veg growing Newbies- Feb 2010! lets learn together!

wssla00

Garnet lady- Maisie is amazing!

All my leeks have been destroyed by onion fly the eggs looked like the ones someone earlier had on their chives so be warned- they may be eaten very soon!

oh well. You win some you lose some. I have just planted my christmas pots so hopefully they will be ok!

mrbadexample

GarnetLady wrote: »

It's 14mm lol.

katholicos, we don't want to eat it all at once! :rotfl:

14mm...I think I might be able to beat that when some more of my millefleur have ripened. I assume it is a cherry variety?

Pop a post on the Old Style board - they'll help you get three meals from it. :rotfl:

katholicos

GarnetLady wrote: »

It's 14mm lol.

katholicos, we don't want to eat it all at once! :rotfl:

MBE that chilli is fab! Looks like a little button.

Not sure how much gardening I'm going to get done for the next wee while, because of this -

Maisie the kitten!

oh my goodness, she is adorable! I don't think i would get much gardening done with a cutie like that in the house either!

GarnetLady

wssla00 wrote: »

Garnet lady- Maisie is amazing!

All my leeks have been destroyed by onion fly the eggs looked like the ones someone earlier had on their chives so be warned- they may be eaten very soon!

oh well. You win some you lose some. I have just planted my christmas pots so hopefully they will be ok!

Thanks, yes she is totally fab. Only 6 weeks old, but bright as a button with proper purring and miaowing.

Eek, sorry about your leeks. It was my chives... Will check my leeks later.

mrbadexample wrote: »

14mm...I think I might be able to beat that when some more of my millefleur have ripened. I assume it is a cherry variety?

Pop a post on the Old Style board - they'll help you get three meals from it. :rotfl:

:rotfl:Umm no, well the rest haven't been.

katholicos wrote: »

oh my goodness, she is adorable! I don't think i would get much gardening done with a cutie like that in the house either!

She's currently upside down on my knee trying to catch my hair, she was asleep 5 minutes ago.

berkshirelady

Hi to all my fellow newbies..blimey, I think the last time I posted was back in the Spring. Then the gardening (and the new job) took over!

So I guess it's time I reported back on my patio container gardening exploits...(and all my guesses at returns are based on what I'd normally pay for stuff at the supermarket)

Spring Onions - first batch sown late March, came through in June, did fantastically well. Outlay on compost & seeds approx £3, probably had about £10 worth...so so planted a 2nd batch late June, coming up nicely!

Rocket - planted April, came up mid June - had about 6 or 7 quids worth from a small gro bag. Gave another gro bag to my sis, she hd a good crop too. Have let it go wild, hoping to get seeds. 2nd & 3rd batches massacred by flea beetles :-(

Mixed salad leaves - sowed April, came up June, just finishing - went completely overboard and ended up with 4 gro bags and 8 pots! spent about a tenner, but have had the equivalent of 3-4 big salad bags per week for 3 months. And have given loads away. One gro bag went to my sis, she had non stop salad for 6 weeks. Maybe about £80worth all together? 2nd batch (free seeds from BBC Dig In) gerninating in propogator, fingers x'd for batch 2 harvest before Autumn sets in.

Cherry tomatoes, coming through now. Probably cost more to keep & feed, but taste so much nicer than shop bought.

Various herbs - probably spent about a fiver. Have used so many in salads and cooking, estimate maybe £30 worth if bought fresh at the shop. Now harvesting coriander seeds for autumn curries.

Potatoes - massive loss leader, probably ended up costing about £5 a pound, but they tasted good :-)

Carrots, sown March, came up late June, still going - probaby made a slight loss, pots not big enough, were all spiral shaped, tasted good but probably won't bother next year.

Courgettes - got 2 small plants in late May, one was given to me, the other cost a quid. Still going - cost me about £4 for the plants and compost. So far reckon I've had about £6 worth, enough to make some nice pasta sauces!

Aubergine - plant was given to me. not quite there yet, but looking good.

Chillies - 2 plants for a quid each, in late May. so far 6 giant fruits and more on the way. In the freezer for autumn curries.

Garlic - pulled it a bit too soon but ate it in pasta sauces anyway! will have another try next year.

Sweet peppers - on the way, first specimens taste lovely!

Chinese cabbage - seeds given to me by a mate Sown July. totally destroyed by flea beetles. boo.

Sunflowers - grown for my nephew - sown March, planted out May. Now 8ft tall.

One thing I haven't factored in yet is the water bill as I've had to get out there with the watering can most nights since May.

But...I've discovered a hobby that keeps me fit (lost 8lbs since March), has saved me ££s on food bills, has got me outside (and a tan, yey!), has given me hours if not days of pleasure, and has essentially cost me nothing, given what I've had back from my outlay.

So that's it, I'm hooked - already looking forward to planning next year's crop!

Hope you've all been having as enjoyable a time as I have, and the tips I've got from here have been great - thanks again

:-) :-) :-)

wssla00

Evening all hope you are all well! Garden is still going great guns! All my new seeds came including the nun's bellybuttons plus a free gift of Fat lazy blonde (a heritage lettuce) I do like funny names!

I am going to sort them out into date order later this weekend!

Have a good weekend all I am trying onion from seed and doing them in the greenhouse hopefully will protect them from onion fly!

pookiewn

Ham house (an NT property) is growing fat lazy blonde, it looked really nice!

katholicos

It has been raining here for days now and I can;t get outside to do any harvesting as i would like to. I know there are courgettes waiting to be harvested and some mangetout, don't know what else as haven;t been able to get out.

Heads up for anyone who is interested...i went to Asda this evening and found that they were selling off some Suttons mini propogators with with 12 small coir grow disc things in them and also some seeds for sowing. On the Suttons website they are £2.99 but they are only 75p in the Asda i went in. Don't know if this is in all their stores but certainly worth having a look if you are passing. I'm probably going to give a lot of the seeds away and use the propogators and coir disk things to sow toms, peas etc next year.

thacky

thacky wrote: »

@ katholicos

Can you give us more details about your dehydrator? I'd never heard of this before but now I'm intrigued. I Googled it and see there is a very wide price range so I was wondering about yours and also what sorts of produce you have dried.

Thanks

katholicos - I'm repeating this because you never answered me - if you don't want to then fair enough but I thought you might have missed the post?

mrbadexample

thacky wrote: »

katholicos - I'm repeating this because you never answered me - if you don't want to then fair enough but I thought you might have missed the post?

I'd also be interested to know what you're dehydrating, and what the results are like please katholicos.