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25-04-2003, 11:08 PM

(Nick Maclaren) wrote in
:

In article ,
Jayne wrote:

Nick - I'd like to try sweetcorn - would I be better off digging a
sunny patch just for them? And I've read that you can grow pumpkins on
a compost heap? Our compost heap is in a corner of the garden which
faces south - any thoughts on that?

Both of those need to grow in a warm summer, and need a sunny autumn
to ripen. That is not likely this far north, so they are very tricky.
Yes, your compost heap is a reasonable location to try.

I grew pumpkins and squashes a few times as a teenager in our North Devon
garden so I don't think they can be that hard!

I hope not, anyway, because I have some pumpkin seedlings I will be
planting out soon. Jayne is in the Southwest too, so may well get the few
extra degrees of warmth needed - specially on a southfacing compost heap.

I used to grow mine under an old window as a cloche to get them started: as
I have just demolished a very wormy shed and have nothing left but the
glass, I'm going to do that again this year.

(The only problems I had were what to do with the vast surplus of products:
I must be unusual in having set off to university equipped with a box of
monstrous fruit and vegetables. )

Victoria Clare
--
On a hill in Cornwall