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

Feel free are you likely to come along then?

thinking about it.......

They're always a good laugh WE don't seem to get quite so many people these days as when the Italics orgnaised them themselves, but we useually get a pretty good crowd and its a pretty decen tpub we've decided apon (though it has changed hands since we wer elast there) some people just come along for th eevening, or just for the day, and other of us sit in teh bar all day long

Topic has wandered a bit, but I did get some plants in yesterday. A friend popped round for a coffee and ended up staying for 3 hours, so I didn't get the tomatoes in the ground, and they are flowering in pots, argh... Not ideal!

Even after all that rain the ground was still bone dry after the first inch or so. Hopefully we'll get some more rain so I can get some more in before it gets too dry again.

Sorry, my fault.

I hope you get your tomatoes planted out. At least they are flowering so they should be all right.

Actually I wondered after I posted that if you were 2legs or a sympathiser

What you could do to give you something to look at for the winter is just get lots of pots and one of those bumper packs of pansies or something. You know the wee cataloges that fall out of things like the TV Times? Sometimes they have ridiculous offers like 60 plug plants for £8.99 or stuff like that.

That'll make it look less bare and you can dispense with them bit by bit as you get other stuff to put in them.

Tomatoes, hmm. Never did get round to sowing that packet of seeds. Apparently now's a good time to sow lettuce and some kinds of turnip though, so I might get some seeds.

I did grow garlic though. Even though it was just a clove from a supermarket bought bulb, it tasted much better - almost sweet. I think this is because I used it when it was much smaller and younger than they are in the shop. Maybe because it came straight from the ground to the plate too, without sitting around on a shelf or in a truck.

I've heard it said that you should buy special bulbs from a garden centre to grow, but the supermarket ones worked fine for me.

I'm really interested in how you grew your garlic. Can you give me more info please as I'd like to have a try myself.

Do you sew your lettuce seeds in ordinary compost or in tubs ? Again, I would like to grow lettuce

Hi chips,

the garlic was really simple. I just got a head of garlic, broke it into cloves and planted each one about 3" deep. I think you're supposed to leave them in until the scallion type leaves die back, but I was impatient and just pulled one out to see how it was coming on. I planted it again, but I'd already half-killed it so it just died back prematurely ...I think it might have made it tastier that it was younger though.

I've just put lettuce in the ground before, but I think I'll do it in pots to keep the slugs at bay this time. I have some seed trays, so I'll probably try to keep a sort of 'conveyor belt' going - sow a couple once a week or fortnight or so.

Here's a strange idea out of nowhere - I wonder if peas could be grown in a hanging basket, just dangling over and down the sides instead of climbing up anything?

Good morning !

I'll try planting some garlic and see what happens. Thank you for the info.

It made me laugh when you said you pulled out the clove checking to see if it had grown. I do that with little cuttings And so kill them off

I've never grown lettuce from seed before. I'll have a look for some today. You're right, there are too many slugs about to plant food stuff in the ground. Ghastly little things slugs.

I don't know about growing peas in a hanging basket.....

C

Don't see why you couldn't grow peas in a hanging basket - as long as they're a dwarf variety they should be perfectly happy.

Garlic is one of the easiest edible things I've ever grown The best time to sow is in Autumn because it needs a good spell of freezing weather to start forming proper bulbs. Keeps for ages as well, we had nearly 6 months of our own garlic and that's even when we use it in nearly every meal - no in our house
We've used both shop bought garlic and special stuff from a gardening catalogue. In both cases we got good results but the special stuff did make bigger bulbs. The main advantage of buying garlic meant for sowing is that it will be certified as virus free whereas bulbs bought from a supermarket may be prone to diseases.

One of the reasons for buying garlic specially from a nursery or garden centre is that you'll be getting a variety that does good in local conditions. Garlic comes from warmer climes than the UK originally, and if you plant some from a supermarket that's been grown in somewhere on the Med, it mightn't be the best in the local conditions.

It's probably true, but I don't really mind if I don't get the biggest and best - just some garlic I can use in the kitchen. The bulbs from the supermarket type are probably a bit smaller, but they do the job for me.

Thinking about the pea thing, I don't think it would work - I can imagine a tangle of tendrils trying to cheat gravity and go up, just making an untidy clumpy thing. I grew them before with nothing to climb up and I got a few pods, but it wasn't that successful.

I like having a go at some fairly unusual methods just to see what happens though.

Thanks for the good advice about the garlic planting.

I'll be hopefully trying to grow some in the next couple of weeks

Well, today my would-be veg patch got cleared of a disastrous batch of overgrown trees. I'm raring to go, but don't know what I'll plant. I don't think it's a great time of year to start planting a lot of things, since by the time they get going we'll be heading towards winter. Still, I'll give onions, lettuce and turnips a go. If it's anything like last year, winter mightn't be that big an issue anyway. I've had fucshia that's not stopped flowering since last summer, and it's meant to be pretty chancey in cold weather.

Then again, even if it's not that cold there's less sun in winter so things won't grow so well.

I'm becoming more and more reluctant to believe what the books and 'experts' say. I've had pretty good success with a lot of things that I just tried out on a "what the hell, let's see what happens" basis.

I'm a great believer in doing my own thing.

I'm always amazed when I plant seeds long after their sell by date and they all grow. Well, nearly all of them.