Growin veg ooop north?

[Puddleduck]

Oh wise Oracle of Ishers! I need help in growing veggies!! At the minute all I seem to grow is nettles and discontent!!

I am on the outskirts of Durham, and have a plot in the back garden. It is quite a heavy soil, so I have spent this year breaking it down and digging in manure to give it a boost. Thing is, I don't if it's the seeds I'm using, the soil or the climate that is thwarting my efforts, but I can only ever seem to grow broccoli and courgettes outdoors, and tomatoes in the green house.

Anbody local to me that knows what they are doing please help!

[diggernotdreamer]

Do you use raised beds? I am on a very heavy soil in NW Ireland, I am also a no digger. Do you direct sow into the ground with most things or raise in modules etc

[Green Aura]

To help break up the clay soil it might be worth starting with spuds. I agree with dnd about raised beds, they make life much simpler. We have quite tall walls on ours, it helps protect the younger plants from the wind.

There should be no reason why you can't grow peas and carrots - we can up here so it's not your northern position. Carrots don't like manure much, but you could grow some stumpy varieties in a growbag (see odsox's article on the blog site re winter veg).

We can't grow beans outdoors up here - too windy to let the flowers set (or at least that's what others tell me) but we grow all sorts of other things - all brassicas, onions and garlic, spinach and salad leaves. We even grew celery one year but it wasn't very successful - I think that was definitely down to the wind - it was tough as old boots.

We strike most things in the house or polytunnel and then plant out the seedlings.

[diggernotdreamer]

If you have brought in manure from outside, it is usually full of weed seeds especially nettles. As GA says, spuds are a great clearing crop, I always start off spuds in any new bed to break up the soil. My next plan is to put up the green windbread/shading material all round my plot for a bit of relief from the winds, I grow in our field and it is a bit exposed. The other thing I always do is to cover all my beds in either newspaper or paper feed sacks topped with whatever I have, spoiled hay or straw or grassmowings and dib all my transplants through, it really does stop all the weeds coming up and leaves me free to do other things, I can't be doing with weeds as well as everything else.

[Puddleduck]

Thanks guys, I have acquired some raised beds which are currently in situ. I'm going to try carrots in an old recycling box, maybe with a mix of topsoil and sharp sand. Have heard that works quite well. Have tried spuds in the ground before and the slugs got them all, not sure if this counts as breaking up the soil!!!

My plot is at the bottom of the garden so is quite sheltered but is a bit shady. I'm going to try a few more brassicas as they apparently like the shade, and maybe try moving the sun lovers in pots to the patio.

The soil is (at the minute) quite well broken up, and I'm hoping the frost will help even more, but I guess I'm in for a lot of work come spring!!

[diggernotdreamer]

I grow my potatoes no dig, and earth them up with anything that is around, again spoiled hay, straw, mowings, it does seem to stop the slugs eating them, I hardly ever have slug eaten ones, it also makes the soil very friable. I keep my beds covered nearly all the time to stop the worst of the weather and it does stop the weeds from growing before you have a chance to do anything

[Flo]

I'm afraid that slug pellets won't really help with the potato problem and it's too cold up here (yes I'm not that far from puddleduck) for nematodes to work in the soil. You should be OK with cool weather salad crops like radish, lettuce, endive and chicory outdoors up here. Don't forget that manure doesn't have a lot of nutrients in it so you will need a good general fertiliser to help your crops. If you don't have access to pigeon or chicken droppings (both of which need to rot down) then you need to use something like growmore, fish blood and bone or whatever it is you favour off the shop shelves.