The catalogues have started to arrive...

What are you growing from seed this year, and why?

: The catalogues have started to arrive...
:
: What are you growing from seed this year, and why?

I am growing mostly the same but ensuring that I cover the leeks and carrots
with fleece next year to avoid the destruction of the crops by the leek moth
and carrot fly respectively. Any other tips welcome. I am trying new types
of pumpkins as I have bought, online, a mixed pack of weird looking ones
from http://www.seedsofitaly.co.uk/

Victoria Clare wrote:

The catalogues have started to arrive...

What are you growing from seed this year, and why?


The ususal, with one or 2 new things thrown in..

Ususal includes Toms, spuds, onions, carrots, 'neeps, courgettes,
squash, chillies, corn, etc.. Gonna look more closely at cultivars
known to perform well in our soils location where poss..

Want to make the effort to get better onions, carrots and swede as well.
And indulge my passion for exotic edible ornamentals.. I may well treat
myself to a 'UK Pepper' after my visit to the ART research site this
year.. SPICY, and a damn sght cheaper than buying black pepper in the
shops;-)

And I see T&M are offering highly priced sweet potato slips..
/
Jim

Victoria Clare wrote:

The catalogues have started to arrive...

What are you growing from seed this year, and why?

Well, last year I grew a couple of really nice peas - Lathyrus
chlorantha, with lemon yellow flowers, and a variety of L sativa with
'steel blue' flowers - both so nice that I shall be looking for other
Lathyrus sp when Chilterns catalogue arrives.

And some Lithops - some damned snail ate my last year's crop.

Salvia - one of my chilterns 'mixed perennials' turned out to be a
beautiful salvia with dusky pinky purple flowers, a beautiful colour, so
this is an area to explore further.

And it's about time I got to grips with identification of grasses in the
wild, so I shall buy some named grass seed to be sure I have a firm
identification to start with ... I find a lot of my plant growing is not
so much to provide something nice for the garden, but to find out about
the growth habit and the looks of a particular plant. .. sort of .. one
step further than looking it up in a book.
--
Kay Easton

Edward's earthworm page:
http://www.scarboro.demon.co.uk/edward/index.htm

On Thu, 30 Oct 2003 19:20:23 +0000,
(Jim W) wrote:

~Victoria Clare wrote:
~
~ The catalogues have started to arrive...
~
~ What are you growing from seed this year, and why?
~
~
~The ususal, with one or 2 new things thrown in..
~
~Ususal includes Toms, spuds, onions, carrots, 'neeps, courgettes,
~squash, chillies, corn, etc.. Gonna look more closely at cultivars
~known to perform well in our soils location where poss..
~
~Want to make the effort to get better onions, carrots and swede as well.
~And indulge my passion for exotic edible ornamentals.. I may well treat
~myself to a 'UK Pepper' after my visit to the ART research site this
~year.. SPICY, and a damn sght cheaper than buying black pepper in the
~shops;-)
~
~And I see T&M are offering highly priced sweet potato slips..
~/

I'm sticking with some familiar and good cultivars: cabbage minicole,
sweetcorn ovation and trailing green marrows. Out of the (ahem!) six
varieties of squash I tried this year, I'm going to grow butternut, custard
and Gold Rush again. I won't grow the spherical courgettes as they don't
seem to be as easy to do anything with as the normal shapes and grow seeds
faster. Dunno about acorn squash - depends on if I like the ones I have
grown this time (still in shed Will get Defender F1 to replace the
eightball and de Nice a fruit rond.

I will grow more Marshalls New Fen Globe onion sets as I have lots of large
onions but still not enough, and have already planted more overwintering
garlic as the spring planted was pathetic. I will grow twice as many
International kidney spuds as not only are they great tasting, they'll do
as first earlies to early maincrop so you can dig when you want. Beetroot
boltardy suffered with the drought but didn't bolt so there's another old
favourite. Definitely growing Berggold dwarf beans yet again - was picking
them in mid-July to a couple of weeks ago.

