Plant food for piggies.

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Midge&Panda

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Just a query for those gardeners on the forum, when growing for pigs do you use plant food and if so which one. I know salad and vegetables from the supermarket are grown with plant food/ chemicals but I would rather not and be as organic/chemical free as possible. Thanks
 
I dont use any plant food on my veg that i grow for the boys, just water. All mine have grown fine, the only problem i had was when i grew the basil something ate it all when it was just ready to be picked! So now i have it in a separate pot and hopefully it will grow.

If you have a issue with snails/slugs ive heard that egg shells can work, if you break some up and place around the plants then they wont want to come near them.

:)
 
I don't use anything either. My French beans and carrots have been harvested and enjoyed, lettuces did very well, and courgettes and cucumbers are nearly ready to be picked. :)
 
I don't use anything either. My French beans and carrots have been harvested and enjoyed, lettuces did very well, and courgettes and cucumbers are nearly ready to be picked. :)

Laura how long have you ben waiting for your cucumbers to grow?

I have been waiting for ages! Only now the flowers have come on them, they are outside as i bought the marketmoor outdoor cucumbers, they are only small ones but enough for my two boys.

:)
 
Well I sowed one variety and they are still very slow growing, same stage as yours and they were sown in June. I can't remember the type, but they were a mini variety of some sort.

My mum sowed cucumbers around then and they're thriving, should be ready in about a week as they're growing a good inch a day!
 
I must admit I've been feeding my veg with conventional liquid tomato & general purpose feeds. I much prefer the idea of truly organic but wasn't confident enough that my plants would grow if I didn't give them some kind of boost! Glad to hear that others have managed to harvest good crops with just water though - I'll try next year, maybe with some chicken manure etc if I can stand the awful stench!

I haven't used any shop-bought products for pest control though and have just relied on companion planting and coffee grounds. I have a trough of spring onions in front of my carrots and so far haven't had any probs with carrot fly....touch wood!
 
I use organic dried poultry manure - we buy it in 7.5KG tubs for about 5 pounds. A little goes a long way. It's great for leafy veg like spinach and lettuce. Carrots and beetroot grow better without fertiliser - otherwise you get lots of leafy tops but small carrots or beetroot.

Tomatoes, courgettes, cucumbers, & peppers all need far more potassium to make their 'fruits' than is normally available from the compost or poultry manure (which is high in nitrogen); I therefore do use liquid tomato food on them as I found that I had zillions of flowers but no tomatoes. It's only when I started to use the feed that I got a decent crop of tomatoes. (I hope to buy an organic liquid tomato feed one next year, which you can get.)

Iron phosphate slug bait is certified organic; it kills the slugs but is harmless to pets and wildlife.

At the moment mine are eating:

Pea pods, which they love (we're massive fans of peas in this house)
Carrot tops
Beetroot tops
Pea plants (when they've finished producing)
Spinach (that's gone to seed)
Cabbage (occasionally)

Soon they'll be eating the above, plus:
Sweetcorn leaves and silks.

Plus the usual weeds which always seem to be growing in the vegetable patch, and those that are in the lawn (which they're on all day every day, except in winter).
 
The dried commercial stuff doesn't really smell. I can smell it when I've first used it, but it's not offensive.

The stuff I've been using is a tub of Homebase own-brand pellets and the smell is vile! Next year I plan to experiment with home made comfrey fertilizer and things like that. I'm pretty new to this so I'm just learning as I go along.

It sounds like you really know your stuff, so feel free to join in with Laura's "Guinea Gardeners" thread, if you haven't already! :)
 
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