After removing all my cut down chillies Mrs blackbird appeared. I assumed she was looking for bug & worms in the pile of rubbish left behind. How wrong was I !

    .      .     

If you’re not sure what you’re looking at , because photos are a bit cr@p.  The female blackbird is eating chillies!
Thai dragon to be precise! 

I heard birds don’t have some gland thingy so the heat doesn’t affect them, but I’ve never witnessed it before.

An Experiment.
One of my broad bean seedlings had snapped its stem so I've put the broken off part in water to see whether it will root - and, of course, whether the rooted bean will throw up more shoots. 
I'm confident of the latter but not about the "cutting". 
If it works, it may be a way to multiply plants without using more seeds?

From the garden organic web site:
"Garden Organic has signed a letter to the government calling for a complete ban on peat in garden compost in the next five years. We joined Monty Don, as well as organisations such as The National Trust, Friends of the Earth and The RHS, in writing to George Eustace after new figures show the government has missed its target on banning peat for gardeners by 2020."

I see this could be a problem for people who garden on a budget as the quality of cheap peat free compost is quite variable.

I personally have stopped using compost with peat in it, probably the last 5 years. The 2 best peat-free composts I've found are Melcourts range of Sylvagrow and Dalefoots range of products. Neither is cheap.
I've found the quality of home made compost just from letting weeds rot for 12 months can be really good - except for the amount of weed seeds mine has. If I was  lot more careful this would probably be best as it comes without any plastic packaging as well.

I did notice a couple of comments recently about compost with peat in another thread which tempted me to post this.

I doubt it will be very high on Mr Eustace's list of things to do but should we gardeners be making it that firms stop using peat as nobody buys it any more?

I just read a bit in a magazine from a well known gardener where he said you didn't need to harden off plants before planting out, you just planted them then to protect them, cover with fleece, I have never tried planting straight into the soil, but have moved them out of the greenhouse and protected them at night with fleece, has anyone  just planted then protected straight from the greenhouse and if so we're you pleased with the results?
Just to add, would it work with potatoes

I have a large garden tub which would hold around 70lts of compost, so could anyone tell me if this would be large enough for growing asparagus and if so what growing medium would you recommend for this

Sorry....I can't wait for the seed swap to land!

Grow list for me so far- I will not grow many - but I will add as I find my varieties and put them to the side 

Garden Pearl
Rambling red stripe - I'm hoping VC puts these in the parcel

Black icicle
Orange banana 
Brown and black boar


What are you planning on growing?

Will you join me in a 2021 Challenge of Doing something Different every week? Break the boredom of Lock-down for who knows when it will end?

Something that you haven't tried before/or not for a long time/been meaning to do for ages. For example, visit somewhere new, try a new recipe, make your own summat, eat or cook or grow something different. Maybe a forgotten hobby that you once had, a walk to somewhere local you haven't been to for a while, try art or music or learn a new language for a week, do a jigsaw, knit or crochet, model build............ 
You name it and do it! 
Share what you've done and inspire us.
Photos appreciated. 

Help, send cake...

Handrearing kittens is such hard work, they have had me pinned down for hours...

Attached Files

Thumbnail(s)
   

Hi there

I came across from another forum. There's lots of familiar names here. So I'm looking forward my stay

Thanks for the heads up the person that sent me a message on the other forum

just wondering if everybody got any unusual useful presents ?

I got a lovely truck/trailer from my son, and a very unusual tripod desk lamp from my daughter.

Problems loading photos will resize and add later

Hopefully this works