Tiny garden growing

[Medusa]

Hi Pitchshifter, growing stuff is great fun isn't it? Relative newbie here too, but sounds like you have made a great start. We grew a few basic bits in containers last year and have increased this year to include a couple of raised beds. If you have a bit of spare space I can recommend growing potatoes in bags, or at least they all seem to be growing well, obviously we haven't harvested yet. Carrots and onions appear to grow well in reasonably small spaces too, again they seem to be thriving but too soon to see the result as yet. We have had a bit of an issue with vine beetle larvae in the strawberries from last year and the French beans have just rotted in the pots rather than growing. No doubt there are many experienced gardeners on here who can give advice better than I. I can confirm though that dwarf apples trees are well worth growing if you have the space, ours produced an amazing harvest last year and looking at the amount of blossom this year will produce hopefully even more fruit.

[featherstick]

Loads of time to get more French beans in. Dwarf French beans are dead easy, need almost no looking after, and very productive. I sometimes direct sow after harvesting spuds. If the weather stays good we get a crop, if not I just cut it down for green manure. Get some more in.

[pitchshifter]

A little update on my tine garden...

I realised I'd forgotten to update when I planted my herbs. I planted them out last weekend, so in little pots on my tiered plant stand I now have:
Thyme, spearmint, lemon balm, chives, lemon thyme, black peppermint, sage, rosemary, coriander, chamomile, curled parsley and oregano. I also have a few other small hanging pots with golden thyme, lavender, feverfew and curled spearmint. I've got room for a few more so hoping to get hold of some dill and some basil.

Today I've also planted out some potatoes in bags like you Medusa, looking forward to seeing how they get on. As an experiment I've also planted some into troughs to see if they'll spread out horizontally, so excited to see how they get on as well!

Most of the plants in my raised bed appear to be growing slowly but surely. The tomatoes don't look as though they've been getting any worse over the past few days. I've still been fleecing them all overnight, feels like I'm tucking them into bed! However my ridged cucumber seems to have had it, and possibly my mini cucumber as well which I'd been hoping to try pickling. Both appeared to grow new leaves, but I noticed this evening that the new leaf on the ridged cucumber appears to have gone weak-looking and curly. I fed them this morning so I hope it's not got anything to do with that, as I read that too much fertiliser can damage the leaves. I last fed them 11 days ago and the bottle says to feed every 10-14 days so I thought I'd be safe? I'm going to persevere with them anyway and see if they improve at all now that it seems to be getting a bit warmer again, although I might replace in a couple of weeks if no improvement.

My blueberry bush seems to be doing well, it was absolutely covered in flowers (despite me abusing it by planting into multi-purpose compost instead of ericaceous) and I can now see tiny little berries starting to form behind them, so I hope that continues doing well! Fed it some coffee grounds as a treat today

[pitchshifter]

Had a kind of funny, kind of annoying experience in my tiny garden today. I planted out some perpetual spinach yesterday, but when I went out this morning 3 of the 4 plants had gone! I could see a few bits of leaf poking out the soil a bit away from where I'd planted them and assumed something had been down for a munch. This evening I poked around a bit more looking for clues, and unearthed a massive poo! So glad I had my gardening gloves on! So either one of my neighbours is really jealous, or a cat paid my spinach a visit. I've put some upturned pots around to make the bed look lumpy and less inviting, but just wondering if anyone has any tried and tested ways of keeping away unwanted visitors?

[Nurseandy]

Try sticking plastic forks into the soil handle down so that the tines are poking out, or short lengths of bamboo, anything really that makes the bed unappealing to er, "relax"

[jansman]

I use blue water piping to make a 'tunnel ' over the beds,and then cover that with scaffold netting.Keeps cabbage whites off too.

[pitchshifter]

Thanks both for your suggestions. I used some bamboo sticks as a temporary measure as I had some to hand, thinking when that bed is planted up it will be much less roomy and inviting to go toilet in. However in what can only have been an act of revenge, the cat has returned and relieved itself (no. 2 style ) right in the midst of my chard, then scratched off half of a butterhead lettuce to cover it! Might have to fashion some netting...

On a more positive note, my tomatoes and courgettes seem to be going from strength to strength! Also my little tumbling tom that I got for free, although still looking like a plant that has had a difficult start in life, is flowering and growing tomatoes .