Hi all,

I didn't see a place for discussion about houseplants, so here we are. Apologies if there is one that I missed (or if it's just not the done thing to talk about houseplants amongst *real* gardeners!).

I have always been a nightmare on houseplants, but I asked for some for that time of year that shall not be mentioned again for 11 months. It's been a couple years since I killed my last plant...so maybe I'm ready for the challenge. They're not in their permanent homes yet, so I don't have photos, but I'll upload some when they get settled. I got some mini plants (Vriesea ospinae, Nidularium (Fireball), Alternanthra dentata, Biophytum sensitivum, and Peperomia "Hope") from my husband's brother, and a gift certificate from his parents (which yielded Monstera adansonii, Maranta leuconeura [calathea, prayer plant], crocodile fern, satin pothos, and devil's ivy/golden pothos). My daughter's enjoying the "misting" part of the care instructions, and my husband and I are just waiting for my usual bad indoor plant stewardship to result in crispy leaves. Maybe because they were gifts and maybe because I can't garden outdoors right now, but I'm very excited!

Do you have any houseplants you'd like to share?

I received a text on my phone informing me that the UK-GOV had issued a payment of £284.76 as part of its promise to battle covid-19, with a Web site to visit to apply for it, as I am very wary of such gifts and messages, I thought I would ask on here if anyone else received this message

Lots of us have grown pea shoots from dried peas but I didn't know you could grow Broad/Fava bean shoots in the same way - or chickpeas for that matter!
I have lots of old Wizard Field bean seeds and old dried peas so I feel an experiment coming on.

https://verticalveg.org.uk/how-to-grow-f...an-shoots/

I have been trying to pick what spuds to grow this year. I only grow earlies as we think they taste much better fresh than shop bought and it frees up space in my small veg plot sooner. I usually grow Charlotte but am considering trying other varieties again (lady crystl especially, but I never get organised enough to get any). 
This year I've been reading around and seen a few articles saying you should always buy seed potatoes from a "reputable supplier" and avoid the discount shops as they have inferior seed spuds. 
This got me thinking, I may buy some seed potatoes from a well known specialist supplier and same variety from wilkos and treat them the same. 

Has anyone done this before or had any experience with cheap spuds?

As I can't get to any garden centers to buy fuchsia plugs, can anyone recommend any nurseries that would supply mixed varieties of fuchsia, when searching the Web I can only get various numbers of the same variety, so can anyone help me

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 !

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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