Vegtable gardening

Just The One

Ok, so I am looking for some advice on planting some vegetables.

Is there any particular time to plant certain veg... is there any advice for preparing the ground etc?

sean_0

That's a question that requires a pretty long answer. I'm not going to give you that but I'll give you a few tips.

As regards preparation, if you are starting a new patch, in a lawn or neglected weedy area, you will need to clear the area of weeds/grass and dig the patch. There are several ways of doing this, double digging, single digging, trenching etc, consult a good book such as this:RHS Fruit and Vegetable Gardening, to check this out. This must be done when the ground is quite dry (i.e. not at the moment!)

As for sowing/planting times, you generally don't start anything off outdoors until late march in Ireland, with a few exceptions. Early spuds, onions, carrots, beetroot, etc can all go out in late March. Some of the more tender veg like french and runner beans and courgettes won't go out till May. Reading the back of the seed packet of whatever veg you want to grow will tell you more or less everything.

The book I mentioned is well worth a look, I still haven't found a question it can't answer. A lot of people would recommend "Grow your own vegetables" by Joy Larkom, which is quite good but is a bit of a dry read if you ask me.

Just The One

sean_0 wrote:

That's a question that requires a pretty long answer. I'm not going to give you that but I'll give you a few tips.

As regards preparation, if you are starting a new patch, in a lawn or neglected weedy area, you will need to clear the area of weeds/grass and dig the patch. There are several ways of doing this, double digging, single digging, trenching etc, consult a good book such as this:RHS Fruit and Vegetable Gardening, to check this out. This must be done when the ground is quite dry (i.e. not at the moment!)

As for sowing/planting times, you generally don't start anything off outdoors until late march in Ireland, with a few exceptions. Early spuds, onions, carrots, beetroot, etc can all go out in late March. Some of the more tender veg like french and runner beans and courgettes won't go out till May. Reading the back of the seed packet of whatever veg you want to grow will tell you more or less everything.

The book I mentioned is well worth a look, I still haven't found a question it can't answer. A lot of people would recommend "Grow your own vegetables" by Joy Larkom, which is quite good but is a bit of a dry read if you ask me.

thanks for info...

Aeneas

I have been growing vegetables for many years and use both the "RHS Fruit and Vegetable Gardening" and Joy Larkcom's "Grow Your Own Vegetables" mentioned above. They are very comprehensive. For someone starting out I would recommend Sarah Raven's "The Great Vegetable Plot" which gives good advice on almost every aspect of vegetable gardening. If you don't want to shell out on any of these the directions on the packets are pretty good, but of course they don't go into detail on preparing your soil, manuring, drainage, watering etc.

DublinWriter

There's a fantasic six-part series on this on BBC2 at the moment. You can probably stream it from their website or get it on uknova.

Gordon Gekko

Aeneas wrote:

Joy Larkcom's "Grow Your Own Vegetables"

All you need - good advice, easy to follow, very practical for smaller gardens, no cr@p.

artieanna

I use Dr. D.G. Hessayon the vegetable and herb expert and The Gardening expert. in fact I use most of his books for reference for years.

Seed packets do give you sowing requirments, however different vegetables require different conditions...

I bought the gardening expert when I first started gardening about fifteen years ago and I still use it from time to time...

Enjoy it, every failure and sucess will bring learning with it too!!;)

Aeneas

The Hessayon books are pretty good - and well laid out. But maybe a bit outdated on varieties. The advantage of the RHS book is that it covers fruit growing as well as vegetables. If you are getting into vegetables I would recommend growing them in raised beds. These take a bit more work to set up initially but make cultivation much easier in the long run - no annual digging after the first year - just fork over the soil, easy to regulate fertility, easier for crop rotation and harvesting.