the daydream fund challenge thread

Lotus-eater

Davesnave wrote: »

Too early yet for planting seeds, especially up north where daylight hours are shorter. There is no advantage going against nature, as plants will make up time 'lost' against those started too early, and be stronger too. Late February should be OK.

That's right, but there are a couple of things you could sow now.
You can sow onion and spring onion seed. I would start them off in a cold room then move them into an unheated greenhouse after germination.
I shall be starting off some chillies in the next week or two (just waiting for this very cold spell to stop). Obviously that will be in a heated propagator.
The reason for this, is that my house is very cold, so my chillies grow very slowly. In a normally heated house, you can start them off in March/April and they will still have loads of time.

Rummer

Davesnave wrote: »

Too early yet for planting seeds, especially up north where daylight hours are shorter. There is no advantage going against nature, as plants will make up time 'lost' against those started too early, and be stronger too. Late February should be OK.

Really? I am so keen to start now! Thank you for being the voice of reason though, guess I will have to wait and plan some more.

Davesnave

Rummer wrote: »

Really? I am so keen to start now! Thank you for being the voice of reason though, guess I will have to wait and plan some more.

It is mainly to do with light levels, as I'm guessing you would be using the windowsills. There you'll get germination, but with nowhere for the seedlings to go for a good while, they will tend to go leggy and be weak.

As Lotus-eater says, it can be worthwhile for onions (forgot those!) and stuff like chillies, though I think with the latter I'd only do a few, then compare with the rest sown later, as an experiment.

It is also cheap enough to gamble with some reasonably winter hardy salad crops in a trough or similar, especially if you are just tempted to sow something.....anything!:D

Rummer

[QUOTE=
It is also cheap enough to gamble with some reasonably winter hardy salad crops in a trough or similar, especially if you are just tempted to sow something.....anything!:D[/QUOTE]

I just want to get started! You are right though I should show patience and wait for the right time of year, I do have plenty of other bits and pieces I should attend to first. Organising and planting is my favourite time of the year, it is the maintaining that I struggle with!

Davesnave

A Happy New Year to everyone who visits this thread!:beer:

We saw 2010 in, standing around a bonfire in our garden, though after two hours we'd only got rid of half the stuff I'd put aside to burn.

DD2 had bought fireworks, so we let them off, but it felt 'wrong' doing that in the countryside. Some people a few fields away had the right idea: flying paper lanterns powered by tea lights; silent and much more in keeping. We'll look out for those in future.

With the 'blue moon,' clear sky and virtually no wind, it was magical.

Hope we all have a good growing season this year. The recent weather will be giving the bugs a hammering, anyway!

choille

Happy New Year All.

The ice is back with avengence - gosh it's cold.

Those Chinese lanterns are causing an increase in UFO sightings!
Sounds like you had a wonderful seeing the New Year in Dave. We spent in with neighbours & slithered home.......

COOLTRIKERCHICK

Just a little quicky update...... just wondering how everyone is in this weather?

we had snow last night... were pretty lucky with the amount we had compared to other places in wales...

why is it when you cant do anything in the garden you got the 'urge' to do things:rotfl:I feel as though i want to go and tidy things up, and get things ready to plant...

2 of our chickens have died recently:o i dont know whether it was age or the weather, at hte moment we have just deep bedded them with loads of straw, and just keep on topping up, once the weather changes and gets alot milder, they will have a dam good clean out..... at the moment just want to keep the heat in for them....

Davesnave

Hi there CTC. I'm a bit bored ATM with all this snow laying about, but I think it will be on the move today. Lots of people trapped in their cars on the main roads in South Devon last night, but I slithered down to the station and back again to pick up DD2 without any major problems, thanks to totally empty roads. Nobody else got off the train!

Sorry to hear about your chooks. When it was -12C and worse, we brought our ferrets in, as there were icicles forming on the inside of their insulated sleeping area! They are pretty dopey at this time of year and hate the snow.

I planted some sandwich greens yesterday in a trough in the conservatory. First thing this year. There's a few hellebores flowering and lots of their seedlings through too. Snow doesn't bother them.

choille

Sorry to hear of your hens CTC. Hope it's not pnuemomnia - probably just their age, but worth having a listen to see that they're not wheezey. I've lost old hens in the past when it's been ridiculously cold.
I need to have a gut out of the hen houses too. We're still slithering about on ice, but it thawed a little the other day - hence burst pipes, but under the outside of the caravan - so no mess really. We've been without water in the caravan for a month so until we replace the pipes later today, it's no hardship at all - got used to carting buckets of water out of the burn. Lucky we managed to get copper pipe & fittings yesterday.
The wind picked up yesterday & would have your face off if you let it.
Can't think of gardening yet, but will dig my box of seeds out of the shed & have a see what I need to buy in.

Rummer

We lost some of our piggies before the weather got really bad so we have brought them back indoors to the house. It looked as if the weather here would clear but it has been snowing all day today which is miserable! So looking forward to starting my planting, I am getting edgy already and keep gazing longingly at my seed packets!