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Growing Your Own Fruit and Vegetables

We grow our own fruit and vegetables for our meals for as much of the year as we can. Without a greenhouse we have to buy shop food in the winter months but in the spring, summer and autumn we often have enough to share with family and friends.

Read about growing your fruit and vegetables here on my growing your own food pages.

Friday 9 January 2015

January - Plan what you will plant this year and choosing which seed potatoes you will buy.

It is that time of year again, when some days the weather makes it difficult to work on your vegetable plot. It is a good idea to decide which variety of potatoes you want to grow.

You will most likely want to buy your seed potatoes while there is plenty of choice available.

Chitting seed potatoes to get them started before you plant them is also something worth considering; (more on that in a future post). For now you can start to save egg cartons to put the potatoes in to chit, which makes them easier to store. Look at the different types of potatoes that are available

The main decisions on what type of potato to grow on the plot is based on which varieties you prefer to eat and cook with. Thinking of them in terms of floury types of potato and waxy varieties will point you in the right direction for choices. Then you need to decide preferred planting and harvesting times of year, the first early types go in the ground first, not yet though, then second earlies, then the main crop potatoes.

Some types of potatoes have resistance to certain pests and potato diseases and some potato varieties will grow well in difficult soil types.

Things to remember:

  • Main crops will take up space on your plot for longer and are also more likely to suffer from blight. An earlier maturing crop might allow you to plant something else there once they are harvested.


  • First early potatoes give you the pleasure of eating home grown new potatoes early in the year. 

a healthy potato plant in flower

a healthy potato plant in flower
photo of potatoes in flower

home grown carrots.. grown from seed

home grown carrots.. grown from seed
photo of my first bunch of carrots 2009

Even a small batch of mixed fruit can be useful

Even a small batch of mixed fruit can be useful
Home Grown Fruit can be made into delicious compote