I always have celery, spinach and silverbeet in the garden and over summer will add lettuce and tomatoes.  I'm tempted to try peppers but have heard varied reports on how easy they are to grow - my aim is to be able to make salads easily without buying anything.  If I get my other vege patch up and running I'd be keen to add potatoes and carrots.

In terms of fruit I have two blueberry bushes, strawberries, lemon and mandarin trees (although these are very young so I'm guessing I won't get much fruit if any yet).

What fruit / veges do you grow and what do you think are the most cost effective to grow rather than buy?  And does anyone have tips on feeding citrus in pots??

I don't have a vege garden yet, but am planning on doing one soon.  I'll come back here later  for some tips

heaf3 is there anything special you need to do with pumpkins?  The last time I grew them they didn't really get past very small green things.  They had grown from pumpkin seeds I'd just thrown into the garden - which is what I'm kind of planning to do this time but any tips would be appreciated.

I'm also going to try capsicum from seeds.  Fingers crossed it works - I figured I might as well try it and see what happens.

Myonlineself that's my style of gardening!!  I have such a big section that was very porrly maintained before I moved in so I'm doing a mixture of planting bits and pieces and cutting back all sorts of things.  There are huge piles of weeds and overgrown trees everywhere.  I put a couple of tomatoes in today - a bit early but they did pretty well last year at this time. - over the week I weeded enough space to pop them in!  Next job is to remove all the crap from the place I want to create my compost bin.

haha Jazzy.  Where are you?  If you were in Wgtn I'm sure we could build something together.  All you need is the wood cut to the size you want and then a stake to pop in each corner to secure them to the ground and each other (according to a friend who has done it).  I'm keen to make one but can't afford the wood at the moment - plus then I'd have to fill it and I think my aim ought to be filling up the one I have first!

I have a greenhouse and that currently has in it, tomatoes, cucumber, courgettes, beans, chillis, capsicum, basil  and a few other ramdoms things like an eggplant.

Outside I have carrots, spring onions, peas, silverbeets, cabbage, beetroot in already and a few things are almost ready.

I ahve 2 grape vines, a raspberry, bosenberry, 2x passion fruits, lemon, lime, orange, manderin, tangello and fejoia trees in as well.

I still have a few more things to do before we can plant everything out.

The only thing I found with growing peppers (capsicums) was that the birds got into them pretty quickly, so its worth sticking net over them. I have had great success with apple cucumbers too, they are tasty in salads and grow with no assistance!!! I am gutted - we just moved house and I had to leave our vege garden and fruit trees behind. I dont have room for one here, so am just going to stick some herbs and lettuces in pots!

Any ideas what else grows well and easily in pots?

Tomotoes do Freckle. You can grow almost anything in a pot.

I got all inspired over the weekend too.  I cleared a whole pile of weeds and gorse and moved a whole pile of soil into my raised bed.  When I have some money I'm going to buy beans, celery (because mine is not looking good - I think it's too old!) and spinach (because I use so much of it).  I have pepper seeds in a tray and one of my pumpkin seeds has sprouted (Yay!).  Next plan is to get some spring onion seeds in too - I've not had much success with them yet but hopefully this time!  Might try potatoes and carrots too.

Oh...does anyone know how to take seeds from broccoli that is going to seed?  I will google it but any tips would be great.  My one plant that wasn't devoured by snails looks like it isn't going to amount to much.

We were very active in our garden on the weekend. I have tomatoes, beans, peas, courgettes, cucumbers, beetroot, eggplant and a few other things in the ground now.

Aethalia, you will need to box the garden in and cover it with chicken wire.

Yeah if you are wanting to grow climbers you will need to fence it off then, but then chickens can find ways of getting in there too. Good luck with that.

I've asked the OhBaby team to consider giving us a separate section for gardening up by the craft and recipes bit.  They are going to consider it at their next meeting.  I figured there are enough of us that it might be good to be able to break up our questions / comments for easier locating.

