A new 'tougher' thread... and so it continues

mardatha

Far too early for anything in the garden up here so I'm not going near a garden centre - over the years I spent a fortune and lost everything immediately !
We are buying things for the house instead of saving this year. Gotta new carpet & suite and will get a washing machine soon. Were saving for a car (got a motability just now but DLA will go eventually) - but it might be pointless as by time he has enough the price will have gone higher. Might be better just taking on HP over 5 yrs and using his pension to pay it and then we could get a new car. OH has finally accepted the days of V6 3L lovely cars are gone and is very
I'm developing seige mentality over the price of petrol/diesel. We are miles from everything like shops, doctors, bank, library, etc so every trip is planned to a T. Is like the Little House on the Prairie going to town day and soon it might be twice yearly, like them!
When I can't sleep I am busily plotting a Cottage Garden for the sheltered bit under the front window. You do get a wee bit tired constantly thinking veggies eh

meme30

The whole gardening thing is really getting me going! Last year we decided to demolish our largest border, (about a quarter of tennis court size) because I (the only gardener in the house) just could not physically do the work on it. (So we have a lot of grass for DH to mow, one large long but narrowish border for me to keep up with and a large south facing patio. We are high up here, so we get a lot of winds sweeping across the garden, and snow when others get rain!
I used to grow veg but the bending is beyond me now. Still I have been reading this and have real veg growing envy! :rotfl: Sad I know.
So I need suggestions, I have grown tumbling tomatos before in pots and think I could do that on Patio. Bit worried about the wind and the fact we go to the caravan, so concerned about watering. Would like to grow some carrots? not sure what will grow in pots easily.
I will be able to sit in a chair to sort the pots out. I am thinking about the size of the pots too, if they are too high the wind will get the plants but they have to be quite deep I think. So I am thinking I could cope with a half a dozen pots and I am not sure what's the best soil/peat/manure to put in them? How many carrots could I grow in a pot? Was also thinking about those lettuces you just go and cut what you need and they still grow. Could I grow a couple of those in a pot with some carrots so as to use up both top and depth of soil? Or am I just being greedy!!

mardatha

I find I plot and plan and scheme and consult people and sites until my head implodes - then somehow the summer is always dull or wet or cold and I just lose heart Last year was terrible here, totally sunless.

katieowl_2

Carrots like soft soil so will grow well in pots. How many you could grow obviously depends on the size of the pots, but carrot seed is normally sewn in rows then thinned a few times to allow big carrots to grow, but you can eat the third thinnings as baby carrots, and sometimes the second thinnings are big enough to use. IIRC they don't like being transplanted, so I'd experiment in your biggest pot evenly sewing the seed over the top and see what happens? Another benefit of BIG pots is that you are over the height for carrot fly...they only attack plants lower than 12" (18"?) because they can't fly higher!

Some of those water retaining gel granules might help your tomatoes survive your caravan breaks? Not cheap mind you!

Kate

greenbee

Meme - I either pay a neighbour's child to do watering when I'm away for work or I have watering spikes that you stick a plastic bottle on and they drip feed the water into the pots. They're good for short periods.

This weekend I'm hoping to get the garden tidied so I can work out what to do with it

Mrs_Chip

Morning Everyone!

Meme - You can go an awful lot of things in pots - including carrots. Here are a couple of linkys and here. Many people in London are able to grow very productive gardens in pots on their high-rise balconies. I have grown carrots in pots, they work very well, and that cut-and-come again salad leaf goes on all summer and into the autumn (but that was down here in the south).

Just packing the final bits-and-bobs, van is due here 9am Monday. We are doing a lot of 'that's the last time we will', all a bit silly as we have been in Wales for the last 6 months.

I am having irrational heebie-jeebies that everything is not going to fit into the van - despite the fact that it is a 7.5t lorry, and I have seen pictures of how much you can fit in them. This is a worry in itself - once upon a time I would have been able to dismiss such wobbleness and just get on with it. Does coping with worries get harder as you get older?:rotfl:

GreyQueen

Good morning campers, just nipping in whilst I have my brekkie and before I make a flask and sarnies and head allotmentwards (memo to self; don't play on MSE for too long).

