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

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  • CAFCGirl
    CAFCGirl Posts: 9,122
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    Niv wrote: »
    CAFCGirl - what do you do with all those squash? I have had a similar haul but feel a little inundated!

    I consider myself very lucky to live next door to some very nice vegans who have taken 1/3 of what I've had. The majority has been made into soup and is filling up the freezer, 2 or 3 small ones are put into roasted veg mix at last once a week, small diced ones can be thrown into a bolognese mix, shepherds pie, quiche etc. I've been told they are nice raw thinly sliced in salad but we're talking mandolin sliced (unless you have super knife skills) but I've never done that myself.
    They can also be used in breads, much like courgette really. I cant say for definite but spiralized might be an option - 'squashetti'? :rotfl:
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  • zafiro1984
    zafiro1984 Posts: 2,445
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    Went to garden centre at he weekend. got some sp broccoli, cabbages and leeks to fill the space that the blighted tomatoes had occupied.
    Also they had reduced all their seeds, even the very expensive ones to 50p a packet so I spent ages going through them and bought some for next year. Now I need to go through my seed box and find out what I'm missing before making another trip to the garden centre to see if I can find what I need, it's been a huge saving.

    Does anyone know of any seed company that sends out seed potatoes in December as I want to put some earlies under cover but when I enquire they all say they dispatch Feb/Mar.
    Also has anyone had success with growing sweet potatoes, if so which variety have you used. One ankle swells well I eat ordinary potatoes - I broke it as a teenager and it was never set.
  • unrecordings
    unrecordings Posts: 2,017
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    edited 12 September 2017 at 5:45PM
    When I had a load of chillies to deal with, I dried them by running a triple thread of cotton through the tops and then stringing them up from the pan rack, which is over the radiator and near the boiler, as I rarely have that radiator on. there was plenty of air circulation from the Idiot Cat's frequent expeditions into the garden to check nothing had changed over the last twenty minutes/whether his tabby & white little female friend was visiting him (no working bits on either of them, so no danger of kittens appearing in the shed :()

    They went a dark red and wrinkly, but were perfectly dry within a short time - I could then use them for cooking by crumbling them, soaking them before chopping or by chucking whole into the pot - and crumbling them gave me nicely dried seeds for reuse. I think they looked quite attractive as well.

    I love making Ristras (well they're sort of Ristras). I use waxed string and a double loop round the stem. If I'm hanging fresh chillies it's a good idea to go back a couple of days later and tighten the knots as they'll have shrivelled a little by then. If I'm hanging chillies from the Chinese Supermarket then I generally don't need to go back to them

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  • zafiro1984 wrote: »
    Does anyone know of any seed company that sends out seed potatoes in December as I want to put some earlies under cover but when I enquire they all say they dispatch Feb/Mar.

    DT Brown ?
    I usually shop there and so far I'm sure I've been contemplating chitting just after xmas

    Why am I in this handcart and where are we going ?
  • wilko's has their seed sale on
  • MissPop
    MissPop Posts: 948
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    The last couple of years I've started things (mainly tomatoes and beans) from seed and they've started off strongly, but when I've transplanted them into bigger pots, they've wilted (literally fallen completely flat) and never recovered. Any idea how to avoid this? Should I be using compostable pots and transplant the whole thing so as to not disrupt the roots?

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  • zafiro1984
    zafiro1984 Posts: 2,445
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    DT Brown ?
    I usually shop there and so far I'm sure I've been contemplating chitting just after xmas

    Thanks I'll give them a ring.

    Sorted out the main bed in the tunnel, all the tomatoes had blight so they came out the other day to be burnt, I've turned the soil over but it needs a top up of fresh soil. I've erected a frame around the bed and have enough netting to entirely cover it to keep out the rabbits and other small life over the winter. I'm thinking of using it for lettuce, cabbages, sp broccoli, fennel and maybe carrots.

    Outside; I've netted the carrots - rabbits again - and started to make a giant cloche with fleece to protect them from the cold. I'm still digging up potatoes to store, I've taken out the sweetcorn as it had finished, I'm now at the stage where I could do with adding muck to the beds as they become empty but there are only so many hours in the day and my turkeys arrived today - they're huge!!!
  • Turkeys ?
    I wish. I'd fancied maybe geese, but didn't really feel I had the time & space to devote to them. Spent the last few days removing half a wheelie bins worth of Herb Robert - fortunately it's easy to pull out and it crowds out most other weeds. I'd potted some stray Woodruff last year, so put this back in the space left where the Woodruff should have been growing.
    Gales ripped off a bough from a tree next door and took out my Raspberry plot. At least I'm going to get a bag of chippings out of it. Damage looks fixable though

    Why am I in this handcart and where are we going ?
  • tibawo
    tibawo Posts: 1,188
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    I have googled this but does anyone on here have any experience of composting their guinea pigs poo? Can't decide wether to pu it in the compost bin on straight onto ground ready for next spring!
    Go get it!
  • CAFCGirl
    CAFCGirl Posts: 9,122
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    tibawo wrote: »
    I have googled this but does anyone on here have any experience of composting their guinea pigs poo? Can't decide wether to pu it in the compost bin on straight onto ground ready for next spring!

    No direct experience but a friend of mine does this and she puts pellets straight in, but the bedding goes in the compost
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