Soil, Preparation & Techniques for sowing vegetable and herb seeds... Help!

Hello,

I'm hoping to start growing a few things myself this year and although I know when to sow the seeds (thanks to RHS), I am completely lost when it comes to soil and preparation! Can anyone explain what soil I need to buy as I am using pots, and what preparation I need to be doing?

I am hoping to grow:

Rocket
Garlic
Tomatoes
Basil
Peppers


Thanks

 

Rodeo, I presume you are using pots because you have no alternative. Plants can do very well in pots, but you must remember that they will be entirely reliant on you for everything such as water and food. Its usually better to put plants in the ground when possible, as it allows nature to look after them.

Multipurpose compost will be fine, I am sure. I always mix it with sharp sand to help drainage. I use 2 parts of compost to 1 part of sand. I grow flowers rather than veg - but I don't see any difference in principle. Plants are pretty tolerant and will grow in a wide range of soil/compost material.

You will need to feed them. Most veg have been bred to be heavy croppers, so use up nutrients quite fast. Anything is better than nothing and Miraclegrow will do well. But for fruits (yes tomatoes and peppers are really fruit - the result of sexual union) any one of a number of tomatoe feeds are the best as they contain higher levels of Potassium. In fact I wouldn't bother with two different feeds I would just use a tomatoe feed for all.

 

Rocket - I'm guessing, but a few seeds in a 4" or 5" pot should be fine. Sow a new pot every week or two for succession of harvest.

Garlic - dunno about that.

Tomatoes - one plant per 12" pot, or two plants per grow bag. I would suggest 4 - 6 plants of "normal" tomatoes, and about the same number of Cherry Toms - depends what you like, of course. You will have to support the considerable weight of the plant - just sticking a cane in the pot won't be strong or stable enough.

Basil - 4" or 5" pot, 4 plants to the pot. 2 or 3 pots should be enough. We have a pot in the kitchen and cut what we need - when it gets a bit scraggly I swap the pot for another one (in my case the rest are in the greenhouse) and the original pot will have recovered, and grown new shoots, in a week or two.

Peppers - 8" or 9" pot. One plant per pot. 3 or 4 plants should be enough. If you are buying plants (from garden centre) you might like to try some Green and some Red. (Red ones are just green ones left on the plant a bit longer, but there are varieties which are grown to be better suited to finishing up Green, or Red, when they are harvested)

That's sweet peppers; you can grow chilli peppers too - similar size pots to Sweet peppers, one plant per pot. I grow about 5 or 6 plants and the chilli harvest lasts me 12 months (I dry them and put them in a poly bag). But I grow really hot ones, and I'm the only family member that can eat them! so on that basis you might need to grow more for "all the family" !!

 

If you dont think you'll be very attentive to your plants and that you might miss watering then "water retention granules" mixed in with your compost can be a plantsaver, these will still hold some moisture when the compost is dry.Its handy for those all of a sudden dry and warm days where pots dry out whilst your out or away overnight.

Mulching the tops of the pots will also help stop drying out.

Steve...

 

"water retention granules"

Good idea. Following my first attempt to use these last year I recommend that you mix them into the compost in the bottom half of the pot - those near the top pushed to the surface and then didn't do their job (and I reckon the birds, or something, stole them!)