I've got way too excited.. and

[feefeelalabelle]

Right this HAS to be a short post, ive seriously hurt my hand today!!!OH been in garden digging out boarder and rebuilding the dreaded rockery, we hate it but it was ment to be a quick put me on to make it look somewhat right this year, he was out there 12 hours OMG, i jioned in for about 5 hours basically weeding (well the roots where more like mini trees) and busting up soil and clay clumps. From all the bashing my right hand is absolutly killing me my wrist is all pins and needlie!!i cant even keep it still its so uncomfortable. Anyway from all that man work it does look alot better, will post pics in morning

Smokey joe.... thats my tomatoe plants name, after my bunny!
The cucumber is an f1 hybrid female that all i know.......would it grow outside

A quick question before i go, you know when you plant 1 carrot seed, does this grow into a plant holding a few carrots or does just one grow from it, the same with spuds, how many spuds would you get from one tuber? just woundering how much stuff i would need to plant to support us for the majority of the year

and no im not missioning outside in my jimjams tonight

[gojiberry]

One carrot seed = one carrot. Potatoes will definitely produce more than one potato, but how many will depend on type and growing factors. My best was last year when one tuber produced 36 potatoes but that is exceptional. Usually you can expect between 6 (poor result) and 15 (good crop). Size will depend on how long you can resist the urge to dig them up. I emptied a bag that I started on Boxing day and only got 18 potatoes about the size of an egg from 4 tubers. Ishould have left them another 3/4 weeks but those first potatoes of the season were absolutely out of this world.

Ian

[Creemteez]

Ahh, Feefee, your poor hand. I know just how you feel as I have a bad case of "Riddlers Elbow" where I've been sieving soil. Take pain-killers as directed on the box (the the pretty, clear red or green ones are very good), a nice hot bath and get your OH to give your arm a nice massage after. Staring at your shoulder and working down to your hand. The pins and needles are the worst aren't they? I last had similar symptoms when I helped take our roof off (three thousand rag slates - ouch!). I went to the doctor and he told me that the treatment was eigther the above, or a course of steroid injections, which would cure the pain almost immeadately, but I might grow a beard. Decided I didn't have the bone-structure for a beard, so it was just rest, pain-killers and time for me!
P.S. The secret to keeping your table provided with veggies is not HOW MUCH you so but HOW OFTEN. You would be better off planting a few pinches of - say- carrot seed every few weeks than sowing a whole packet at once. Check out threads on successional sowing -there'll be loads of them.

[feefeelalabelle]

im back, haha wow i seriously hurt my hand you know!!! have to calm down on the digging front,
IVE GOT LOADS OF PLANTS HAhaha , im over run, its official i have 1million lettuce, hehe at least they grew, i still have filled all the raised bed up with soil as it mwas going to be a bit of pain arranging for vans and everything and i couldnt wait to plant out. Ive just made a few trenches and filled with compost for now. Oh and all the hard work digging the clay has been wasted, because we have walked on it its all just compressed and gone solid again arrrr!
My asparagus has gone completly mental and is growing about 1 inch a day, well i think its growing at night..... i keep feeling silly urges to go and check in the night lol! do they normally grow quite quick and should i just expect 1 shoot per plant? i bought a couple of 3 yr old crowns which are comming through really chuncky and thick..... oh please can we eat it this year?????
hope your all ok oh and i think it was demeter... thanks for the seeds mate they are doing fab xxx

[Creemteez]

Welcome back, luvvie. Was getting a bit concerned there, that you had done yourself a permenant injury!
I don't see any reason not to eat your asparagus, if as you say, it is comming up nice and chunky, though no doubt someone more knowlegeable will tell you to wait another year! How about just cutting a few stems and having a nibble?
Glad to know that everything is coming up nicely. The cool thing about veggies (all plants) is that they WANT to grow, all we have to do is give them the best conditions we can to do it in!
Now keep your feet off those veggie beds. (I'm wagging my finger in your general direction!)

[Demeter]

Your hard work won't be completely wasted - but do try not to walk on it more than you have to! Bung on whatever organic matter you can.

Glad your asparagus is coming up nicely.You will get plenty of spears per plant, but only once the plant is established which takes a long time.

The ones you are growing from seed will grow a small number of teeny spears (don't even think about eating them lol) this year and will continue to develop and grow more / bigger spears as they mature - takes 3 years, after which the plants will remain productive for about 20 years.

The 3yo crowns with chunky spears you can harvest but I would go easy on them as you have only just planted them and they will need time to get properly established. Just cut a few spears this year, you will get a better harvest next year if you let them establish themselves this year!

So glad your seeds are all sprouting - it's fabulous isn't it?

[Eco-Chic]

What a brilliant thread. An absolute must for newbie growers and shows how quickly knowledge is gained and applied.

Love your posting style FeeFeeLaLaBelle and hope your aches and pains have dissipated.

[feefeelalabelle]

What a brilliant thread. An absolute must for newbie growers and shows how quickly knowledge is gained and applied.

