Help MBE grow his dinner 2012

mrbadexample

annie123 wrote: »

...why do I always seem to find flights that need a middle of the night departure from my home!

Because they're cheaper and you're MSE? Have a nice time. Send me a postcard to put up in the shed please.

Greetings to all lurkers and delurkers e.g. kazire. :wave:

I've got about 10 chillies / peppers germinated now, and three tomatoes which have been moved on to a bigger pot.

I can't help thinking there's a lot more I should be doing at the moment. Leeks, onions and cauliflower spring to mind, but there's not much time at the weekends just now due to the rugby. Wales looked good, England looked shaky, and I don't mind (fib: actually I do) telling John I'm a bit nervous. :undecided

I bought a small freezer last week, so this year I should be able to get a bit more value from what I grow. The freezer part of my fridge-freezer was woefully tiny.

Remembered to bring the liquorice plant into the greenhouse, just to give it a wee bit of protection from the snow, which has all but gone now.

I'm hoping someone else will give Toonie some meaningful advice on where to start. Lotus is normally good at that sort of thing...

TTFN

D&DD

I haven't done a thing yet still..in danger of slipping behind if I'm not careful! I did however remeber to bring indoors the two lemon trees I nearly succeeded in killing last year in the cold weather by leaving them in the greenhouse Its taken me all year to nurse them back to having some leaves again so hopefully this year they might do a bit better.

katholicos

Sown today in modules and trays and half trays and other trays kept from stir fry veg and meat from supermrkets etc...

24 x modules Dwarf broad bean 'the sutton'
6 x " gypsy hybrid F1 cauliflower
6 x " autumn green calabrese broccolli
4 x " pepper hot habanero
2 x " artichoke green globe
6 x ". Parsnips tender and true
6 x. ". Cucumber telepathy
6 x ". Aubergine black enorma
2 x " red onion sets in large trays
1/4 x tray of rudbeckia
1/4.x. Tray lobelia
1/4 x. Tray poppy
6 x modules sweet chocolate beauty peppers
2 x 3 modules lilia purple spring onions
12 x modules of calendular art shades mixed
12 x modules nasturtiums tall singles mixed
24 x modules marigold french petite mixed
8 x modules cosmos sensation mix
8 x modules sweet pea giant wave
8 x moduleswildflower ox eye daisy
1/4 tray aster ostrich feather
1/4 tray aster dwarf queen
1/2 tray of fairy grden flower mixture
1/4 tray of schizanthus angel wings
1/4tray of basil christmas
1/4 tray verbena bonanesis
8 x modules geranium f2 mixed

@mrbad. Slacker!!!!

emiff6

katholicos wrote: »

Sown today in modules and trays and half trays and other trays kept from stir fry veg and meat from supermrkets etc...

24 x modules Dwarf broad bean 'the sutton'
.........
8 x modules geranium f2 mixed

@mrbad. Slacker!!!!

Good gracious! Where have you put them all? Either you have a greenhouse, or else a LOT of windowsills!

katholicos

emiff6 wrote: »

Good gracious! Where have you put them all? Either you have a greenhouse, or else a LOT of windowsills!

I sow seed in propogators and then bubble wrap them and either bung them in the Upright growhouses x 3 tied to batting against the fence or non bubble wrapped they go on to windowsills and a wallpaper pasting table in spare bedroom! Works well for me

smarttart

I thought it was a bit early to be planting seeds, now I think maybe not. I need to get the greenhouse disinfected and cleaned out first, last year we didn't bother and had a bit of a compost fly infestation.
This afternoon we made a start on the garden and have dug over and weeded the fruit bed. I had a few baby strawberry plants in pots in the ground taken from runners off last years plants that I severed from the mother plants today and planted out and last years plants seemed to have survived ok - so far, so that's promising.
The rhubarb's coming up, the cherry tree has buds on it as well as the blueberry/black currant bushes. Not sure if we planted blueberries or black currants last year, that'll teach me not to label them and the rose bushes are putting out new growth. So even though it was bitterly cold out (I thought my toes were about to drop off) the plants seem to think spring is on its way :T

hornetgirl

Still semi-lurking here as nothing much done yet other than putting the seed potatoes to chit. Oh and the other day I bought a packet of tomato seeds and a packet of pumpkin seeds reduced to 15p each in Homebase
DH gets paid on Wednesday and informed me last week that he'll be getting a small bonus. I'm hoping he might think spending some of it on a small greenhouse would be a good idea.

