h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I was looking at the BBC Gardening message board and noticed this. Some of the people are going to do a plant trial a la Gardener's World style (ie A couple of different varieties of a plant, and see which do best). Thought I would post it here for anyone else interested.

Chillies and penstemons seem to be what they are going to try.

Any hootoo gardeners fancy joining in?

If any of you are planning to plant any seeds this year we could give our own one a try here, too.

So far I've some Hollyhocks (sown on thursday, coming up already). I'll doubtless be doing a lot more though, since I'm trying to do a new border on the cheap.

Anyway here's the thread:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-perl/h2/h2.cgi?thread=%3C1107532158-25777.8%40forum2.mh.bbc.co.uk%3E&find=%3C1107532158-25777.8%40forum2.mh.bbc.co.uk%3E&board=gardening.tv&sort=Te

I've done these before, and always forget to send in my results.

We've been preparing our raised beds the last couple of weeks and have got *huge* numbers of seeds to get planted! Need to get our sowing trays sorted this weekend and get the early things kicked off. Mainly we are growing vegetables - we had the most success with lettuce and carrots last year, the broccoli and cauli got completely eaten by caterpillars (you'll see me chasing cabbage whites outof the garden this summer). This year we are trying toms, peppers, aubergines and chillies in the 'greenhouse' (a tent thing from argos), carrots, parsnips, onions, garlic, courgette, fennel, broccoli, cos lettuce and some others that have slipped my mind in the beds. May try adding the odd marigold, as I read that it is a good companion plant for keeping bugs at bay.

We also need to plant out new apple tree this weekend

So exciting to get to eat things I have grown!

Raised beds is one of those things I wouldn't mind doing but haven't been arsed There's part of the garden away up at the end behind a fence, used for nothing but a compost heap and some weeds. Sort of the "workshop" zone. There are tree roots all over the ground there so raised beds would be the only way really.

Got one of those Argos tenties too - damn thing blew over despite being well hammered into the ground. Grr.

Ours fell over during one of the windy storms we had last year despite being tied to a fence - it just ripped the plastic off

I also found it was difficult to manage the humidity in there - the hole in the side after it blew over actually helped a lot with that

Yeah, rivers running down the plastic!

I only used it for raising seeds really. After the Windy Day Wipeout though, I'm a little reluctant to trust it again!

I'll just have to tie it down and hammer it in again. Reluctant not to use it since I paid good money for it!

My plastic greenhouse is a write off - it's blown over twice - despite having bricks inside it after the first time. I've also had to replace the cover once as it ripped down the side of the zip, and then it melted to the frame last summer, then ripped off in the wind over winter.

As I haven't got a walk in greenhouse I'll be waiting for it to warm up a bit before I venture out onto my back doorstep to sow more seeds. I tried veggies one year, but my garden isn't big enough considering it's a wildlife garden - so the insects ate everything I planted. I just buy things that are the colours I like - purple and orange/yellow for contrast, white and anything green. Native if possible, but not really fussy!