"T i m" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 2 Sep 2005 19:08:05 +0100, "pammyT" fenlandfowl
@talktalk.net wrote:



p.s. 'She' is ok with *our* runners (sweet/ not stringy) but her
favourite veg is probably brocolli followed by dark cabbage. Would I
have the same sorta luck with those next year or will the snails /
slugs eat them before we can?

Whatabout some spuds?


Why not start yourself a container garden in your own garden.

Hi Pammy .. erm I suppose we could but our back garden is full of
stuff and our neighbours is empty, unused and mostly wild pasture ;-)

In theory
there is nothing you cannot grow in containers, including spuds.

I wouldn't have thought that possible .. ;-)

Much better than diging and earthing up. You get some old car tyres, place
one on the ground, fill with compost, place 5 spuds, as the tops grow put
another tyre on top, fill with compost etc until it is about 6 high. When
you come to harvest, you have spuds right from the top all the way down to
the bottom saving your back and saving space.

You can
also grow beans.

Ok ..

I find french beans more rewarding as you get a huge crop
off each plant in a 6 inch pot.

Sri to be a pleb but what are they like? I generally like all beans
(broad, butter, kidney, baked g) whislt my missus does not (she'll
eat them but would prefer broccoli, cabbage etc).
I too am a bean-a-holic. I eat beans every day. Live them. French beans
are crisp, smooth, never stringy and with a lovely flavour. Generally the
packets of whole frozen beans you can buy in the supermarket are french
beans. They do not need to be pollinated to crop either. Plant some and make
room in your freezer. They freeze verey well too.

Grow the green ones and the yellow ones,
sometimes called wax beans. At least in your own garden there will be no
weeding in pots on concrete.

Ah, I like the last bit ;-)
Me too cos I love growing my own food but am a lazy cow :0)
Better slug control on pots too. Strip some wire so you end up with the
copper inner, tie around the pot and twist to keep in place. Hey presto, no
slugs. They don't like to cross it cos it hurts their little sluggy tummies.


If I was to do this again I might tidy up his garden further. His
'lawn' is now big clumps of wild grass amongst dead bald patches. He
would be happy for me to do anything with it as long as it wasn't
permenant (and especially if it made it tidyier). So, I was thinking
of making more growing space and removing the remaining grass,
replacing it with black membrane and bark or slate chippings?

That would be fine. Why don't you tidy up your own though and do the same?
:0)

All the best and thanks for the thoughts ..
There are some great books on container gardeing about if you are
interested. In theory any vegetable can be grown in a container and you
don't have to buy pretty pots. Use anything, let your imagination run wild,
old copper water tanks, toilet custerns, washing machine drums, stacks of
old tyres, which you can usually get for free from tyre fitting places. Even
bin bags can be filled with compost and used to grow things in. Howabout a
strawberry tower if you like them (I don't). Screw 4 3 foot legths of old
floorboard together, make holes in the sides with a hole cutter, fill with
compost and push a plant through each hole as you build the level of compost
up. You could do the same with a legth of drainpipe.
Container gardening is great fun and a huge part of that fun is coming
across something you can use, for free, in skips and the like. I grow my
lollo rosso lettuce in old aluminium ice cream boxes as used in ice cream
vans. It looks very pretty, never goes to seed, and I simply pull off the
leaves I need and they regrow. Not once had a slug on it either so I think
they dislike aluminium too.