Furrtiv

Hi, newbie here

It's inspiring to read all of this, as this will be my second year of growing. I had limited success last year, learned a few things too.

Currently on the windowsill sin the house are trays of broccoli, brussels and leeks. The leeks are musselburgh but I can't remember what varieties the other plants are. I also have parsnips to sow outdoors soon, but the ground is really frozen here in rural Derbyshire, so I'm going to leave it for a week or two. I have 1st earlies, 2nd earlies and main crop potatoes being chitted right now (that was a new thing I learned!) and I have some nice, deep containers for them as I want the space in the actual garden itself for other things.

I found out that buterflies ravaged my cabbages last year, so would sorting out some home-made netting or tunnels over them when they start to grow be worthwhile? Much as I love looking at the pretty butterflies, I don't like their babies eating my produce! Plus, we have lots of pigeons around here that enjoy brassicas, so I think I need some protection for my broccoli when I put it out, too.

Also, as the ground's quite stony (and full of rubble - broken pottery, slates, etc) I'm thinking of growing carrots in a deep trough. Would this be feasible? They did okay last year but turned out some very odd shapes - even had a few spirals!

Next door gives me bunny droppings for the compost, and pretty much everything gets composted from our kitchen that isn't meat-based, including eggshells and tea leaves and coffee grounds, but I find it too difficult to turn the compost in the dalek bin. I alos think that a trip to the local stables might be in order, for some manure.

I'd like to ask, actually - I have a spare heat mat (I keep tarantulas) that isn't being used - someone said about putting this under chillies to help propagate them. I would have to keep the chilli plants indoors most of the year as I don't have a greenhouse, but would they be okay being kept inside? Was thinking of just having a couple of pots of them on the kitchen windowsill.

Angelfeathers

Furrtiv wrote: »

I found out that buterflies ravaged my cabbages last year, so would sorting out some home-made netting or tunnels over them when they start to grow be worthwhile? Much as I love looking at the pretty butterflies, I don't like their babies eating my produce! Plus, we have lots of pigeons around here that enjoy brassicas, so I think I need some protection for my broccoli when I put it out, too.

Also, as the ground's quite stony (and full of rubble - broken pottery, slates, etc) I'm thinking of growing carrots in a deep trough. Would this be feasible? They did okay last year but turned out some very odd shapes - even had a few spirals!

Hi, can't help with the heating mat thing, I'm afraid, but you can certainly grow carrots in tubs. I've grown them for three years now (some of the first things I grew) in tubs on our first floor balcony, which also avoids the problem of carrot fly, and I've had brilliant crops. Obviously just make sure the tubs are deep enough, and keep watering them!

I also need protection for my brassicas, especialy broccoli and cauliflower. I didn't grow caulis last year but I did grow broccoli and we ended up not eating it because it was absolutely infested with grubs. I tried washing them out, but *still* kept finding the blighters. So we just ended up with lots of pretty yellow flowers instead!

This year I've bought a pop up net cloche (ETA: okay, damn thing won't let me post the link, don't know why!) that I'm hoping will be tall enough (2' in the centre) to cover them and keep the nasty things out! Will let you know how I get on.

The weather has *finally* warmed up enough here to take my seedlings outside for long enough to !!!!! them out, thank goodness! The job's long overdue but I'm hoping to get to it today. Once that's done, I'll put together a list of all the next lot of seeds I want to sow! I have a feeling it's going to be a long one...

alixandrea

Well, I haven't planted anything yet due to the weather being so rotten, but now it's warming up a bit, I think I'm going to get my seed plugs out - hooray! :j

I've also just made a massive order on Thompson and Morgan's site courtesy of Mr. Tesco (exchanged £15-worth of clubcard vouchers for £30-worth of T&M ones), so looking forward to growing some new crops/varieties this year.

Now all I need to do is finish digging over my new beds, sort out the wood to raise them, cut back the hedge on the other side of the garden and chip/compost the resulting trimmings.

Argh, why didn't I start all this back in the Autumn?? :eek:

Alixandrea (de-lurked)