Am changing runner beans. Got a bit fed up of strings this year, so Enorma
is getting the boot. Will consult google to see what folk here have in the
past recommended...

Might grow savoy cabbage again - depends on what this year's lot are like
but I won't eat them until January!

And I swear I'm going to make rigid netting frames this next year so I can
just lift them up to weed under! The first one is going to be enviromesh
and I'm going to dig a 6"trench, fill with growbag compost and plant the
carrots in *that* as I'm fed up of throwing away crazyshaped carrots. They
have forks on their forks...

Leeks I'll grow again, same as last year - autumn mammoth Verina (Unwins)
but hope they'll be a little better than the sad ones of this year. Not
enough water for them, either. Year before they were brilliant. Fairly rust
resistant too.

I might just splash out on spaghetti squash after the success a neighbour
had, if I have any room left!!!

Oh, if anyone remembers the tripover apple I shifted back in Feb? It made
it through the season and even grew some smallish apples!


--
jane

Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone,
you may still exist but you have ceased to live.
Mark Twain

Please remove onmaps from replies, thanks!

On Thu, 30 Oct 2003 18:03:44 +0000, Victoria Clare
wrote:

The catalogues have started to arrive...

What are you growing from seed this year, and why?

I had something of a break from any serious gardening this year - so
the whole place is a bit of a mess ( AKA wildlife garden, guv ).
But - I had a six ton grain wagon turn up last weekend stacked full to
the brim with grade A horse manure.
It's a very peculiar thing to be woken up first thing on a Sunday
morning by a farmer shouting 'Oi, 'ere's yer shit - where d'ya want
it?'.

For the most part I'm simply going to lay it over the veg patch a foot
deep, and plant straight into it under black polythene next season (
it'd take too long to weed the plot... and now the 'rains' have
arrived ).
That's going to leave me with a very rich surface layer - so I'm going
for gross feeders this year. I quite fancy some of the more esoteric
squashes - and I reckon a goodly range of beans will be on the cards,
including the curiously named Lab Lab bean.
I'm considered growing beans for dry storage too - something I've not
tried before.

Peas will be the usual Alderman - simply because I've got the space,
plus Douce Provence ( if I can find them ).

I'd considered buying some of those giant pumpkin seeds - but what the
hell d'you do with a pumpkin that's over a yard in diameter?? Make a
shed out of it? Quite fancy the snazzy blue pumpkins Marshalls are
offering...

And now that I have four large 'sleepers' - and all the manure I can
poke a stick at, I might invest in a strawberry patch - so that I can
eat 'em 'til I puke ( hopefully not literally ).

Globe artichokes are on the list too ( again ) - though I make no
promises that I'll get a crop by the end of the year - and I reckon
it's high time I bought those apple trees I've been promising myself
for years now.
Anyone got any recommendations for a nice, fresh, crisp apple with a
bit of a bite that does well in an organic garden?

Elephant garlic looks like it might be fun - and with a sifted bed of
well rotted manure I reckon I ought to be able to grow some
spectacularly tasty carrots. Might give Sytan a go - though carrot fly
doesn't seem to be that much of a problem up here.

No blooms on the list as yet - the bed that runs along the rear hedge
is 'mature' ( read overgrown ) and desperately needs thinning out - so
that pretty much takes care of the fancy gardening for next year.

BUT - just adjacent to my workshop a couple are setting up a large
polytunnel. Seems they're going to trade rare flower seeds, so I
expect that there may well be a few 'end of line' plants up for grabs
from time to time.
Eat yer heart out eh?

Regards,



--
Stephen Howard - Woodwind repairs & period restorations
http://www.shwoodwind.co.uk
Emails to: showard{who is at}shwoodwind{dot}co{dot}uk

Robert wrote:
: The catalogues have started to arrive...
:
: What are you growing from seed this year, and why?

