Advice for a hopeless gardener

[GillyBee]

I learned about fertiliser the hard way in this garden. I have poor soil and one large raised bed which was filled with a 24" deep mix of homemade and commercial compost Year 1 in the veg bed was good year 2 was OK and year 3 things simply didnt grow. They didn't drop dead, they just stayed the same size. I added fertiliser and whoosh!
I get the same problem in the garden soil as it is sandy/chalky & full of bits of old bricks. It now all gets mulched with well rotted manure or compost and topped up with slow release granules plus liquid fertiliser for tomatoes and courgettes and other greedy stuff.
The challenge will be feeding it if fertiliser disappears from the shelves. It will be back to the old ways and the grandpa tricks. I will raid the local wasteland and make "blackjack" from nettles - assuming I am not having to eat them at the rate we are going.

[diamond lil]

Manure is terrific stuff.
Jansman your kale seedlings are now through!!!

[British Red]

. I will raid the local wasteland and make "blackjack" from nettles - assuming I am not having to eat them at the rate we are going.

Nettle "tea" is fabulous stuff. Comfrey too if you have the odd corner for it to grow.

[jennyjj01]

I learned about fertiliser the hard way in this garden. I have poor soil and one large raised bed which was filled with a 24" deep mix of homemade and commercial compost Year 1 in the veg bed was good year 2 was OK and year 3 things simply didnt grow. They didn't drop dead, they just stayed the same size. I added fertiliser and whoosh!
I get the same problem in the garden soil as it is sandy/chalky & full of bits of old bricks. It now all gets mulched with well rotted manure or compost and topped up with slow release granules plus liquid fertiliser for tomatoes and courgettes and other greedy stuff.
The challenge will be feeding it if fertiliser disappears from the shelves. It will be back to the old ways and the grandpa tricks. I will raid the local wasteland and make "blackjack" from nettles - assuming I am not having to eat them at the rate we are going.

If you had invested in 24" of good compost, think of the value/cost of that. To only get two crops from it makes for expensive produce.
When i say fertilizer, I'm currently thinking chemical fertilizer, though not ruling out organic stuff like blood and fish and chicken poo etc.
At the prices I'm seeing of the order of £5 per kilo. for NPK 7 7 7 fertilizer, it might as well have disappeared off the shelves. The best apparent VFM I see so far is 25kg for £27
Elixir Gardens Growmore 07-07-07 Special Blend All Round General Purpose Fertiliser | 25kg Am I on the right products?

I wouldn't have much of a clue adding an array of garden centre organic products in the right proportions

Currently on a mission to fill my two composters. There are trees on the estate and when the wind blew autumn leaves my way, I bagged loads up. Post SHTF, we'll have to do such scavenging on an industrial scale and there's not enough good stuff for us all.

[GillyBee]

I managed 3/4 of the veg bed with homemade compost, leaves etc so the biggest expense was the sleepers for the bed itself which were a birthday present.
I am still stocked with fertiliser from a Wickes end of season sale for this year. Next year-who knows.
All UK households produce a couple of litres of ready to dilute nitrogen fertiliser every day.
I am thinking about the keyhole garden trick of putting a 30cm wide chicken wire lined and lidded hole in the bed and putting the kitchen scraps into it as a feeding system if necessary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyhole_garden

[jennyjj01]

I managed 3/4 of the veg bed with homemade compost, leaves etc so the biggest expense was the sleepers for the bed itself which were a birthday present.
I am still stocked with fertiliser from a Wickes end of season sale for this year. Next year-who knows.
All UK households produce a couple of litres of ready to dilute nitrogen fertiliser every day.
I am thinking about the keyhole garden trick of putting a 30cm wide chicken wire lined and lidded hole in the bed and putting the kitchen scraps into it as a feeding system if necessary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyhole_garden

Damn. I missed those end of season sales.

Interesting. So almost like a hopper where the decomposing stuff leaches it's 'juice' direct to the bed. That could work.
Was your comment about a couple of litres referring to pee? That's how I read it at first. This household produces very little food waste for the composter: Maybe a colander full of skinny peelings on the bigger cooking days. Post SHTF, eating out of stash food, there would be zero green waste... Which is something I overlooked in my medium term plans.

[GillyBee]

Exactly that Jenny!

There are lots of articles on the topic. This one is a summary.

https://www.permaculturenews.org/2016/0 ... man-urine/

[jansman]

Manure is terrific stuff.
Jansman your kale seedlings are now through!!!

They’ll do well ,because they are back home!

[jansman]

I am fortunate to have chicken and rabbit manure ,plus associated bedding. I planted comfrey thirty years ago,and that’s superb. If any of you decide to plant comfrey,look for the variety ‘Bocking 14’. It’s non- invasive. Diluted urine is good too.However,well balanced soil,dressed each year with well rotted manure or good compost,should see good results.

[jennyjj01]

So.... Peas in buckets?

Latest addition to my seed mountain are a couple of bags of pea seeds. Variant is 'Onwards'
Since I get hundreds of seeds for my money, I'm going to take a multi-sowing scattergun approach to see which survive best.

So, before I go crazy and start to murder them, let me run this by the experts....

Soaked some for 24 hours and now left in a ziplock with moist towel to pre-germinate for maybe 4 days. I'm hopeful that gives them a head start. Was this right or wrong? Charles Dowding doesn't seem to mess around doing that. He also sows two to a pod

I put some straight into pots in my cloche, but the nights are cold, so I don't expect much. Would they be better on a heated propagator, but without sunlight, in my garage (kitchen window is full )?

Proposing to try some in my cheap 2 gallon buckets. Should I try for say 2-3 seedlings to a bucket? Or is 2 gallon going to be too small?

Soil temp is only about 7C at the moment. Will that be too much of a shock for my sprouts, or should I germinate them longer in intermediate pots or pods?

Proposing to do 2 rows of 1.2m in one of my raised beds. Instructions seem to be to have them quite close together, 2-3 inches. Will that crowd them?


Meanwhile, back to my other sowings. Still very few seedlings. This damned frost over the last few days has had me keep bringing trays indoors.