I'm going to have a go at growing my own this year. I bought seeds yesterday. We are lucky we have a large sunroom which faces south at the back of the house, so i'm going to start my seedlings in there. Any hints or tips would be appreciated
I'm going to have a go at growing my own this year. I bought seeds yesterday. We are lucky we have a large sunroom which faces south at the back of the house, so i'm going to start my seedlings in there. Any hints or tips would be appreciated
Well my method has always been. Stomp them in the ground and stand back! My grandfather would be proud. The package should have instructions on the back. Plant them about an inch down and water. A couple of seeds in each pot in case one doesn't sprout and they can go into the ground together.I'd use a container that I could cut the bottom off of because you really don't want to disturb the new roots. Use a jiffy pot if you can get them. Then you can just pop them in the ground when all frost is gone. Create a little hill of dirt around them for good drainage. You can grow them on a trellis but I just let mine run wild since I've got a large lot ( 1 acre). I plant corn with them because the raccoons don't like the spiky leaves.Be forewarned. When they are ready you will be picking every day. They grow fast and furious. Scrub the spines and dirt off and get to work. Hope this helps.
Hi Linda, Karen is correct. You do need good drainage and a trellis really helps. If you look on my profile picture you will see the pickles that I did not get to quick enough for the size that I wanted for my dill pickles. I only planted 3 seeds in a large container (started the seeds in a jiffy) they took off like crazy and I had so many I was giving them away to people for their salads when they got to big. I put up about 10 quart jars of dill for gifts. I only eat them once in awhile. I also do the cold refrigerator method. I have to refrigerate the jars as soon as they are filled and cooled. I actually have a couple of jars in my refrig right now and when my Nephew came in from WI, over the holidays I served a few with lunch and they were still nice and crisp. I was able to give them a couple of jars to take home with them. Good luck. Also, I hope you bought the correct package. Some say pickles and some say cucumbers. If you are going to use them for pickling you should have the package that says pickles.
Thanks so much for the replies. Maybe I should have elaborated a bit more. Where I live is a former 13,500 cattle ranch that has been switched over to 2 and 5 acre residential lots. the big problem is that the resident deer are protected and roam at will all over the place. We have our back yard fenced but they still get in, so I have to grow in big pots in the sunroom, maybe I can build a trellis for them on the side of the house. The main reason I want to grow my own is that I have a lot of forward orders from my Farmers Market customers for Dill and bread and butter and the cumbers i got from the wholesaler last year were less than satisfactory, I had to throw half of them away. I'll put a picture of our sunroom up later when i get it from Steve's computer, it's big
This is a shot of our sunroom, while it was still under construction, bit of a mess lol. You will note that we have cactii gardens in the yard, that's the only thing the deer leave alone
sunroom.jpg
Omg I would kill for that room! Where my house is I had 3acres and I had several hundred respberry plants so the deer had plenty to munch on.....the groundhogs gave me big problems.
It's a really nice place to chill out in. You can't see from the picture that our Koi ponds are sunk into the deck and that keeps our fish safe from preditors. We can actually roll it back in summer and it stacks at either side of the patio.
I should have added for Basil, the seeds that I bought are Sumter pickling cukes.
I would have that room packed with a ton of plants......and a hotub of course,lol
Unfortunately although I have room for plants, there is no room for a hot tub, a lot of the area is taken up by the koi ponds, those are essential because our business in Koi Pond Installation and supplying pumps and all kinds of filtration equipment
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