I am growing mostly the same but ensuring that I cover the leeks and carrots
with fleece next year to avoid the destruction of the crops by the leek moth
and carrot fly respectively. Any other tips welcome. I am trying new types
of pumpkins as I have bought, online, a mixed pack of weird looking ones
from http://www.seedsofitaly.co.uk/


John Seymour recomends scattering soot to deter these pests. I haven't
tried it, but I'm going to have a go this year. There was also some
bloke on the Gardener's World allotment special a while back who swore
by earthing up his carrots to prevent carrot fly. Seems suspiciously
simple to me, but again, I'm going to try it.

Stephen Howard wrote:

On Thu, 30 Oct 2003 18:03:44 +0000, Victoria Clare
wrote:

The catalogues have started to arrive...

What are you growing from seed this year, and why?

I had something of a break from any serious gardening this year - so
the whole place is a bit of a mess ( AKA wildlife garden, guv ).
But - I had a six ton grain wagon turn up last weekend stacked full to
the brim with grade A horse manure.
It's a very peculiar thing to be woken up first thing on a Sunday
morning by a farmer shouting 'Oi, 'ere's yer shit - where d'ya want
it?'.

For the most part I'm simply going to lay it over the veg patch a foot
deep, and plant straight into it under black polythene next season (
it'd take too long to weed the plot... and now the 'rains' have
arrived ).
That's going to leave me with a very rich surface layer - so I'm going
for gross feeders this year. I quite fancy some of the more esoteric
squashes - and I reckon a goodly range of beans will be on the cards,
including the curiously named Lab Lab bean.
I'm considered growing beans for dry storage too - something I've not
tried before.

Peas will be the usual Alderman - simply because I've got the space,
plus Douce Provence ( if I can find them ).

I'd considered buying some of those giant pumpkin seeds - but what the
hell d'you do with a pumpkin that's over a yard in diameter?? Make a
shed out of it?

Win the 'biggest' pumkin entry in the local show..
Start a pumkin soup business

Quite fancy the snazzy blue pumpkins Marshalls are
offering...

They're very nice eaing as well;-)

And now that I have four large 'sleepers' - and all the manure I can
poke a stick at, I might invest in a strawberry patch - so that I can
eat 'em 'til I puke ( hopefully not literally ).

Globe artichokes are on the list too ( again ) - though I make no
promises that I'll get a crop by the end of the year - and I reckon
it's high time I bought those apple trees I've been promising myself
for years now.
Anyone got any recommendations for a nice, fresh, crisp apple with a
bit of a bite that does well in an organic garden?

Elephant garlic looks like it might be fun - and with a sifted bed of
well rotted manure I reckon I ought to be able to grow some
spectacularly tasty carrots. Might give Sytan a go - though carrot fly
doesn't seem to be that much of a problem up here.

No blooms on the list as yet - the bed that runs along the rear hedge
is 'mature' ( read overgrown ) and desperately needs thinning out - so
that pretty much takes care of the fancy gardening for next year.

BUT - just adjacent to my workshop a couple are setting up a large
polytunnel. Seems they're going to trade rare flower seeds, so I
expect that there may well be a few 'end of line' plants up for grabs
from time to time.
Eat yer heart out eh?

Lucky swine;-)
/
Jim

"Kay Easton" wrote in message
...

Victoria Clare wrote:

The catalogues have started to arrive...

What are you growing from seed this year, and why?

Well, last year I grew a couple of really nice peas - Lathyrus
chlorantha, with lemon yellow flowers, and a variety of L sativa with
'steel blue' flowers - both so nice that I shall be looking for other
Lathyrus sp when Chilterns catalogue arrives.

And some Lithops - some damned snail ate my last year's crop.

Salvia - one of my chilterns 'mixed perennials' turned out to be a
beautiful salvia with dusky pinky purple flowers, a beautiful colour, so
this is an area to explore further.

