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

Everything is now underway. Last weekend, spring onion and radish seeds. Yellow courgettes in pots which have just germinated. Chilli peppers, Basil seeds in pots.Today corn flower and mixed annual seeds planted. The weather has been great for a week now. Have a nice big bin full of compost, made all year, ready to dig into the courgettes beds.

Am quite excited to see lots of Elder seedlings appear up the back in the wildish bit. First year I've ever seen them from the last years elder berries, from the old tree. I reckon that period of intense frost snow and ice must have triggered them this year. Many seeds need that to become viable.

It appears the Elder is a very important tree in folklore. Sacred to witches and home to them and dryads. Wands are traditionally made from elder. It's unlucky to cut one down, but are protective, if you have one in the garden. Sacred to the thirteenth month in the moon calender..something to do with 'hags'..oh well that's okay for my old age then Also Judas apparently hung himself from an elder. Lots of stuff on the internet about their importance in paganism. Yeah, I love all this type of thing, really I do..don't believe a word of it of course Half the plants in my garden are actually very important in folklore..oh and rather good for wildlife as well.

Lots of birds around which I'm pleased about, as I fed them fatballs with seeds all during the intense cold of the winter.

Reeds in pond doing well..and by the looks a gazillion water snails..I reckon they were busy multiplying under the ice layer all winter

Weather really has been great this spring.

One of my strawberry plants made it through the winter. I planted my pole beans a few days ago.

Snow is expected in a few days.

My venerable honeysuckle survived a nasty attack of scaley bug, after a liberal dose of Provado (Not very organic, I know) but it was better than the gardeners suggestion to chuck it on the bonfire Ruthless!

Yes norti I've been known on occasion to blitz the brambles that like to take over..with some extra powerful stuff made by ICI. But I try to minimise using such stuff. Got something for the slugs and snails this year that claims to be natural and non poisonous too birds..just hope the bloody stuff works though. My garden is a haven for slugs and snails, and they decimate veg. Though one year I collected snails, and purged them with flour for a week..and then ate them in garlic butter . I don't think I'd ever eat slugs though.

Good to hear your honey suckle is okay. I have some too.

I'm waiting to do a covert raid on the Strawberries and beans, like a naughty commando snail

I've eaten snails in garlic butter, jolly nice I have a Turkish friend who advocates Sheep's brain salad I not convinced yet, think I'll just shut my etyes and think of England.

Just started to purge my garden, this past week. The strawberries have survived and started flowering in places, the plum and pear trees have copious flowers, the pansys in the back have come on leaps and bounds, just need the daffys and the bluebells to flower. The sweet peas are coming on also. Not bad so far, I even found some rhubarb growing (where it shouldn't be, but what the hey - will soon be in a crumble anyway)

The only downside is the number of ing dandilions. I took the heads of the buggars on Friday - I've still got as many now Don't mention the 'railway trees'

<< Half the plants in my garden are actually very important in folklore..>>

what can i say

we got som growbags last week and some foody type plants

lettuce, red onion, celery, peas, a pepper and a chili

we also got some flowers

i have more compost than i know what to do with, i keep recycling it from pots through the compost bin every year, and now have an old water but full of the stuff

one honeysucle up over and around the gate has just started to flower and the russian vine in the hedge is starting to go mental

and this week i need to cut the lawn

put feed and mosskiller on it this week and its just gone whoosh, jungle

just leaning over the fence and admiring all this work

did the dandy lions in the back yard saturday with my blowtorch/flamethrower weed wand

all dead and shriveled today

might give 'em another blast tommorrow and ash them

>blowtorch/flamethrower weed wand<

I've only got one of those manual malarkies with a handle.

this is a long pipe shaped like a walking stick

you screw a bottle of blowtorch gas in the handle next to the control valve

the other end has a spark making button

you end up with a flame out the bottom

you wave it over a weed for a few seconds

the water in the cells expands bursting the plants cells

they wither and a few days later are totaly dead

I *need* one of those!

*stamps foot*

I'll need one of those for the snow.

About four days ago it was +27 Celsius here. For the last two days it's been fluctuating around the zero mark.


But at least we've finally had a (tiny) bit of precipitation.

i think they may be in the argos catalogue

I've always wanted one of those too Taff Someone told me they no longer sold them, because of 'Health-and-Safety-gone-mad'.


to the Argos catalogue online!

Hi all, nice to y'all here.

anhaga that sounds weird to go from 27C and then back to snow. I presume it's to do with the prevailing weather direction, ie north or south? We get it here too, but to a lesser extent; it's a southerly direction at present and coming up from lanza's direction...very nice.

lanza what stuff do you grown in Lanzarote?

Taff that flame thrower thing sounds pretty cool, but like bindweed my main problem weed..the roots just keep re-growing, and it's impossible to dig the devils out cos the roots go down so deep and always seem to snap off. I bought a strimmer last year, which I now swear by for all sorts of stuff.

I have to confess to having an ambivalent attitude to dandelions. I don't mind a few cos I love the flowers, and you can use the young leaves in salads. But yeah they are also a big pain when they start invading too much.

But just to give them a bit of look in, I took this yesterday. But crikey I dread to think what'll happen once the clocks form. Must cut them off before that happens.

http://bit.ly/co2xgX

I don't really have a proper garden at all here effers - I look after my dad's garden in Staffordshire, and miss having my old allotment (which kept me sane and fit and healthy all at the same time)

Here I have a few tropical palm trees in the atrium and a few scorched cactuses on the balcony. There is a shared garden outside, but we have a chap to do this. There are all sorts of things like hibiscus and bougainvillea and so on.

Oh, these were good the year before last - I think he chopped them down since then. Its a type of climbing cactus, with flowers the size of dinner plates, that only open at night ( which is why the photo is a bit white as it was taken with flash)

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/shirleyannbaby/AmazingTropicalPlants?authkey=Gv1sRgCNTrxOjk2bX-9AE#5464416097172254338

love the dandelion photo - and the seeds will blow into someone else's garden

The variability of the weather here is just the way it is. Pretty much all of it comes from the west, hot or cold. If I remember correctly, the only month snow hasn't been recorded is July, we quite often don't get snow until after Christmas and it's not terribly remarkable to have the snow gone in February. But it's also not unusual to get snow in May and September. And the sort of temperature fluctuation we've just had happens all the time through the winter (same range of variation but farther down the scale)

Wow that climbing cactus looks amazing lanza. The flatness of the stems and their colours against the stone work..and yes the amazing flowers. Thanks for that. You wouldn't catch me chopping that down.