New gardener looking for advice

[Choggy]

Hi all,

I'm really looking forward to beginning gardening and to eating the fruits (and vegetables) of my labour. Having tried to read around the subject a bit, I'm beginning to get a bit bewildered by the massive variety of different seeds which seems to be on offer.

I'd really appreciate some advice on which varieties I'll stand the best chance with, where I should buy them and so on. If there's a good reliable online shop, that'd be ideal.

I'm based in London in the south of the UK and I've been to local DIY shops and seen that they usually only have one or two varieties of each vegetable seed on offer. They may have two or three different types of potatoes, but for spinach or tomatoes they've usually only got one type. Is this going to be because they're the "standards" that "most people" want to grow, or because they're the best suited to the area or because they're the cheapest or what?! And how do I tell!? Or maybe I'm just getting too bogged down in it and should buy a few packets and try them?

I love spinach and definitely want to grow it, but I do know that you need to harvest about half an acre's worth to make one small portion of cooked spinach and my garden really isn't all that big. So at first I'll probably be cutting it young and eating it raw in salads, but later on I'll perhaps want to eat the adult leaves, cooked. Is there a variety which tastes good when it's cooked as well as raw, or should I grow two different varieties?

I'm also keen to grow rocket and lambs lettuce. I'm not keen on bitter salad leaves: does anyone have any suggestions for other cut-and-come-again salad leaves I might like?

I'd definitely like to grow carrots, spring onions, garlic and perhaps ordinary onions - but again there seems to be a bewildering variety. Does anyone have any advice on the best to choose? Does it just depend on what taste you want, or are some (as I suspect) more resistant to cold, insects (I plan to grow the carrots and spring onions together), rot etc?

I'm so full of questions and really don't know where to turn! Can anyone answer those questions I've posed already and perhaps point me to some wonderful website aimed at beginners that I haven't yet found?!

Thanks in advance

Choggy

[opabinia51]

Wow, looks like you have lots of questions there,

I'll answer your questions about the lack of variety of seed at what I'm guessing are local nurseries.

They have seed distributors from which they acquire the seeds and the distributors usually sell hybrid seeds and common hybrid seeds that people are familiar with. This does not mean that these are the best seeds to use or the best varieties.

In fact with tomatoes, hierloom varieties (over 500 different heirloom varieties of tomatoe are out there) have much more flavour, are sometime very resistant to diseases and just look amazing! Black tomatoes have a slightly smokey flavour and are very good for your heart as they have a higher concentration of lycopene (the red pigment in tomatoes) that do non black tomatoes.

Currant tomatoes are tiny little guys about the size of a currant but, wow are they flavourful and not to mention sweet!

Anyway, the list goes on with tomatoes. There are a wide variety of heirloom eggplants out there including some green varieties, all sorts of different coloured heirloom varieties of carrots out there however, the orange ones do tend to be the sweetest, Heirloom varieties are corn tend to be smaller but are really good.

Anyway, there is a huge diversity of seed to choose from of plants that you usually won't find in markets so, I would advise you to try growing some wierd and wonderful varities of seed and see what works for you.

Some plants (like tomatoes) need to be started indoors in about Feb or March so, you will need grow lights for that.

Gardening isn't hard, it's actually quite rewarding.

Read the established threads in the organic forum and here to get an idea of how to grow the best, healthiest and tastiest plants and keep in mind that when you are walking around a nursery that what you will see are synthetic fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides which are all not good only for the soil, your plants and your health but, are also not good for the land and the Oceans.

Organic gardening is cheaper, requires less work in the long run and has less incidenses of disease and you can eat things right out of the garden as apposed to having to wash and scrub all the chemical residues off of them first.

[Newt]

Hi Choggy,

Opabinia has given you some great info so I won't repeat that, but you did ask about growing carrots and spring onions together. They are good companions. Here's some helpful sites about companion planting that you should find helpful. These first two shows what to plant to attract beneficial insects and what to plant to repel the bad guys.
https://www.moonsweb.com/companions.shtml
https://www.minifarmhomestead.com/gardening/companionplant.htm
https://www.eap.mcgill.ca/Publications/EAP55.htm
https://www.ghorganics.com/page2.html

Newt

[garden girl]

Everyone finds a favorite seed company or several. I like Territorial and Thompson and Morgan among others. Find a site and order whatever makes you want to taste it right now. If it's not the time of year for a certain veggie, don't worry, the seeds keep for several years. Make it fun, I've been gardening for a while and will always have questions! To tell you the truth, I have learned the most from experimenting and making "mistakes" ! If you are getting discouraged, plant some beets, they come up so quick and are easy, you'll feel like an accomplished gardener in no time! (maybe it just makes me more patient while I'm waiting for other things to grow, maybe both???)