The great, good and not so good bits about growing your own dinner 2017

Fruittea

Hi there MaisyMoo5 Glad to hear you're getting into gardening and sorry to hear your Delphiniums and aliums didn't do to well. I guess the delphiniums aren't going to do anything if you haven't seen them by now. Sow some more! What kind of aliums were they - maybe they will come up - was it seeds or bulbs? Seed can take up to 3 months to get going - how did you sow them.


Lupins need quite a bit of space - around a foot between them - I don't think the egg box will harm them as it will just decompose but I would cut the box up into sections so you can space them out and give the roots a bit of a chance.

Lovely to hear how much you have growing. The people of the thread are very encouraging and helpful in sharing their growing successes and tips - so welcome aboard.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

So much rain. It's still raining now.

Possibly lost a tray of seedlings because there was too much water for it to drain.


But there's one strawberry ripening in the hanging basket so far, and I will just have to wait and see what survives in the rest of the garden. I've spotted the first two rambling rose blossoms open, though.


Himself is making fajitas in the kitchen. For some reason, he thinks I'm going to go back into the garden and collect salad stuff for him.

I'm staying on the sofa with two very grumpy cats, thank you very much.

smeeinnit

Hi all and welcome MaisyMoo!

After nothing happening all week due to:

weather
runny bottom
weather
CBA'edness

I got cracking today!

Potted up into their final positions the runner beans, one courgette, one tomato, sowed some nasturtiums, calendula, poached egg plant and cosmos, and harvested my first potatoes of the year :j 2 small buckets with 1 seed potato in each - yield 3lb :T:T

The early strawberries are starting to set fruit and the mid and late varieties are flowering well.

My ongoing potatoes have gone bonkers over the last couple of days, mind you so have the slugs...went out and "despatched" a good 20 or so last night, found most of them hiding in with the onions :mad:

I still need to sow some more carrots, lettuce, spinach, chives, spring onions, parsley, and some more I can't remember.

Errrm, I also had a bit of a spend up at T&M's last night, they have many seeds reduced or simply quite cheap, so I bought 10 packets of various flowers and veg. I remembered I had £5 voucher to use so the total for all seeds with postage was £4.87 :j

Hope you are all having a good week and you get some dry days, it rained until midnight last night, glorious today but rain again by teatime.

Kantankrus_Mare

Called at the allotment on the way home from work to just water in the greenhouses. Two of my courgettes have died but the others seem to be ok.
My cuttings that I took off my clematis a while ago are doing ok. Not sure when these could be planted out? This year or pot up to get a really good root system and plant out next year?

My strawberries in the greenhouse have gone mad and I had enough red ones to pick and share with OH with some cream. Sooo tasty!!
I love the first pickings of strawberries. The outside ones have lots of flowers and as I am away for 2 weeks from next Tuesday, I am hoping to come back to some decent crops.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

And it's still raining.

Do I get soaked and miffed at the mollusc population explosion, or do I stay inside with a cup of coffee with caramel syrup and two very, very grumpy cats who seem to think it's all my fault when they aren't trying to knock lumps out of each other?

maisymoo5

thank you smeeinnit and fruittea for the lovely warm welcome. What a great idea about cutting the egg boxes up - don't know why I hadn't thought of that but like I say, this is a huge learning curve for me. I think I will be spending a good few hours looking through this fab thread. As for the delphinums they were from seed so I think I will chalk that one down to experience and maybe try again next year. I've bought a couple of delphinium plants in the meantime. The aliums are the giant variety so it seems that I need to be a bit more patient before I see any results. One of them does appear to be sprouting but it just looks like thin grass. I have no clue what they are supposed to look like until they are in full flower but part of the fun is seeing what works and what doesn't. The weather here today is very odd. Showers then sun and now a bit of thunder. Greenhouse doors are open giving everything a nice airing and I can't wait to see what everyone else is growing and how they are doing.

zafiro1984

Rain, rain and more rain. I haven't even stepped foot on the veg patch at all today, I think it will be wellies tomorrow

Went shopping and managed to get a reduced pot of chives, I'll cut the plant into sections and put them in a far larger pot, hopefully it should be ok. That's the nearest I've got to gardening today !!!

MissPop

I am such an impatient gardener - frustrated at my progress with my tomato seeds, I went and bought 6 plants from B&Q today :rotfl: In my defence, they were 20% off, so only cost me £4.80 2 x Super Marmande, 2 x Roma, 1 x Alicante and 1 x Ailsa Craig, and I might still be able to salvage my Ildi seedlings.

Not that I have room for half of them in my raised bed... :rotfl:

I also got 6 more strawberry plants (Elsanta), again for £4.80. The last few strawbs I bought were £1.99 a plant, and my dog ate one of them, so I don't feel so bad with this investment

tootallulah

We are going to have two hours of sun in the morning so I am planning to get all of my annuals out, I did half last week-end, they are well watered in! My tomatoes were kindly planted by a neighbour I just have a few Floridity for inside the greenhouse once I have the plants out and in the garden. The currants, gooseberries and raspberries are looking fantastic and I have netted them before the birds get ideas. I have a bumoer crop of apricots but they really need some sun, let's hope soon.

CAFCGirl

You've reminded me Tootallulah I need to get some sort of netting situation sorted over mine too!

Looks like a fantastic morning here, which is set to become a fantastic day! No rain! So we'll be packing up for the plot. I might even risk taking some of the garden seedlings up and putting those in.

Stringing the bean trellis, netting the fruit, marking out where my new polytunnel/growhouse is going to go and digging over another strip ready for pallet collar bed to go in I think should do for today. The ground should be suitably softer for it today. With any luck my newly ordered azada should be ready for use today.