It is, plants in pots dry out so quickly- thats why I'm chuffed its now raining.
not so chuffed to find the 2 sheep have scoffed the variegated buddleia that was about to come into flower in my garden. The bees would have enjoyed that.
It is, plants in pots dry out so quickly- thats why I'm chuffed its now raining.
not so chuffed to find the 2 sheep have scoffed the variegated buddleia that was about to come into flower in my garden. The bees would have enjoyed that.
I love this time of year ... so much good stuff to harvest ... cream of the crop is the garlic. Wet garlic tastes so different to dry garlic... I like to roast it with a bit of olive oil and eat it on it's own, or spread over a crusty pain tournet ... scrummy!
I harvested my first tomato yesterday
I put up more bamboo supports today, and spotted my first baby cucumber! It's cute!
I've just harvested 10kg garlic ... where am I going to put it all hopefully I'll get around to tying them into garlic ropes rather than shoving it all in a heap. I'll post a picture if I get round to it/they turn out ok.
Anybody have a favourite garlic recipe to share? I've had lots of oven baked wet garlic and some garlic soups.
Bumper weed harvest here... can't turn your back for ten days eh?
Problematic is waking someone whom pretends to sleep.
Just harvested 10.5kg Charlotte potatoes I'm freezing some of them and giving lots away as I don't eat potatoes very often (partner would eat them for brekkie, lunch and dinner!).
No sign of any butternut squash though. Lots of growth and flowers but no fruits .. .I can't stand the waiting!
Loads of French beans, but the runner beans are taking their time. And the brassicas are growing like billyo!
I'm growing corn for the first time ... can anybody tell me roughly how many cobs I can expect per plant? The most I've got at the moment is two ... but most still only have one? My partner swears once I've tasted home-grown corn I'll never buy it again (I don't buy it anyway ... I'm not that great a fan!)
lets see now.....1 to 2 cobs per plant is normal.
can you freeze potatoes then? i never knew that - have you done it before??
did butternut squash last year and only got a few fruit - too much ground taken up with fruitless plants in our opinion and we didn't grow them this year.
our runner beans are going well with lots of pretty red flowers but dward beans are a let down and the peas are a bit too. we won't bother with them next year, we haven't grown enough to really make a meal or a difference.
just finished savagely thinning out lower leaves from polytunnel toms and tying them up to top supports. slugs have taken most of our carrots overnight and parsnips don't seem to be too good this year.
funny how success changes yearly.....had lovely early 'home guard' spuds though and hope to dig some pir fir apple spuds this week.
cutting and eating yellow & green courgette and chard too.
must take some photos soon.
So I've sprayed my garden with a garlic solution and covered the whole thing in ground black pepper. Result: slugs and squirrels are leaving the plants alone! I wish I had discovered this before 90% of plants were destroyed. At least I know better for next year.
Now, if i could just discover what's eating my basil.
Cheers,
rant
"Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter." --Yoda
I am a new one for this thread but, with my new cutting back on spending.
I am asking some advice
I dont have a garden. All I have (dont laugh) is a flat roof!
I have suceeded in growing tomatoes in a hanging basket on there before. I will take a picture of it if you like, so you can see what sort of space it is.
What would you do , with a flat roof, the size of an average sitting room.
anyone have any idea of it's potential for growing veggies.
Thankies in advance.
If you put some growbags up there you could grow quite alot of things, is it sheltered from the wind at all and how much light does it get?
"I don't want to live on this planet any more" - Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
It isnt sheltered but, I guess I could findsome way of making it?
It gets loads of sunlight. I have actually slept up there in the winter, and sat there drinkin cider with friends too..its nice
Thanks to GA for this
Concentrate on growing only those vegetables that benefit the most from being picked fresh and take up a small space. Don't grow plants that take up lots of space, have a long growing season or you don't love to eat!
Grow vegetables that are hard to find and not usually on the supermarket shelves, and select varieties for superior taste rather than crop size. Small is definitely beautiful in a tiny vegetable garden. The largest tomatoes are not necessarily the best tasting.
Vegetables suitable for small spaces are generally harvested when young and tender. Thus the growing season is shorter and plants can be cycled through faster. Baby cauliflower, finger carrots, cherry tomatoes, spring onions, there are loads of suitable seeds on the market today.
Grow fewer vegetables of each type. In a large garden we can grow 20 celery plants, in a small space garden you may want to grow only half a dozen, and in a balcony garden two or three plants will provide fresh stalks for cutting.
In courtyards and against a warm wall you can often get planting long before the soil in a traditional garden has warmed enough for planting out and seed sowing.
Succession planting - a few at a time, avoids gluts of produce and ensures that three is always something ready to eat in the garden. Instant salads, carrot snacks, anything is possible.
Growing a few seeds in a propagator or on a windowsill means that you can jump-start the season. Also sow successively, a few seeds at a time, to avoid them all coming ready at once. Fold over the top of the seed packet and store in a cool, dry, dark place, the back of a kitchen cabinet is just fine. The seedling plants can then be introduced into the garden when they are a few inches high to grow to maturity.
Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty!
Thankyou gogs and risker!I am looking for growbags tomorrow il post a pic of me roof too, so you can get general idea
The runner beans I'm growing in tubs are actually doing better than those in the ground. Friends of mine try to grow what costs more in the shops, rather than veg thats available cheaply anyway.