Dzinergirl I have found that silverbeet and spinach will grow for me anywhere.  In this garden I also find that celery grows easily and had great success with cherry tomatoes last year.  I'm the kind of gardener who does little bits now and then so those were all things that grew without huge input or care from me.

Aethalia hmmmm...that system sounds great but a tad outside my budget at the moment!!  I guess I will just have to stop being lazy and water everything properly!!

Mine is weirdly green at times - and pink at others!  I have some fantastic looking roses and some great veges and then other things just don't seem to grow at all.  Spring onions are my current challenge!

Yay for having a gardening section!  Thanks OhBaby!

We might have to start breaking up our topics a bit.  I'm struggling to keep track in one big thread.  Whoever mentioned the egg cartons - great idea!  I'm thinking I'm going to have to ask friends and family to donate theirs if they don't need them.  I haven't had huge amounts of luck growing from seed but am quite keen to perfect it now.

And shade...I'm not sure what veges grow well in shade.  I'm pretty lucky and get decent sun where I am at the moment.

DJ - I think that might be the website I found too.  It looks pretty good.  I keep meaning to print out a wee table of when to plant but so far have been too lazy.

My tomotoes I grew from seed are doing very well. I had a few people come around to my place and take a few extras I had left over. The ones I have are growing in the garden now!!

I still have the last of my winer crops about to be ready to pick and then I can turn that all over and start again with some summer veges.

I am waiting on dirt to arrive at my place and we are going to be putting more potatoes in the ground and the next thing I am doing is sprouting kumra to have a go at growing that.

Becks, do you just use kumara that you would otherwise eat?  And if so, what do you do with it?  I'd be keen to have a go at kumara as well.  We are starting to eat more and more of it.

Kelz that makes me laugh given that I just went and spent a wee bit more on seeds than I had anticipated!  I just keep thinking that hopefully they will more than pay for themselves with produce.  I'm really keen to reduce spending on fruit and veges until the point at which we are self sustaining from that perspective.

I have had no luck growing capsicum from seed but I got 4 plants from bunnings last year and they were amazing. I was still getting capsicums in May . I have saved some of the seeds from them and am giving them a go, but not expecting much. Will definitely get more from there this year as well paid for themselves. I also roasted some and put in jars along with garlic. Have had great success with garlic the last 2 years. Bought seedlings this year as was not organised enough to get my own in the garden. Also had great results with shallots last year. Had loads of tomatos too, even though was a supposedly bad year for toms. Have frozen lots and also made roast vege pasta sauce. Love getting the results from my garden, not quite as keen on doing all the work that goes with it .

I get a weekly email from NZ Gardener that has q&A, what to plant, 5 top tasks for the weekend, lots of competitions etc. I find this useful (especially when I win stuff ). You can sign up to it from the website.

I thought I had replied to you girls - sorry not sure what happened.

Yep I am using a kumera that I would of eaten, it is currently growing sproats so I can plant them out.

I also get the emails on a Friday (now getting 3 of them) that has lots of info in it.

In terms of good books, Dennis Greville has a couple of good ones that go through heaps of different vege/herbs as well as diseases and fungus that can kill plants and gives you suggestions (both chemical and organic) ways to deal with them. I still refer back to these regularly. They are the ones that I used when starting to garden and found them so easy to follow. Also gives ideas on how to structure garden, crop rotation and companion planting. They weren't too expensive either.

Nope at the moment it is sitting on the window sill in the porch growing sprouts and once it has them I am going to read up again and work out what to do. I think you take the sprouts off and plant them but I am going to bucket grow them first time growing.

Your rasberry should do ok if its a large pot lil_lease? I would try it anyway.

I've just planted out a capsicum as well as an apple cuccumber, have my tomatoes, lettuces and cauli all waiting for this weekend lol. It's probably still a little early for the tomatoes but meh, I won't be able to physically bend down soon and I want everything in before bubs comes!

I am going to have tomatoes for Africa...I got a bit excited and bought 18 plants..oops. And strawberries! OMG I have about 14 plants in the ground and another 10 or so in tubs...hmmm I shall be making lots of jam hehe. And our Xmas plums will be here about the same time as bubs....eeeekkk I'm gonna be inundated!

