99p shop, Wilkos and our allotment!

beckifitzg

I live in Hemel and i have never ventured into the 99p or the new B&M ( i still think of it as new anyway!) for gardening bits. I usually just go into Wilkos. I'll have to have a look when i'm next in town, although i'm not sure my OH would appreciate me spending any more money

Sounds like you have been very busy!

forgotmyname

Bought some pentland javelin from wilkinsons 20p. Bit late but i couldnt resist a bargain.

Popped them in the weekend. Fingers crossed.

Most of my seeds are from the sunday market/carboot. One of the stalls sells them 4 for £1. Most are price
between £1 and £4 on the packets and still in date. Bargain.

Last year they put the price of the large bags of peas and beans upto 50p though. Still cheap.

newsgroup_monkey

As Splodger Seedswapper pointed out, there's no real reason why you can't plant earlies in July.... all they need is x number of frost free days.

I'm going to give it another go - once my first earlies are up, I'm going to move things around and put in some more.

Salad potatoes in October would be ace!

Becki: The Hemel 99p shop is way better than our one. Haven't been in B&M yet - I get the 'ump with Hemel prices for car parking.

tilly_willow

Just back from a quick browse in Wilko's and they seem to be selling off a fair bit of stuff that seem to be 'end of season' so bagged 4 rhubarb crowns, big bag of pentland javelin seed spuds, a bag of onion sets and 2 bags of freshia bulbs all at 20p each. Realistically I don't expect too much as I think the onions are not all going to be sound and I have my doubts about one of the rhubarb crowns but I thought 20p was worth a try. Oh and the till gave me an extra 30p off so all in all £1-30. (Back to lurking now)

daz501

I would just like to add, that instead of buying those plastic dome propagators, you can use plastic supermarket meat trays. I use a deep one for the soil, and a shallow transparent one for the "roof".

Also, save all your plastic 2 liter pop bottles. These will be useful as cloches or propogators too.

Also, make newspaper pots for your initial seedlings. Potting on from those is easier and saves you money.

Lotus-eater

daz501 wrote: »

Also, save all your plastic 2 liter pop bottles. These will be useful as cloches or propogators too.

We don't drink pop, I never have any of these Would marmite do instead? get through loads of those.

daz501

Lotus-eater wrote: »

We don't drink pop, I never have any of these Would marmite do instead? get through loads of those.

There's loads of discarded bottles that the neighbours would normally put in the recycling bags. I suppose you could ask them to save them for you?

They will be useful in this weather, especially if planting out young lettuces for examples

Lotus-eater

daz501 wrote: »

There's loads of discarded bottles that the neighbours would normally put in the recycling bags. I suppose you could ask them to save them for you?

I suppose I could, I already have all their rubbish cardboard and am known for taking any old carp, they can't think I'm any weirder

newsgroup_monkey

'sok, my neighbours think we're just magpies. Last weekend, we took some 15ft bambo canes and some railway sleepers off a friend. Then our neighbours wanted to demolish a shed so we took the wood off them to mark the lotty boundary. Then they gave us some weed-sheeting and some more stones (we have lots of sandstones now).
We considered taking their other shed, but we don't really have room for it!

newsgroup_monkey

Well, took a trip down the allotment tonight. I guess I'm lucky I'm down south(ish) as we didn't get the winds others had.

Was chatting to an allotment neighbour and he was telling me the other day, he could barely stand up with the wind!

So far, we've been very lucky. About half of my rhubarb has picked itself (well, snapped at the bottom). I've lost a cabbage, a couple of runner beans, a cucumber, a pumpkin and 2 squashes. I've hopefully saved the broccoli.

I do have a question if anyone actually reads my posts

[STRIKE]Purple Headed broccoli - when should you start trimming them? When I see them in tesco, they're very leggy (as mine are). If you pick them, will they come again?[/STRIKE]

EDIT: Ignore. This now has it's own thread here

And looks like my turnips are going to be the same as last year. Something I've learned - if you have sandy, free-draining soil, your turnips will be huuuuuge! Last year, they were the size of swedes and yet still ever so tasty.