garlic is getting fat- I asked the neighbour about when to pull it up- after St Juans day she said. I´ve about 80 onions coming up- do you think they will be enough?! We have some ´everlasting´ onions too- great in a tortilla.

The lettuce that the slugs and snails have not eaten are doing well too. The ptoatoes will get their first earthing up today We haven´t planted as many as the first lot the year before last- we had over 82kg of spuds!! There are only so many potatoes you can eat and give away to friends

The toms and cues plants went in yesterday. I sowed some more peas 3 weeks ago, they are through now too. I´ve still to put in the dwarf beans, I´ll do them this morning. I just wish the cabbage would hurry up and fatten up, then I can pull them up and re-plant something else!

The hens are laying well too- 15 hens and 15 eggs a day One day last week we even got 16 eggs

I want to sow some beetroot- I will put them in the flower bed and I have some colourful chard- they will get planted in the flower bed too. I´ve bought some rhubarb seeds- I wonder if they will grow well? I was trying to explain rhubarb to my Spanish friend- I gave up in the end

[murbisa]

Glad to hear the veggie plot is doing well Oliveview
I planted cauli and cabbage early January and we are eating them already. I can't get over how fast they grow.
Also got red lettuce doing well. Peas are growing but we lost some of them with the heavy rain just after we planted them and I think they rotted.
Strawberries are flowering and raspberries are shooting.
We have just earthed up the potatoes.
I have also grown from seed some of what I call green cauli (packet says Vert Romanesco!!) Transplanted them into rows this week and they are growing fast.
We got 4 eucalyptus trees last autumn and planted them between the sun and the veggie plot to give it a bit of shade.
This is my first year of veggie growing and so far it seems to be sucessful. Learning fast!!!

[Nicks]

This all sounds fantastic! As a bit of a novice at vegetable growing, do you grow these veg year round or stop over the winter?

Nicks

[oliveview01]

Cabbage and the like can be grown over winter and I guess any ´normal´ winter veg too. This year would have been a good year for sprouts as they like frost I believe!
I´ve the green cauli seeds- I must plant some! I put in dwarf beans this afternoon- a bit late- I´ve put them in a bit of the garden that is shady. I did try runner beans last year, they were in teh full sun- I had about 3 beans, the other flowers fell off- it was far too hot for them in the full sun.
I ate one of the broccoli plants last night- it was lovely. I will pull up one of the cauli tomorrow- it is still small but enough for one person.
The onions have been in since last autumn, I bought them as small plants.

[ken2]

i love this thread, can't really join in, i live in a ground floor apartment, i can grow in pots, ha ha i'm having me first go here at runner beans, blimey they are doing great, leaves are like bloody tea plates, ha ha got one tom plant, cheated got it from the boot sale last week, flowers on it, but do keep posting, i get mental pictures of your lovely veg, i am as green with envy as your plants,

[oliveview01]

You can grow loads in pots Ken- have a look at Thompson and Morgan for seeds- they have a section for ´patio growing´ There are all sorts of mini veg seeds you can get.
Really pleased with my flower bed this spring- my liliac shrubs (2) are doing well and 1 of the shrubs has 2 flower heads
How about some potatoes in tubs? Just plant one in shallow (ish) soil, say half a tub full, then cover a little and as the leaves poke through re-cover with more earth, earthing up as you go along- you will get a meal or two off the potatoes

[ken2]

the potato sounds fun we have a place just down the road that sellsa veggy plants to smallholder, i'll ask if he has ONE SEED POTATO HA HA HA HA

[ken2]

i'm thinking 10€ of grow bag one potato, will i make a profit, he he no ok its only for fun, but home grown potatoes, i think potatoes are one of the most expencive veg here in Spain, but that might be because i come from living in lincs.some of the best potatoes in the world

[oliveview01]

Ken, I´d just plant a potato from one of the spuds in the kitchen cupboard! I bought a bag and the blooming things are sprouting away like mad It´s hard to get a decent spud in Spain!!

[murbisa]

We tried both. Bought some seed potatoes at the garden centre and also planted some from kitchen cupboard that had started shooting. It will be interesting to see the results.

[ken2]

ok olive, think i'll have ago, saw some reds in the market that where chitting, i'll go on saturday and see if i can find ONE ha ha ha these are going to be expensive potatoes, need to buy a big pot and a bag of compound,but i can taste them now, cooked with mint ,a nice knob of butter, uuummmmmm can't wait to dig them up, ha ha ha

[Martin Page]

Murbisa ... I dont want to sound pesimistic , but having Eucaliptus 'Trees' close to your veg plot is not a good idea. All summer long they drip little spots of 'gum' and they will taint your produce. This 'gum' can also degrade the soil quality quite significantly ...
...A better bet would be the hedging type of Spanish Leylandii if you want a wind break/sun shade

[murbisa]

Martin, the trees are not that close. just in the right spot to cast a bit of shade hopefully. if we have a problem we can always move veggie plot over a bit. But there is quite a wide path bewtwwen them and the plot.

Muriel

[spanish_lad]

ken, get some stuff from the garden centre on thursday ?

i got 5x tomato plants (12c ea. 60c total!) that were about 3" high, in 2 weeks they have doubled, and they are in a trough. you could do one per pot, or they do the plants for 4€? i dont get that, a whole bag of tomatoes is only about €1.50

[ken2]

hi S.L yes i got a tomato plant there the first week i saw you, what say a month ago, i did pay €4 for it and yes you can buy them cheap, but what about the fun and joy you get from carrying buckets of water through the apartment, spilling just a little drop that gets you nagged for the next two hours, about did i know how long it took to keep the house nice and clean, then you get the joy of just picking one and eating it yumm yumm, if you worked out the cost of the feed too, then yes just buy a bag full for not a lot,buy the way i have got lots of tomtoes on it already.

[K chameleon]

See other thread
My plum tomatoes are only 2inches short, my cucumber's not much better.
At this rate we'll be eating winter veg all summer, and salad stuff Autumn/Winter
My flowers aren't flowering quickly enough (visitors due), I'm going to have to buy some from the garden centre
On a lighter note, saw a dish on a cookery programme last night called "Gardeners revenge"....
I'll be on snail patrol tonight

[murbisa]

My friend used to come round with a big sweetie jar after it rained and collect the snails from my garden for her spanish neighbour. It used to make me feel quite ill.
My tomatoes are not very big yet as I grew them from seed, but it's amazing how quick they grow once they get going. Same with the cucumbers.
I think a lot of the flowers are late this year as they are still recovering from the hard winter. But things I thought were dead are suddenly starting to shoot again.
Cabbages are so big it will take us all summer to eat them!! We even had sprouts for tea yesterday.
Red lettuce are huge now but won't be long before they go to seed. I think I grow too much for just the two of us

[anis]

Ken, have you had a go at growing strawberries on your patio ?
The young plants are cheap to buy from the ferreteris and they are easy to grow on patios.

[Kmoppz]

I did potatoes in pots last year, not a cost saver, but as Ken said great fun...

We had a couple of big nylon sacks and stuck in a couple of seed potatoes in each, the crop kept four of us going for about 2 weeks...

We also did the tomato thing in pots, they never got as far as the kitchen! I would sit on the patio with a glass of wine and pick them eat on the spot as soon as they went red! very tasty!

This year we are adding cucumber, peppers, jalapino hot peppers, lettuce, spring onions and raddish.

So wish we had a bigger garden!

[Jool]

Which variety of tomatoes worked well in pots ?