In May the forum celebrates its 3rd birthday!

To celebrate we will be running a competition with a prize fund of £50. The details will be published soon, so make sure you visit every day or you might miss the chance to enter

Over Easter 4 posts will be made containing key words you need to collect to stand a chance of winning a prize.

EDIT To make it easier for you all to Vote, I've moved the entries into the POLL thread. No excuse for not  Voting now. 
Voting closes 28th May. 

Lots of Dog violets in the garden now and I also have Dog daisies and Dog roses................but what does Dog mean in these names?

Without goggling, can you guess?

Ok everyone I need you using your imagination   .

Let’s pretend that halfway through the growing season you’ve got to.
 1 move every thing you’re growing 
 2 everything you grow has to down size to fish boxes and limited on space to put fish box. 
 3 everything you do grow can only be cooked on the hob ( if it needs cooking) 

Which varieties of veg do you grow?

Bob was telling me yesterday about some survey/ report/ program ( don’t know wasn’t paying attention to that bit   ) that says the average meal in a UK home takes 20 minutes to prepare! I find this a little disturbing. Does the whole country open a packet and wait for the bing of the microwave?! I find it hard because last night we had one of the quickest meals we do. A re heat roast with a few extra fresh veggies to bulk it up. It still took 27 minutes.
I have no Idea what our average time would be preparing a meal. It’s definitely more than 20 minutes! 
What about you?

Any ideas??
Just popped up in a pot of dead something.
I wondered about cow parsley but it looks to “fine and fancy” for that

Attached Files

Thumbnail(s)
   

A garden I worked in 10/11 years ago! 


   

   

   

   

   

I built a bat box today out of scraps of wood. Very simple to to. I might make a few more.

   

Anyone else made them.

Anybody else fed up with all these mistakes.
How much do they pay the people to produce these glaring errors?
Don’t they have proof readers any more??

I’m going to be keeping a reference of how I’m growing Bombay bronze cockscomb. 

I had a feeling they were going to be tricky when the tiny seeds arrived in bubble wrap inside the seed packet. Never seen that before.

Attempt 1. sown seeds in a segment of a 6 cell tray in a bag in the airing cupboard. They germinated within 5-6 days. I then pricked them out into a pot of room temperature compost. Moved them to the dining room window. Under the grow light with the chillies. Within a week they were all dead. 

Attempt 2. Sown into their own pot of pre warmed compost. Pot placed with chillies under the grow light. Also added a heat mat underneath and put a designer cloche ( half pop bottle     ) over them. Again they germinated within 5-6 days. They’ve been going from strength to strength. The babies are growing nicely.

   

I'd like to make more compost (wouldn't we all?). Now that I'm chicken-free  the 2 runs are ripe for development. Both are shaded so not the best spots for veg/fruit growing - however, maybe I could "grow" compost there instead? 

I have 2 intact wormeries and another one that needs a lid and tap.  Only one has worms in it - but there are worms in the Hotbin that I've been picking out and adding to the wormery. My first step, I think, is to move the wormeries together - putting them on a raised platform/pallet so that the worm juice can be drained off. 
The second step is to be more proactive in collecting compostable material. Less Chop & Drop, more Chop and collect for the worms. 

Is there any benefit in having a conventional "dalek" bin nearby to dump fresh prunings into, before topping up the wormeries? Or putting it in a dustbin?
Should I have containers for coffee grounds, sacks for horse manure and for shredded paper, wood chip, grass cuttings or, in my usual way, bung it all in without a lot of success. 

All advice welcome but don't mention building a 3 bay pallet compost bay - been there, done it and not doing it again. Too much like hard work, turning it.

In case you're wondering, the Hotbin will stay in the GH for convenience.