I reckon theres loads of veg to grow in tubs, the main problem is the initial outlay for all the tubs and compost. I've seen topsoil advertised free on freecycle- perhaps thats a way of filling any larger tubs.
You can grow masses on a flat roof ... just make sure it's not a flimsy one!
Here are some ideas ... http://www.veganforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20200
A herb pot is always handy. I've recently bought 2 large shallow pots for growing herbs. You can grow several different kinds in each.
The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well
Well done, sugarmouse - I think you may have discovered the solution to the slug problem we've all been struggling with
- unless you have very fit slugs anyway!
I sprinkled black pepper on the plants and kind of around them in a circle. So, the black pepper covered a full circle with the plant in the center. My garden continues to be slugfree and mostly squirrelfree. I renewed the garlic solution last night.
No, not until last night when I made fresh pesto. Delicious!
Cheers,
rant
"Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter." --Yoda
you can grow several things in one pot too sugarmouse.
a tom plant say, a basil plant, a chilli - multi planting, that kind of thing.
have fun with it mostly!
small bowl of garden bounty
ickle froglets in my pond
I love the colours of rainbow chard.
I noticed a greater beauty of Nasturtium flowers yesterday aswell, not just from their sweet and milder taste [than the leaves]; Thanks for that one Linda.
Cedarblue... do you put big leaves under your squashes to keep them off the soil?
Problematic is waking someone whom pretends to sleep.
Cute frogs and great looking produce Cedar!!!
Cute Frogs
I just looked outside at the pond and there was about 10 of the tadpoles eating a snail that'd fallen in ..
Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe-Albert Einstein
Here's today's harvest from my veggie garden.
I've got a huge pan of ratatouille on the stove. I've roasted the custard white marrows with some garlic which I'll freeze to turn into soup in the winter.
I ate loads of the cherry tomatoes before I got out of the polytunnel! But the rest I'll turn into a soup with ginger wine.
I'm going to fry up slices of aubergine with garlic, then top with sliced chillies and a dressing and let them cool to room temperature.
delicious looking veggies, cedar and Aradia!
'The word gorilla was derived from the Greek word Gorillai (a "tribe of hairy women")'
Well done Aradia.!... times like those the rest of the world could disappear for a while.
I grubbed up some garlic yesterday ... it is sooo fresh... no dry skin on it, and just a bit different inside.
My garlic habit is beyond hiding recently.
I have access to a new digital camera which needs testing, so hopefully I can find some interesting angles of my allotment.
Problematic is waking someone whom pretends to sleep.
Much as I'd like to take the credit, it's really down to the sun, the soil and water ... I just watch, and tidy up after them a bit
Make the most of your wet garlic while you have it .. it dries sooo quickly! I love it roasted with a bit of oil or stock/wine ... or raw in salads. YUM!
what is the difference in taste 'tween wet & dry garlic?
It's milder and sweeter. Less pungent, though still very very garlicy. It is much more like a vegetable then a seasoning.
Waitrose sometimes sell it, as your local farmers market will. Probably too late for it now though, but keep your eyes peeled.
beans & onion for yesterdays dinner
pink fir apple potatoes
and now some queries;
these little critters have stripped my nasturtium clean away - anyone identify the caterpillers?
and i have some toms in my polytunnel which seem to be growing lateral roots down the lower end of the stalk, anyone any advice on cause or remedy?
part 2
my toms are still all green in the tunnel. perhaps i planted them too close together and too much foliage to colour up? i have been stripping the lower leaves off and some in between.
aradia, how far apart do you plant your toms? have you a photo of the inside of your tunnel please?
Pink Fir pots .. . *jelous, jelous, jelous* !!!
You tomatoes are getting shoots on the stem because they've been touching the ground I'll bet... did your plant fall over? or maybe a side shoot grew on and you didn't notice it awhile? It's normal , it's creating a "runner" for itself.
Don't worry about your toms still being green , they are even here in southern France. loads of my polytunnel toms are still green and all of the outdoor ones.
My toms are about 50cm apart. Will try and put a polytunnel shot up for you in the next day or two.
Are these like your caterpillars, cedar -
http://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to...-caterpillars/
I know they are meant to go for nasturtiums as well as cabbages
damn. beautiful vegatables and gardens... was gonna post mine but its pretty pathetic lol maybe next year. I'll definately be looking to this forum for inspiration when the spring rolls around
yes ichyban, all growing is good growing!
I had two big tomatoes that looked about to ripen next week. Someone stole them, and ripped all the leaves of lettuce off of my teeny weeny plant. The tomatoes were still green, and the lettuce was NOTHING!! I hate the ghetto. Months of work, and 2/3 of the tomatoes that grew. And, when I discovered it, I noticed my eggplant was droopy, so I went to see if it needed support. When I picked it up, it snapped an inch from the ground...........GREAT.
jerks.
Each snowflake in an avalanche pleads not guilty.
I hope you find lovely gardens soon snivellingchild. Perhaps the ghetto needs tougher pioneer plants which most folk do not recognize as being edible.
You might find something here :
http://www.ibiblio.org/pfaf/D_canned.html
Run by vegans... Some seeds available.
Problematic is waking someone whom pretends to sleep.
we're mizz today. our toms have all perished from tomato blight - just been out ripping them all out
still, there is still good stuff coming from the ol' patch
I'm pretty sure all my cucumber plants died in the storm, and so far they've been the only plants to bring me fruit. In the next few days, I'll see if they come back to life.
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