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[expatinuk]

Last year Hubby Bubba planted a couple of cloves of garlic to see how it would fare.

We ate one from the harvest last night.... my gosh... that was some seriously strong garlic. No worries about vampires here.

With all the stuff about Carbon footprints and all that jazz are any of you growing things other than flowers in your tiny gardens? And I don't mean the obvious stuff like you grew when you were at Uni!

[observer3]

Lots and lots of snails. Where do they all come from? I had never seen them before I moved here. I thought the first few were cute, but now... and slugs! Anyway, that's the main thing growing in my garden right now.

[expatinuk]

Lots and lots of snails. Where do they all come from? I had never seen them before I moved here. I thought the first few were cute, but now... and slugs! Anyway, that's the main thing growing in my garden right now.

Yeah... you do have to put down lots and lots of slug pellets. The darn things come into the house too... so be careful about walking around barefoot in the dark in your kitchen!

YEW!!!!!

[larryc]

We had a HUGE tiger snail living somewhere in our kitchen. It came out a night, we would see the slime trails on the hardwood floor. It creeped my wife out.

I grow tomatoes every year along the fence, it is easy and tasty. Plus tomatoes and their progress are a common conversational ground here in the almost-south. We also grow basil and a few spices. We  have an extensive flower garden that my wife maintains around the brick patio, but nothing edible there.

[science_expat]

Tomatoes here would require a greenhouse.

[antiphon]

Of course.  As a gently reared southerner, I'm compelled by some deep seated training to plant tomatoes, okra, green beans, blackeyed peas, corn, onions, peppers, and melons.  I add herbs, lettuces, eggplant, zucchini and sunflowers for variety.  Nothing beats fresh vegetables.  Now, I admit that mine is a very restrained plot as opposed to the "truck" garden my parents planted every year.  I love eating fresh produce, but I'm not going to can and freeze mass quantities.  Been there, done that.

Snails.  Yuck.  We don't have them here, and I don't miss them one bit.

[expatinuk]

One of the reasons why I put this thread in the Academics in the UK section is that what can grow here (with our horrible weather) is much different to what I had in my home garden back in South Carolina.

We are also increasingly driven by national and local government to reduce our 'carbon footprint.'

One of the ways that I wish to do that is to grow more of the things we eat. We already have:

Rhubarb
crab apples
black current
various herbs
garlic

Here in the UK we are limited not only by the weather but by the lack of space. Unless one has an allotment (which is a LOT of work because most of them don't have water or a place to store tools, and people steal your veggies) one is forced to do container gardening or to dig up the tiny bit of lawn and plant onions there.

I'm looking for suggestions from fellow UK residents as to what works for them... if they do anything!

[antiphon]

My apologies.  I asked a colleague in the UK.  Her garden includes carrots, potatoes, runner beans, lettuces, herbs, garlic, onions, and turnips.  She added a caveat about micro climates and considering adding containers or raised beds if you have a drainage issue. Her suggestion is to check with a local garden club.  Again, my apologies.  Scanning always gets me in trouble.

[sunny_side_up]

With limited space I think herbs get you the most effect for your effort. Things like chives, parsley, basil etc should grow in the garden or you can put them on the window sill. Tomatos can be done if you start early in the year with seedlings on your window sill, move them out under a little plastic tent when it gets warm. Potatos should grow but then you need a cellar to store them. Maybe cucumbers, peas, beans? Apple, plum and pear trees if you have some more space.

[scotia]

I grow raspberries (summer and autumn fruiting) and have an apple and pear tree both of which are currently in pots but have produced virtually zero crop so are to be transplanted into the garden over winter. This year I am harvesting sweetcorn for the first time (bought as small plants - I am usually out of the country in early spring so planting them from seed is not an option). I generally have a tomato glut at this time of year (also bought as small plants and grown outdoors from May in northern UK science_expat) but this year lost all six plants to blight - almost certainly a consequence of the wet weather.

I have mint in pots outdoors, rosemary, oregano lovage, chives and sorrel in the garden and basil, parsley and coriander indoors on the window ledge where the slugs cannot get them. I have an enormous, and voracious, slug population so I have given up on green salad leaf crops, though I am thinking about experimenting with growing some metal pots next year.

I have grown potatoes in the past to break up the soil, but it takes three or four years to stop the ones I don't find when harvesting producing plants in the middle of flower beds in subsequent years.

[gobelin]

I don't have a garden just now, but have grown quite a lot of veg in the past.  I used to like growing potatoes, and like Scotia would find unexpected potato plants in future years.  Broad beans, runner beans and peas are good; although you can easily buy fresh peas in summer, it seems harder these days to get fresh broad beans and runner beans.  You can plant some broad bean seeds now in order to get an early crop next year, if you get the right variety.  Also you can grow a few sweet peas in with peas and beans if you like to make it look prettier.

Courgettes grow really well, both normal courgettes and those custard ones.  They can look quite pretty in amongst your flower beds.  Tomatoes can do well too.  It's best to start them indoors and move them outside once all danger of frost is past.  If you don't want to bother with seeds, you can buy them as small plants in the spring.  Several companies do heritage varieties now of tomatoes and potatoes so you can try growing something you're not so likely to find in the shops.  It's a question of paying attention to varieties, since some do much better in greenhouses, and are bred for things other than flavour ... give those ones a miss!!

Carrots, beetroot, lettuce and turnips are all very easy to grow.  Brassicas are more effort.  It will depend a bit on your garden, but since you are quite far south you should be able to grow most things, and frosts should be over by early to mid May. 

Strawberries are especially nice just picked from the garden.  It's easy to buy them as small plants.  Rhubarb is great because it grows itself, and the supermarkets only seem to have it for three weeks of the year, so you can get it when it's not in the shops.  The best rhubarb is grown north of you though, in Yorkshire.

This is a good time of year to get a few seed/plant catalogues in and start dreaming of what to grow next year ...

[wegie]

Well, we have zero garden (it's all communal garden and tended by a garden firm that wouldn't recognise a herb bed unless you put up a huge notice and a fence) and our front window box is far too close to the South Circular to want to eat anything planted in it . . . but we've had massive success with indoor basil and a fair bit of success with rosemary, thyme and herb fennel.

If you've got the usual postage stamp garden, expat, I'd just go for the herbs, especially given the rip-off prices that supermarkets charge for them.

it seems harder these days to get fresh broad beans and runner beans.

Actually, I've had much less trouble getting hold of them this year than I have in years past. . . to the extent that hubby's been complaining about too many beans with dinner! I even managed to get some English runner beans at M&S yesterday afternoon, which is very good going for the first week of October.

[gobelin]

Cool.  I love runner beans!!!

[babbinacara]

Over the last few years: raspberries, blackberries, rhubarb, runner beans, string beans, potatoes, carrots, parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme (yeah, really), broad beans, basil, bay, apples, pears, mint, corn, peas, zucchini (or are they courgettes...I'm so confused), lettuce.
Probably some other things.
Tomatoes are diabolical--the day before they are going to be perfect, blight comes from nowhere.

[normative_]

We have a balcony garden, since we're right in the middle of a big city. We grow cherry tomatoes, strawberries and herbs in between the flowers, as well as an edible (bright yellow and orange blossoms) flowering plant that tastes like radishes. I only know the German word for it: Kapuzinerkresse.

We have rosemary, thyme, sage, oregano and chives as herbs. And we keep a happy basil plant on the inside.