Growing your own - is it worth it?

[MrGongGong]

Doversoul, isnt it a bit early for spuds? I've bought mine, but wasnt planning to plant them for another month. I would have thought there was a risk from frost damage, or do you cover them at night?

Not too early here.
My wife has gone down to our allotment to plant some this afternoon.

I see the overpriced "International Kidney" from the Channel Islands have arrived in the shops

[gurnemanz]

Was planning to put in spuds but after a bit of pottering and weeding soil still seems quite cold. I'm going to give it another week or two. Fancied a waxy one this year and have gone for - 2nd early Charlotte. Restricting myself to spuds, beans and tomatoes this year.

[hedgehog]

I put my early spuds in yesterday, main crop in a couple of weeks. I have clay soil and find that by mid April the soil gives out enough warmth so that even if a light frost is forecast it won't affect the young plants. If by bad luck a spell of very cold weather would come in I would cover them with sheets of newspaper for the night, held in place by the many bits of brick etc I have for the purpose.

[umslopogaas]

Looks like I am being a bit cautious, the RHS veg book just says plant spuds March to May. I may try half now, half in two or three weeks' time. They definitely will be damaged by frost once the shoots are above ground.

[clive heath]

.......which is why some folk watch out for frost warnings or as a matter of course continually pile up earth over the emerging shoots until all risk of frost is over.

[jean]

...the overpriced "International Kidney" from the Channel Islands...

I suppose the Channel Islanders insisted on this very boring name so that we wouldn't realise what they actually are...

[umslopogaas]

I shall watch out for frost warnings. The weather is treacherous, down here in the west.

[doversoul1]

Doversoul, isnt it a bit early for spuds? I've bought mine, but wasnt planning to plant them for another month. I would have thought there was a risk from frost damage, or do you cover them at night?

We are quite high up (second highest in Kent, I was told) and tend to be colder, so I like them in as earlier as possible in case the weather warms up unexpectedly. As for frost, apparently, we are too close to the sea to have late frost. I’m not sure if this is a scientific fact but I don’t remember worrying about frost on the potatoes. Besides they aren’t going to show up for a long time.

Now, peas. My peas grew well over SEVEN feet high last year. They flopped over in the end but I had never seen such mass of pea plants. I harvested the peas in a bucket. I don’t think anything like this will ever happen again.

[umslopogaas]

Doversoul, I'm mystified by your peas. Modern varieties only grow about three feet high, because people dont want the bother of large and expensive pea sticks. I use plastic netting, which never rots and is re-usable year after year. However, old varieties were taller, I think. I can find no reference to height, but I sort of recall back in the 1950s when I was a lad, we grew peas that were four or five feet tall, though of course, I may just be imagining this, everything looks bigger when you are little. But perhaps there was a mix up with the varieties at the suppliers and you planted an old-fashioned "heritage" variety, which is tall? I cant tell one pea variety from another, except that Kelvedon Wonder has pods with half as many peas in them as Hurst Green Shaft, which is why I have abandoned the former. Did the pods on these monster plants look like the ones you were expecting?

Otherwise, I can only suggest you had a clandestine visit from Sam Gamgee and his box of Galadriel's magic dust.

[doversoul1]

umslopogaas
No one would have been more mystified than I was. It was simply incredulous. Those peas just grew and grew and grew. I could almost hear Jack laughing ‘Peas ain’t no good. You need a bean…’. They weren’t even Thompson & Morgan but a common variety (I can’t remember the name) from Marshals, and with s few seed from the previous year mixed, too.

I start my peas in a piece of plastic gutter and when they are ready to be handled, slide them onto the prepared ground. Usually, my peas struggle to grow beyond a couple of feet tall and provide us with a precious few peas. What happened last year was most mysterious indeed.

[umslopogaas]

It will be most interesting to see if the experience is repeated this year! The "germinate in guttering" method is recommended by the RHS, to get the plants to a sufficient size that they are no longer of interest to field mice, before planting out. I dont have any guttering, but use modular plug trays (from Homebase) to achieve the same end.

Seeing the general trend to planting spuds over the Easter weekend, I decided I was being too cautious about the frost risk, and took the plunge and planted half my seed spuds. I'll plant the other half in a couple of weeks time.

Lots of onion seedlings coming along in plug trays, French and runner bean seeds waiting to be sown. If all goes according to plan, I'll have another year's worth of surplus produce to unload on friends and neighbours.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Now that it's finished, and is blatant overkill, I've named the asparagus bed "Alpen's Folly". Wonderful deep topsoil and well drained.

Last year I planted the asparagus crowns and most of them grew. Now some tasty looking growth has appeared, but we MUST NOT attempt to pick any until this time next year.

[umslopogaas]

Ein Alp, that is what I want to see in my asparagus bed, but so far, no sign. Asparagus is proving a challenge, and I dont know why. Tomorrow I shall go and have another look. If it's peeking out of the ground that far up north, down here in the west it should be all over the place. I think it must be dead, I will report back.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Ein Alp, that is what I want to see in my asparagus bed, but so far, no sign. Asparagus is proving a challenge, and I dont know why. Tomorrow I shall go and have another look. If it's peeking out of the ground that far up north, down here in the west it should be all over the place. I think it must be dead, I will report back.

Did you harvest the crop in the first two years? That's a big no-no with asparagus.

[umslopogaas]

Not a spear. For some reason I cant divine, it just wont thrive. But I shall keep trying, it is mysterious stuff, but delicious none the less.