And it's about time I got to grips with identification of grasses in the
wild, so I shall buy some named grass seed to be sure I have a firm
identification to start with ... I find a lot of my plant growing is not
so much to provide something nice for the garden, but to find out about
the growth habit and the looks of a particular plant. .. sort of .. one
step further than looking it up in a book.
--
Kay Easton

Edward's earthworm page:
http://www.scarboro.demon.co.uk/edward/index.htm

That's an interesting idea Kay (speaking as someone - ie qualified
ecologist -who should know their grasses but doesn't). Do you think this
could be expanded? Mail order eggs to raise Little Brown Birds from?

Michael S

Victoria Clare wrote:

The catalogues have started to arrive...

What are you growing from seed this year, and why?

Well, last year I grew a couple of really nice peas - Lathyrus
chlorantha, with lemon yellow flowers, and a variety of L sativa with
'steel blue' flowers - both so nice that I shall be looking for other
Lathyrus sp when Chilterns catalogue arrives.

And some Lithops - some damned snail ate my last year's crop.

Salvia - one of my chilterns 'mixed perennials' turned out to be a
beautiful salvia with dusky pinky purple flowers, a beautiful colour, so
this is an area to explore further.

snip

Kay, as you know there's a huge range of Salvias and one of the best for
this time of year is Salvia confertiflora. It has long spires of rusty red
flowers and ours is still out now. It's not hardy, though so cuttings need
to be taken.
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove the 'x' to email me)

The message
from Victoria Clare contains these words:

The catalogues have started to arrive...

What are you growing from seed this year, and why?


Gawd, where do I start with a new allotment.

Biggest one has to be pumpkins as we are having a competion with the
next door neighbour.

Sunflowers ( OK so i am new at this)
and may be some herbs
(also just like to say thanks to everyone who answered my questions so far I have learnt more from you nice people here than the last 3 books i have read)

On Fri, 31 Oct 2003 10:49:00 +0000,
(Jim W) wrote:

Stephen Howard wrote:


I'd considered buying some of those giant pumpkin seeds - but what the
hell d'you do with a pumpkin that's over a yard in diameter?? Make a
shed out of it?

Win the 'biggest' pumkin entry in the local show..
Start a pumkin soup business

Made some pumpkin soup yesterday ( it's that time of year ). I think I
can live without it....
Anyone got a decent recipe for a pumkin cake?

Quite fancy the snazzy blue pumpkins Marshalls are
offering...

They're very nice eaing as well;-)

I'll let you know!


BUT - just adjacent to my workshop a couple are setting up a large
polytunnel. Seems they're going to trade rare flower seeds, so I
expect that there may well be a few 'end of line' plants up for grabs
from time to time.
Eat yer heart out eh?

Lucky swine;-)

I know, it's a crime innit

Regards,



--
Stephen Howard - Woodwind repairs & period restorations
www.shwoodwind.co.uk
Emails to: showard{whoisat}shwoodwind{dot}co{dot}uk

On Fri, 31 Oct 2003 13:58:40 +0000, Stephen Howard
wrote:

On Fri, 31 Oct 2003 10:49:00 +0000,
(Jim W) wrote:

Stephen Howard wrote:


I'd considered buying some of those giant pumpkin seeds - but what the
hell d'you do with a pumpkin that's over a yard in diameter?? Make a
shed out of it?

Win the 'biggest' pumkin entry in the local show..
Start a pumkin soup business

Made some pumpkin soup yesterday ( it's that time of year ). I think I
can live without it....
Anyone got a decent recipe for a pumkin cake?


I once had Pumpkin and Pecan Pie, in Florida, that I quite enjoyed.

There are lots of pumpkin recipes here.
http://www.obh.snafu.de/~solon/lofab...index-nop.html

..snafu.de indeed !
--
Martin

"Victoria Clare" wrote in message
.209...
The catalogues have started to arrive...

What are you growing from seed this year, and why?


Dunno yet but there's usually a few (pages, that is) in Chiltern's that arouse my curiosity. And this time I'm
going to make *sure* the labels are weather proof and will stay put.

Rod