veg growing Newbies- Feb 2010! lets learn together!

antonia1

Hiya

I had my first taste of success this weekend - finally able to harvest some lettuce leaves for my burgers on saturday night :j. A most rewarding exerience!

Other than that:
- chillis are going really well, some flowers on them just now. Gave one to a colleague who had trouble with his own
- peppers small but still growing. Moved them to a sunnier spot
- cucumbers in final pots, growing really quickly
- one courgette has totally wilted, I think the stem has rotted. Two still alive tho, thinking of sowing more
- strawberries finally have some flowers
- only two carrots germinated, but I think thats because the squirrel disturbed them, so will sow more
- French beans seem to have been stunted, but again moved to a sunnier spot, the second sowing are growing marvellously
- only two cabbage germinated, so sown morw
- four cauliflowers growing slowly but surely, so have moved them outside and sown some more
- about 10 parnips showing, will sow some more tonight
- second sowing of salad leaves started to show this morning, very exciting

I'm turning in to a proper garden geek, its pretty much all I talk or think about these days!

lunar

Antonia, we have squirel problems too. He comes into the garden every day to hide his monkeynuts in all my pots! I am also a garden geek now, at least it gets me some exercise being out in the garden.

katholicos

Very showery here today so not able to get out in the garden, not even just to sit out. My water butts are full and my fruit and veg is all watered so for that i am grateful, but i want to pop out to pull a few radish and cut some salad leaves and i can't do that until it stops raining. It did stop for a little while this morning and so i went to give my potatoes a tomato feed.

The bit of sunshine we have had thus far has spoiled me, I want more of it! Though saying that, just dry weather would be okay!

heynonnynonny

Ooooh, you lot are so naughty buying more seeds. Garnetlady said somewhere Thompson and Morgan have got 16% cashback now and it's just set me right off. I can't stop talking about and thinking about plants and veggies..

Oh, what's that I see? Little green strawberries? Waheyyy!!! Bought 5 bareroot runners off eBay, only one survived, had to buy the rest as plants but worth it as I'll use the runners.

Used some salad leaves today, OH loves them...a blessing as he normally doesn't touch anything green and I have to nag him...I'm only 26 I feel like I'm telling him in a mum style fashion.:o

izzwizz_2

LOL! @ heynonnynonny's nagging I'm blessed with a husband who'll eat pretty much anything I put in front of him, and he loves veg too, but that's after 20 years of my cooking so he doesn't know any better these days

Hubby bought a single strawberry plant last autumn and potted up twelve runners from it - they ended up in window boxes and we have some fruit coming so I've got my fingers crossed that they ripen for us before the hens / slugs / snails / mice eat them.

sorry to hear about your rain katholicos - we're having another blessed sunny day in Northern Ireland (we're near the North Coast). According to the forecast it's all to break down tonight, but can't complain at the gorgeous weather this past week. Sadly, the onions haven't liked the heat so much and some of them have bolted so I pulled those up and chopped them up green for the freezer.

It's lovely to read about the veg everyone is starting to harvest from their gardens

izzwizz_2

Meant to ask a couple of quickies - how do you know when the beetroot are ready? And the pak choi?
Do you have to hand pollinate french beans (Blue Lake) if they are in the greenhouse?
Is anyone else having trouble getting the Roma tomatoes to grow UP the cane (mine just seem to like to spread out)

ausmummy

antonia1 wrote: »

Hiya


- only two carrots germinated, but I think thats because the squirrel disturbed them, so will sow more
-

Have you had a little check if they have started off under the soil if a little too deep? Mine were dug up by DD about 4 times and still all survived and the roots are now just starting to form carrots. I also keep finding germinated carrot seedlings as I work my way down a trug full of compost thanks to DD. I'll have clumps of 2 or 3 carrots pop up all around the garden LOL.

kimmee

izzwizz wrote: »

I'm thinking of you at work. I'm supposed to be working from home, but popped out to the greenhouse to check nothing needed watering and ended up pollinating all the tomato flowers with a paintbrush. Then came back in to *start work* on the computer and ended up on here instead . Really must go and do some work! Hope you managed to sleep with all those cravings Oh, and resist the credit card!!!:eek::rotfl:

:rotfl: I could never work from home for exactly the same reason as you - I would either be in the garden or on here :rotfl: Anyway, you did need to pollinate your toms didn't you! I'm just home from work and it's now started raining but hey ho, means I won't have a gazillion pots to water tonite

By the way, yes I did resist the cravings and the card is still safely stashed away in my purse but it's calling me, i know it is!!!!

Also laughing at Heynonnynonnys nagging - sounds like me with my DS's

heynonnynonny

kimmee wrote: »

:rotfl: I could never work from home for exactly the same reason as you - I would either be in the garden or on here :rotfl:

Same here, I check this forum probably every hour if I'm in the house in between dicking about checking veg and watering incessantly! Oooh Izzwizz I'm quite tempted to pollinate my outdoor toms, I just can't trust nature, not seen enough bees around! Also not seen one single slug or ladybird for that matter - slugs - I'm glad about, all you guys who have had problems with them, must be a nightmare.

On another note, I found some plans drawn out on OH desk which look like some kind of greenhouse building idea...I asked him about it and he wouldn't tell me a thing! Girls fingers crossed..I would love a greenhouse!!

soullessfire

Finally lucked out on a couple of dozen larger flower buckets in morrisons (the ones I had were only 5 liter) so I've treated my toms to some new soil to sit in and hoping the extra 3 or 4 inch depth will make them a little happier.

Loads of flowers on the toms. Flowers coming on my spuds too. Even got a teeny set of pumpkins coming so everything's doing what it should.

Had my first set of meals this week. Salads mostly but I used some herbs and spinach last night for some spinach and ricotta pasta which went down very well.