Meme30, a pal showed me a useful tip for slow-watering planters when you have to be away which I'll share on the offchance it may assist someone;

Get 2 litre plastic bottles such as from fizzy drinks and using a heated needle put one small hole in the cap. Partially-submerge bottle cap-first in planter once filled with water.

The idea is that the single small hole allows a gentle seepage of water direct to the roots with very little evaporation. You can also see how far the water level has gone down. She used this to cover her patio pots for protracted absences. You might have a rellie/ neighbour who'd drop by every 4-5 days to check on and refill the water bottles as necessary whereas they couldn't water planters daily, or you wouldn't want to ask for that level of commitment. It helps you make the space for the water bottle when you sow the plants and just insert as necesary. HTH.

If winds are a problem in your garden, could you look at experimenting with windbreaks to slow the velocity? This would slow water loss, as well as potentially-reducing damage. There are some useful diagrams about windreaks in the books Permaculture 1 & 2 which your library might have. The concise version is that you want wind-permeable windbreaks like trellis/ hedge etc rather than solid ones like walls or solid fencing as they cause the wind to lollop over the top and go whoomph with extra force on the other side. The aim should be to slow the wind down and get it to spill some of its energy rather than think you can keep it down altogether.

My lottie is on a hill and it's very windy up tere, so I have to be creative and my runner bean canes are lashed down with extreme measures or they'll be blown down in a trice.:o

kidkat I hope your son is feeling better today and that you manage to get thru the party without too many travails. An earlier version of my life included a spell as a kids' entertainer and it's brutal.............glad to be in the salt mine now....;)

Grinning at the stories about the siren songs of the garden centre. My will is weak and my purse is thin and I dare not even go into garden centres because of how one thing leads to another. I'm sorted for compost (not to mention E and whizz) as I lucked out at an earlier Mr T voucher swop thingie and maxed the vouchers into a lot of compost, which happened to be on a 2 for 1 anyway, so I put only a quid or two of proper money into it. And the parental units kindly dragged it to the lottie in their jalopy. Moving bulky items with only a pushbike is a major struggle.

OK, time to make that flask and decide what to have in my sarnies.......hang on, there's a rubber chicken in the fridge and some not-really-Branston-but-tastes-OK stuff, which will do nicely. I'm a lucky lucky girl and someone will be cooking my dinner and it won't be meeeeee...........:rotfl:

Have a good Saturday, peeps, love GQ x

[Deleted User]

MEME30 - I have just had a look through some of the gardening seed catalogues we have had through the post and it would appear that you can get 'carrot patio planters, patio planters for climbing beans, ladder allotments ( 3 or 4 tier planters on a wooden frame and raised benches called 'vegtrugs' , also modular raised beds and a self watering system called an 'aquabox spyder self watering system' - these are in the Dobies catalogue, website WWW.dobies.co.uk at a price, might be worth a look to see if anything would be useful. Hope this helps Cheers Lyn.

greenbee

Softstuff wrote: »

Lovely find with the jacket Byatt. There's nothing like the thrill of a nice new to you charity shop find. I got some Pj's at my op-shop today.

Unfortunately the PJ find didn't offset the pain of the pharmacy expenditure. $77 on meds this week. Out of $100 a week budget for groceries and anything else I spend that made quite a ding. Combined with the alteration in eating costing more I'm a bit miffed. Oh, and one of the tablets I'm on has left me in need of extra fibre IYKWIM.

Kidcat, sorry to hear of your sons concussion and hope the bump doesn't stop him enjoying the party.

I think I put a link on here for someone else for DynoRod soup when I was on high iron supplementation I found it useful, along with psyllium husk tablets, ground linseed (I did this myself in the coffee grinder and added it to porridge, soup, baked beans etc) and aloe vera tablets. Try the soup and the linseed first as they're the cheapest options.

mardatha

Do linseeds on their own not work? do you have to grind them? we eat them in bread and porridge but I havent got a thingy to grind them with.