Love your posting style FeeFeeLaLaBelle and hope your aches and pains have dissipated.

im so glad others are gaining knowledge from my posts least im helping others in the process of becomming un-dumb lol. its all these knowledgable people on here who keep enticing me in to ask them questions hahah
my posting style is just me really!!! a bit hit and miss with bags full of eagernessxxxx

gonna try to keep my hands off the asparagus this year but have some fresh salmon for dinner tomorrow and it would look gorge on top!!!! mmmm, might have to be a mcdees instead

over the last few weeks i have been reading people posts abouts slugs... i was rubbing my hands together so pleased i didnt have any slugs..WOT, my garden is a night club for drunken underage slugs..........i ventured out in the night, big mistake i swear i cant sleep at night now knowing they are munching on MY organic-ish home grown veg arrr. so yes im still wandering out at night in my jimmys and i sware my neighbours think im an alcoholic, im jumping around with a can of fosters at 3am with a flash light thing strapped to my head (haha that even makes me giggle so i must look like a rite *@###)
the problem ive found is ....they like fosters OMG then they get the munchies.
On a serious note now.... very serious... how do i stop them because everything was ok when my stuff was under the tunnel, even though it was open at both ends?

[Eco-Chic]

Lol those camping miners lamps are a must for gardeners aren't they. I ended up with my right arm muscle looking like a Russian shot putters from lobbing snails over the garden wall into the park behind my garden.

In the end I dropped the slugs and snails into containers of salty water then add the corpses to the compost heap.

From March to October you can use Nemaslug, a biological control, which kills the black slugs underground as well. Buy Nematodes: Nemaslug Slug Killer £8.95

You still need to discourage snails (the ones with houses on their backs) and this year I intend to nail old copper pipes to the top of raised beds (yet to be constructed), but sharp grit, crushed oyster shells, crushed egg shells, sharp sand are deterrents, although not 100% effective.

Leaving a bit of leaf and veg debris a few feet away from your planted out stuff attracts slugs and snails away from your crops.

Good luck.

[Demeter]

There are loads of anti-slug techniques.

Night-hunting is good.
Slug traps are good.
I'm trying nemaslug this year.
Some swear by barriers that are uncomfortable for the slimies to go across, especially bran, might try that this year if the nemaslug doesn't work.

Bran - does anyone know if the stuff you buy as animal feed would work? strikes me that would be the cheapest way to get a gert sackful?

[Creemteez]

OMG I laughed so hard at your last post, it was nearly a Tenalady Moment!
Yes, it is THAT time of year again. The little b******s hav ebeen holed up under a rock all winter, and now the warm, wet month of April is upon us, out they come, licking their sticky little lips.
I have a grassy bank all around my lottie where the little darlings like to sleep off their supper of fresh young lettuce (Grrrrr). I tootle all the way round collecting them up (they don't even bother to hide!) and invite them to go and play with the traffic before lobbing them into the road! I've yet to see a snail that can make it back across the road before the next tractor!
Annoyingly, I have seen three slow-worms scooting about the bank this week AND today I peered into one of the holes in the bank and a golden-eyed toad waved out at me. My question is...WHY ARE THEY NOT EATING ALL THE B*****Y SLUGS??????

[Sweepster]

OMG I laughed so hard at your last post, it was nearly a Tenalady Moment!
Yes, it is THAT time of year again. The little b******s hav ebeen holed up under a rock all winter, and now the warm, wet month of April is upon us, out they come, licking their sticky little lips.
I have a grassy bank all around my lottie where the little darlings like to sleep off their supper of fresh young lettuce (Grrrrr). I tootle all the way round collecting them up (they don't even bother to hide!) and invite them to go and play with the traffic before lobbing them into the road! I've yet to see a snail that can make it back across the road before the next tractor!
Annoyingly, I have seen three slow-worms scooting about the bank this week AND today I peered into one of the holes in the bank and a golden-eyed toad waved out at me. My question is...WHY ARE THEY NOT EATING ALL THE B*****Y SLUGS??????

Because they think that if you run out of slimies to lob across the road, you might start on THEM

[feefeelalabelle]

Because they think that if you run out of slimies to lob across the road, you might start on THEM

:



right first plan of action.... sharp sand.... done!!!! will wait in anticipation,
my little kitten is bouncing away at the moment in the darkness hunting worms and slugs and snails, i think i may be confusing him though. During the day im throwing mud at him for going on my veggy patch but at night im enticing him on there with .........chicken poor little monkey, if only he understood english "no weewee oliver just eat the bl**dy slugs"

[Eco-Chic]

FeeFee, let kitty hunt down the slimey creeps but don't let him eat them. Dogs have been known to get heartworm or lungworm from eating slugs and snails so they probably aren't good for kitty either.

I was told that slugs and snails have a great homing instinct and that I was wasting my time throwing them over the wall into the park. This merely increased the violence with which I lobbed them over the wall. My thinking being that concussion and/or a broken back would slow them down until the birdies woke up for breakfast

[Creemteez]

Because they think that if you run out of slimies to lob across the road, you might start on THEM

Donald, Basil, Ernest and Michael the Toad know I would NEVER DO THAT TO THEM! I found Ernest behind on of my compost bags positively SURROUNDED by slimeys but most of them were bigger than his head! We had quite a conversation as to which sort were his favourite.... Good grief, it's just as well I wasn't born 400 years ago! A woman who spends her time growing "herbs", mixing noxious brews and talking to Toads and "snakes"?
BURN THE WITCH! BURN THE WITCH!!
Yep. I reckon the'd have strapped me to a faggot and struck a match!