Help MBE grow his dinner 2012

jollyanna

MrBE, could it be a Roman Temple or bath house that you are exposing ?
There might be some cable or pipes running under the slabs- just a thought as our leccy board renewed our main supply cable and laid some slab things over it to prevent any accidental digging through.

annie123

adelight wrote: »

Is it still too early to plant out courgettes in midlands? They're getting big and are doing okay in one of those flimsy zip up green houses outside.
(

aliasojo wrote: »

Is it still really too early to put my tomatoes out in one of these......



(

Yes, it's too early for both of those.
I'm in London and both of these will be going out end of the month after 2 weeks hardening off. Even then they will have bottles over them and fleece on standby.
Night time temps need to be around 12c ideally but 10c is the lowest you want, so hang on in there a bit longer.

You could try hardening off your toms to live in the blowaway. Put them out for an hour or two daytime, then increasing the length of time each day but having got this far I'd wait till 2 weeks before local frost date then start hardening off but still wouldn't put them outside till night temps were around 10c.
Never had a blowaway myself but my neighbour does. Friday she bought toms and q's from homebase and put them in the blowaway, they died she told me today and blamed homebase! nothing to do with temps going down to 2c then at night;)

Keep your courgettes inside the blowaway till you know you won't get any frosts or you'll need to sow some more;)


I have 2 dalek compost bins, who give me loads of lovely compost. I've had them for 20 years here and never had rats, but being in London they are probably swimming in the drains as I type! but never seen any. I don't compost cooked meat because I'm a veggie and any meat I serve up for hubby gets eaten, it's too expensive not to.
The key to good compost is mixing browns/greens and turning it. I love lifting it off the ground and getting stuck in with the spade/fork.........yes hubby says I'm odd too;)
I empted one bin (A) last month, the other (B) will be emptied out in 4 weeks or so and spade by spade shovel it back into the other (A) one adding, greens/browns, water etc if needed.
Then leave for 3 months when it will be ready to use. In the time being I will fill the other one (B) up. And continue etc etc
When a bin is emptied the compost it's sieved and bagged till needed.

Gosh that's a long post........That's because I've eaten my takeawy and have a full and happy tummy:D

mrbadexample

jollyanna wrote: »

MrBE, could it be a Roman Temple or bath house that you are exposing ?
There might be some cable or pipes running under the slabs- just a thought as our leccy board renewed our main supply cable and laid some slab things over it to prevent any accidental digging through.

These are just dumped slabs. I had a fair few of them when I dug the first veg bed. I could do without any more, to be honest.

djohn2002uk

annie123 wrote: »

I have 2 dalek compost bins, who give me loads of lovely compost. I've had them for 20 years here and never had rats, but being in London they are probably swimming in the drains as I type! but never seen any. I don't compost cooked meat because I'm a veggie and any meat I serve up for hubby gets eaten, it's too expensive not to.
The key to good compost is mixing browns/greens and turning it. I love lifting it off the ground and getting stuck in with the spade/fork.........yes hubby says I'm odd too;)
I empted one bin (A) last month, the other (B) will be emptied out in 4 weeks or so and spade by spade shovel it back into the other (A) one adding, greens/browns, water etc if needed.
Then leave for 3 months when it will be ready to use. In the time being I will fill the other one (B) up. And continue etc etc
When a bin is emptied the compost it's sieved and bagged till needed.

This sounds an exact copy of ours right down to my wife being in charge of it and me telling her she's too old for all the turning. I catch her before she's started sometimes and do it for her while she grumbles but I don't want her building up too much muscle. Anyway for the next few months I just have to leave her to it.

annie123

djohn2002uk wrote: »

Anyway for the next few months I just have to leave her to it.

