On Wed, 12 Jan 2011 15:28:46 GMT, Baz wrote:

[I've snipped my original posting and the start of yours - thanks for
*your* kind words]

I have had 3 full seasons since I started gardening but SO many failures
that outweigh the successes. Good example is the winter bressicas this
year, all went rotten with the frost, and I chose them for their
hardiness.

So you are definitely not a rookie! This winter has been exceptional -
a lot of us have lost a lot of things. I've been gardening for over 30
years and I thought I knew all about protecting tender plants over
winter. I have a greenhouse full of mushy, mouldy, fungus covered
plants. I'm facing up to reality tomorrow and going in with a pile of
old compost bags to tip the lot out (gotta do that as every composter
I have is full to the brim). I've already dug up stuff in the garden
that is supposed to be hardy but clearly hasn't survived. Other plants
I'm leaving in and hoping; trouble is that if they don't pull through
I'll have lots of gaps to fill and will have to either leave them this
year or pay through the nose for larger plants from those garden
centres that I try to avoid.

In my early gardening days, I had a lot of failures - I still do!
There are some plants I love and I refuse to accept I cannot grow them
because my soil is wrong (Sacha loves eremurus but has accepted she
can't grow them - I'm still trying!).

I could go on.
In my life I have found that mistakes or failures can sometimes be
avoided by going back to basics. Learning again, because of some
important items missed the first time.

If you want to go back to basics with veg, you might want to try the
approach of taking a year to grow only the really easy stuff -
broad/French/runner beans, beetroot, parsnips, swede and turnip for
example. Carrots, brassicas, peas, on the other hand, take more
effort to grow successfully. If this winter is the exception, then
great but if it's going to become the norm then we're all going to
have to adapt and grow early cropping varieties of everything.

If my dad was still around I would ask his advice, he was a very good
gardener and grew everything we needed when I was a kid. But he is no
longer with us, and if he was he would tell me there was no such thing as
carrot fly, cabbage root fly and the like. They did not exist.
The government, I beleive, will not allow us to have pesticides etc. as
mere home gardeners, we are not trustworthy.

Remember that a lot of us either don't use chemicals at all or only
use them when there's absolutely no other way. For cabbage root fly,
you put felt discs around the base of the stems - that's always been
my method - it's not the cure, it's the prevention so you do it before
they attack. Carrot fly can be controlled by sowing thinly, thinning
out (however thinly I sow I need to thin out!) in the evening and then
burying the thinnings (not throwing on the compost heap). FWIW Maestro
F1 and Parano F1 (from Dobies) are carrot fly resistant.

So thats why I would like to delve further into the subject, and my
dyslexia holds me back as it always did.

I doubt anyone would have guessed! Your postings here don't give
anything like that away! Do you have a scanner attached to your
computer (hint, if not and you've got better things to spend money on,
look up your local Freecycle group. If it's anything like the one
here, you'll find several "multi function" printers (i.e with
scanners) on offer each week). Once you've got a scanner, you can use
it to scan book pages to your computer and then get the computer to
read them to you. Most recent Windows operating systems have a basic
text reader built in and you can find a load of free ones on the web.
Fiddly to set up but once done a boon. I regularly use a text reader
to listen to boring stuff whilst having a soak in the bath or potting
up in the shed.

Just remember that the first gardening expert had no-one to learn
anything from but he or she managed it somehow.

But this person today is not allowed to manage their own learning because
only the chosen few are legalally allowed to practice such things. In
other words we can't spray our crops with products the commercial grower
can, and therefore are bound to failure in the eradication of alien
species in our locale.

The first expert didn't have pesticies and other chemicals. They're a
comparatively recent development. One of the reasons a lot of us grow
our own veg is that we DON'T want something covered in sprays and
stuff. Demand for organic produce is growing. You don't need chemicals
most of the time. If slugs and snails are a problem, encourage birds
and hedgehogs into your garden.

Going back to the roots(sorry about the pun) for me is the only way to
understand just what my garden needs and for me to provide it.

Baz

Cheers

Jake