[Gpdd] MISC. Growing your own veggies

Tue Aug 31 13:21:25 EDT 2010

Hi Mieke, (To other members this might be boring so feel free to move on to the next post!)

Welcome to the wonderful world of growing your own veggies! Although you ccd your post to the GPDD, I have not seen it come up yet so if this doesn't make sense to other members don't worry.

I am lucky enough to have a large garden, part of which is a dedicated kitchen garden, in which I grow veggies and fruit but you can grow all sorts of edible plants in large pots or troughs.

It is too late in the year to be sowing seeds outside now ( assuming that your climate is the same as mine ) but you can grow things on your window ledge to start with and then move on to outdoor planting next spring. What you decide to grow depends on how much weight the roof terrace can take and how willing Erwin is to carry bags of compost up the stairs.

One of the easiest things to grow in a pot is lettuce. So as to have some nearby to put in sandwiches, I grow extra plants in long troughs just outside the back door. I fill the troughs with compost from the garden centre and use what is called, in England, multi purpose compost. This is not as heavy as the loam compost that you can buy and would be better on the roof space. Fill the trough ( or pot ) with compost, make some drills ( little lines ) in the soil with a stick, water the drills and sprinkle your lettuce seed very thinly and cover it with soil. Keep it moist and it will germinate in a few weeks.

Alternatively you can start off your seed in a pot on the windowsill around April time. I do this in my greenhouse. Sow the seed very thinly and when the plants are big enough to handle plant them out in your troughs or pots. Wait until the frosts have gone - here that is the end of May.

You could grow carrots in pots. You would need a very deep pot for for long carrots but you can buy seeds of stumpy carrots, which taste just as good and produce lots of leafy greens for the piggies. Mine love the green tops as much as the carrots. Beetroot can be grown this way if your herd likes it. Mine love the leaves.

Parsley is a good piggy veg for a pot. I grow a whole row of pots just outside the greenhouse as well as the rows in the kitchen garden. You can never have too much parsley. Sow it around Easter time, keep the soil moist and it can stay in that pot without needing transplanting. I am still picking from the pots that I started off in the spring and I have a lot of piggies needing it. Parsley takes forever to germinate but keep it moist and it will grow in the end.

Big veggies like broccoli, I grow in the ground but there is no reason why you should not try anything that your piggies like. You should be able to buy small plants from a garden centre and then plant them in your pots.

My Rodentologist, who only has a small garden, grows wonderful beans in an old plastic water tank with holes drilled in the base and sweetcorn, one plant in each of a row of holey buckets.

You could buy a chicory plant and pick the occasional leaf as a treat. As a bonus it has pretty blue flowers.

I grow cucumbers in my greenhouse and at this time of year they are dangling all across the roof space as the plants grow their way towards the door but you can buy outdoor cucumber plants in early summer ( here they are called ridge cucumbers ) and they could be grown in a pot, They could just trail along the floor if you do not have any trellis for them to climb. Do not put them out until the frost has gone.

You could even collect a dandelion seed head and sow the seeds. The piggies will love you for that.

I could write a book on growing veg on a terrace so will not bore our readers further but if you have any questions, Mieke, just email me.

Penny and the overfed Piggyfriends, gorging themselves on the weeds that I grow for them in their own special part of the garden. Free food is the best.

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Mieke Staaks 
  To: Gpdd at gpdd.org 
  Cc: Penny Charlesworth 
  Sent: Monday, August 30, 2010 10:35 PM
  Subject: Misc: Growing your own veggies

  Hi all, 

  I read on the digest that Penny grew her own veggies.
  Now I am curious how you do that Penny!
  Do you have any tips?
  You are in similar weather then we are, so if you can do it, i might too?!?

  I unfortunately do not have a garden, but we do have a roof terrace, so I'm also curious if you can grow some veggies in big (deep?) pots...

  Any tips are welcome!
  Does anyone else grow their own vegetables?

  Grtz,
  Mieke
  Guinygirlz: Woopy, Daisy and Lily
  and my valentine: Chico
  -- 
  pandameisje at gmail.com
  pandameisje at hotmail.com

  Blog: http://pandameisje.hyves.nl
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