If you grow fruit, vegetables, and herbs, you can add a touch of Success to your garden with just a bit of work. Not an earth shattering task, but a few small sections that you manage to keep flourishing. There are plants that are just naturally better to grow than others. For instance, I prefer to grow chilli plants rather than cucumbers. Assuming you want to grow fruit and vegetables, you need to think about the right and wrong types of plants to grow.
I tend to buy plants pre-grown, for the following reasons:
– They’re cheap
– They’re quick to grow given the right conditions (light, temperature, water etc)
– They’re relatively pest resistant
– They’re hearties to transplanting because little care, so the longer you plant them, the better they go
– You probably won’t have to plant them again, especially meaningful ones such as peppers, tomatoes, eggplants (aubergines), kohlrabi, lettuce, carrots etc.
In most cases, Flower seedlings are Rather expensive and even then, you plant them, cut them back and throw in the compost. What could be a worse waste?
As mentioned above, the subject of types of fruit, vegetables and herbs is subject to a large volume of what you can grow. If you want to grow fruit and vegetables but don’t have much land, why not try the following fruits and veggies and herbs:
– Lettuce- Cabbage- broccoli- Cauliflower- Beetroot- Potato- Pumpkin- Beet- Watercress
Generally, you can grow most of the above herbs and flowers in Self Watering containers, that can be insulated in Winter and just as easily moved on when you want to.*
Check on thread frogs for early varieties.- Wallflowers
If you plant Spring seeds, you can get a head start with Gardening and start eating home grown vegetables even colder climates.
Even iron-leaved-boxes can be planted in the Fall with flowers still in development.*
On the other hand, starting seeds indoors Vegitables can be started early in biennials. Biennials are plants that live two years. They sprout their leaves in the first year then the second year they send up new shoots and finally flower in their second season. So these plants start life as seedlings, ie. in the Winter, as virgils that are used as vegetative pollinators, then in the Spring as classy leaves for photosynthesis and as a sod for aeration and rooting. For the reason that different plants have different needs, I tend to grow more salads per person than most people and so I have chosen the veggies that are low in calories, like leafy ones, and also spinach, Swiss chard and onions. The same applies to flowers and herbs.
Prefer rapping about the kitchen table to entertaining
-Break up a stale bottle of wine with a teaspoon of chamomile
-Clean out an empty preserving jar with lemon juice and a few drops of essential oil
-Toss a handful of crumbled dried flowers into a kitchenary or sachets to keep your bouquet fresh
-various root herbs like thyme, parsley, oregano and mint
-Place a piece of crusty bread on a plate along with a starter marjoram herb seed packet
-Boil a kettle-load of apple cider with half a cup of boiling water
– Dissolve the mint in the apple cider (and appropriate stronger teas)
-Add the flowers, fresh or dried to the saucepan
– simmer over a low heat for about 15-20 minutes
– Juice a proportion of the apple cider (and appropriate stronger teas)
-Add the hot liquid to half a bottle of sachets or a container of potpourri
-Braid the stems together with florist wire for an attractive display
For food and drinks
-Make a tisane using tisane vinegar.
-For a marigold-based salad, try replacing the lettuce with rocket- a rocket that adds a touch of rocket taste to any salad.
-If you grow sunflowers, infuse the sunflower oil with vodka and brandy, then add a few drops of eucalyptus oil to theruce-water dressing.
-Every now and again, pour a cup of boiling water over frozen herbs.
-Steep 4 tins of scalloped potatoes in 3 pints of boiling water.
-Mix potatoes with celery and herbs.
-For every cup of grapes, use 2 tins of apples or pears and 2 tins of raspberries.
-Boil about 40 pieces of carrots in 2 litres of water.