As a good husband should
My garden is mine, hubby is allowed to visit it, sit on the grass....I gave away the bench to get more growing room and do what ever it is he does to his few bonsai.
The rest including compost making is mine

Sambucus_Nigra

annie123 wrote: »

As a good husband should
My garden is mine, hubby is allowed to visit it, sit on the grass....I gave away the bench to get more growing room and do what ever it is he does to his few bonsai.
The rest including compost making is mine

My OH has borders that he can do what he wants with, and one bed at the lottie; but the rest including the greenhouse is mine all mine. I went away for the day today and he was told in no uncertain terms told not to enter the greenhouse nor go to the lottie on his own. And like a good boy he didn't. He just weeded his borders in the garden. He didn't even attempt a garden centre. :T:T:T

alixandrea

Is it going to be a wildlife pond MBE, or one with fish in? If the former, build up some earth around the slabs and make extended shallows. The marginal areas of ponds are where you get the most biodiversity.
http://www.pondconservation.org.uk/millionponds
Alixandrea

aliasojo

annie123 wrote: »

Yes, it's too early for both of those.

You know the John Lewis Xmas ad last year.....with the wee boy just impatiently waiting for Xmas to come?

Well that's me right now.

:rotfl:

pink_poppy

annie123 wrote: »

The key to good compost is mixing browns/greens and turning it. I love lifting it off the ground and getting stuck in with the spade/fork.........yes hubby says I'm odd too;)
I empted one bin (A) last month, the other (B) will be emptied out in 4 weeks or so and spade by spade shovel it back into the other (A) one adding, greens/browns, water etc if needed.
Then leave for 3 months when it will be ready to use. In the time being I will fill the other one (B) up. And continue etc etc
When a bin is emptied the compost it's sieved and bagged till needed.

annie, what do you mean by browns/greens?? I'm guessing greens are grass cuttings??

Also, when you say you love lifting it off the ground, what do you mean?? I assumed the dalek would have a lid on top & you take that off to dig/fork around. I was going to google but thought I'd just get loads of Dr. Who images!! :rotfl:

djohn2002uk wrote: »

This sounds an exact copy of ours right down to my wife being in charge of it and me telling her she's too old for all the turning. I catch her before she's started sometimes and do it for her while she grumbles but I don't want her building up too much muscle. Anyway for the next few months I just have to leave her to it.

Hope you're recovering well, djohn, early days yet I suppose.

I think I could do with building some muscle ~ lugging compost bags around has brought it home to me how little strength I have Hopefully the digging will get rid of the old bingo wings!! :rotfl:

mbe, your pond is looking great, it looks bigger on your latest pic (but not as big as Gardener's World's 'pond' ~ that's more like a lake!!). I would have left the slab as well (well padded though, as annie said) for a little step out for anything that goes into the pond intentionally or unintentionally. I know you said you were having a sloping shelf, but is that just at one end??

annie123

pink_poppy wrote: »

annie, what do you mean by browns/greens?? I'm guessing greens are grass cuttings??

Also, when you say you love lifting it off the ground, what do you mean?? I assumed the dalek would have a lid on top & you take that off to dig/fork around. I was going to google but thought I'd just get loads of Dr. Who images!! :rotfl:

Browns and greens explained here along with good advice how to make it
http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/organicgardening/compost_pf.php

I lift the lid to chuck stuff in, but to turn it and either put it back in the same bin or another one, I lift the whole thing up and put it aside so you have a pile of easy to access stuff.

It will be in various states of decomposition.
Lets assume I'm putting it in another bin, so the stuff that you recently put in the bin won't have changed much and that will be at the top of your pile so spade in and dump into the bottom of the other bin, and continue.........you'll get to know by eye eventually if you need to add more browns/greens, water etc (start now and by next year you will be telling others how to do it;))
By time you've dumped half back you may start to reach what looks like garden soil......its your homemade compost :j
It may still have larger bits in it but you can sieve it to get them out or if it's going to be used as a mulch just chuck it on your beds or you could put it at the bottom of a pot yet to be planted, or you could just chuck it into the other bin and wait for it to rot down further.

Once you start doing it the above will become obvious and you'll get the hang of it quickly