Must start a swap-a-thon lol

Wow Emmecat you are going to be one buys woman!

I love the idea of being able to swap veges when there is a surplus.  I just don't know huge numbers of people who do a lot of growing and live close by.

lol HM....I got carried away, I'm no gardener, just have hopes one day I can be fairly self sufficient (for when peak oil happens hehe).  I plan to do most of the planting this weekend, meant to be nice on Monday so hopefully the seedlings can make it till then.....

Hmmm I have a couple of friends who I swap stuff with...not ness like for like though iykwim? I might give a friend some veges and she'll make Clodagh a nappy or a dress etc. That's the theory anyway! I'd love to organise something that involved more people though!   We have to start finding ways of using 'other' types of currency than cold hard cash IMO....

We were very busy over labour weekend as well. everything but my capsicum is now planted out into pots or the ground. Just waiting for the nights to warm up before I plant my capsicum into the ground and the chills can leave the greenhouse.

Still have some more potatoes and lettuce to plant out but we are doing well for everything to take off with the warmer weather.

I have a courgette growing!!!!

Next exciting thing in my garden the cucumbers are growing their vines!!! and I have flowers on my tomatoes.

Becks is there anything I need to know about planting my cucumber?  I've never grown one before.  I'm assuming they need lots of room?

I put my peppers in pots outside today.  Four in total and I've popped another few seeds in to germinate.  I figure it's better to have too many rather than too few, especially as they are an experiment.

My roma tomatoes aren't looking that fabulous.  I'm hoping they survive but I'm not sure they will.

They vine like Pumpkins so long as they have room to roam they are fine - well mine was the last time I grew it.

Another thing you can do with the cucumber plants is only let have a couple of vines out so it concentrates more on producing cucumbers rather than keep growing everywhere.

Most of my garden is in now, so happy it is finally done, just wating for the seeds to start popping through.

Right, cucumber is in.  I have no idea what kind it is - the label just says green cucumber!  It will be interesting to see how successful it is.  I have decided I need to get serious about feeding all these plants so will have to go shopping i think.

I'm also quite keen on the worm farm idea.  Might have to save that one for next year though unless I find something around the house that I can convert.

Oh yay!  Thanks Mucky Tiger.  I also hadn't really thought about providing it with anything to climb over so I think I'll deal with that once the kids are in bed.  Plus give all my plants a very thorough water as it's been a beautiful sunny day here today. 

Does anyone have any celery seeds they want to swap for something else?  Or if in Wgtn, celery seedlings?  That's the one thing I don't have in yet and I love celery!  I had about 6 plants last year and my last two are just about ready to be composted.

I haven't tried celery from seed yet I buy the plants.

I have peas growing now, so excited when things pop up all the time!!!

I haven't tried celery from seed either - and I'm not the most patient of people so I might just head to Bunnings for a punnet.  Given that they are only about $2 I should stop putting it off.

My spring onions are finally coming through.  For some reason mine have never really grown so fingers crossed that these ones keep going.  I'm also getting my first roses (totally off the fruit and vege garden topic I know!) through.  So exciting - I love this time of year.

Lisa we had that too with our raspberry, DH was going to pull it out and start again but was told to wait and is so glad he did.

Everything seems to be growing very well at the moment due to the warm damp air we have had over the past fwe days. I have put my watermelon into the ground and it is being covered with a cut bottle over nigth when it is cold. I hacked the bottom leaves off all my tomatoes over the weekend and found tomotoes growing on some plants already!!!

We have had our first strawberry it wsa so nice and really juicy

mmm...I just ate the first of our strawberries.  DS isn't here to have to share it with!  I can't believe how much better they taste!  I only planted 6 plants - next year I think I will have to put in more.

My garden has just exploded, I have a 10cm cucumber that was found this morning.

I weeded the garden today and forgot that I have a gap in my shirt at the back and now I have a red patch on my back.

We ate our first lettuce today it was very nice.