On Tue, 2 Aug 2005, Ally wrote:


Hello
I'm really keen to start a vegetable garden. I am pretty new to
gardening and am not really sure where to start. I live in Scotland so
can anyone tell me what vegetables I should start with?
Thanks


I am over in Sweden, near Uppsala, and having great success with
koriander. Potato often works as long as you do not continuously
grow it on same ground every year. Beans and peas are usually pretty
easy. My biggest upset has thus far been rabbits and deer eating up
my plants, particularly chick-peas. No idea why such high affinity
of this plant over the many other, but they really go for this plant
and I lost my entire crop. Potatoes and koriander have thus far had
no such problem.

Tomato seems to be somewhat more advanced, and many of the posts
to this list have to do with problems with this plant. On the other
hand, growability of seeds directly from the grocery store tomatoes
have generally been nearly 100%, so if you plant seeds in good
planting soil and maintain temperature around 80 C (greenhouse?) you
should get plants, although much can go wrong when flowering time
comes round.

On a more non-conformist note, Rumex acetosa and dandelion are both
weeds and are edible. I have no problem with rabbits or deer and no
particular soil or growing protocol. As weeds, they just grow on
their own. My only intervention has been to pull other weeds, but even
this is not necessary. I would urge other newbies to consider the
benefits of your local "weeds" as an excellent starter crop.

Dominic-Luc Webb