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

*k opens the door of the first greenhouse and looks around*

Ah good, plenty of pots and bench space. I'd better make a start on tidying away last year's tomato and aubergines, I wonder where the compost heap is? Must ask Lil about that later.

*sweeps floor, moving several bags of sowing and potting compost around*

*Brushes off the benches and wipes down the windows, taking care not to dislodge the spiders who are keeping pests at bay*

Better go and unload my garden centre purchases and get the propagator trays set out, I've bought *lots* of seeds for veg this year.

*k spots a large wheelbarrow just outside the door and heads out, wheeling the barrow in the direction of the drive where her recent purchases are waiting*

*sneaks in while Kelli is loading the wheelbarrow and leaves an envelope containing seeds she harvested from the hibiscus at the corner of her carport....sneaks back out before she returns*

*Hurries in with a chilli plant and a jasmine plant - both quite young and small, say ten inches high. Places them on the potting table with a note attached. The note reads:

'This chilli plant keeps dropping its flower-buds before they flower. Also its leaves are rather curled up and have the odd dry-looking spot on. The jasmine smells divine, but should I be picking the dead flower-heads off or leaving them alone? Much debate rages en famille about this. Many thanks for any advice.'

Agapanthus hurries out again. She's actually doing the ironing, but thought if she didn't ask now, she'd forget to later.*

*comes in and admires the cleaning up that Kelli has done*

Aha, you thought of the greenhouses before I even mentioned them! Pre-emptively psychic! The compost heap is behind the tool shed; it's mainly grass clippings, tea leaves and coffee grounds, mulched visiting cards and horse manure from the farm up the road. I'll tell the gardenerbot to help you with heavy stuff.

*k wheels in an overloaded barrow filled with seed packets, some ericacious compost and a number of interesting-looking plants in little pots, balanced precariously on top are two propagator trays that she retrieved from a window sill in the conservatory. As she sets the cart down she notices a few new additions to the greenhouse*

Glad you didn't mind me getting set up in here Lil, thanks for pointing out the compost pile

Hibiscus seeds! I'll need to look in my book to identify hibiscus as I can't think what it looks like, what sort of plant is it?

Ag, I can't help with either of these problems Will be interested to see if anyone can help with the chilli though, as I have got six chilli seedlings in my seed tray here, three capsicum and three heatwave. They look quite strong but I'm not 100% sure what growing conditions they will like best - what sort of soil do you have in the pot? I love jasmine but not sure if it would do well in my garden - did you grow it from seed?

Both my broccoli and cauliflower seedlings look a bit sorry for themselves, they were last year's seeds - still in date according to the packet but the plants look pretty poor. I'll move them up to some peat pots to see if they need a bit more room than they currently have.

I've also got my augergines started, and the peppers, although not really expecting much from them.

Have been planting non-edible stuff too six dwarf rhododendrons in a line in the front garden (hence the ericacious compost - we are neutral to acidic here but thought I'd help them along) with some senetti, petunias (pricilla and pink ice) a snapdragon and a couple of little lotuses in between. I don't know how well these will do, the labels didn't really say what kind of soil they all like so I've bunged them in and crossed my fingers. The lotus is lovely, a delicate spikey-looking thing that should form a bit of a carpet between the other plants.

with excitement at having done some proper gardening

I'm here to learn. And carry stuff around if you need help.

Why does it matter how old seeds are?

I don't know, maybe they go off over time, perpahps their proteins degrade if not stored in optimum conditions? Mine were kept in a biscuit box in the shed since last spring. I would have thought they'd be ok but all of the plants look feeble.

I'm learning too, mainly through most of our veg not doing very well last year - the carrots were good though . Have been watching lots of gardening programs (Gardener's World is current favourite as they do real gardening) but this weekend we wandered around the garden centre and just picked pretty things that liked our conditions according to the label. I've been very scared of gardening for a long time, but this year decided to hell with it - I'll plonk stuff in and celebrate if it doesn't die. Three people have since told me that this is how most gardening happens

http://www.naturehills.com/new/product/perennials_subcategories.aspx?catname=Hibiscus&ovchn=GGL&ovcpn=Perennials&ovcrn=hibiscus&ovtac=PPC

Ag, I know nothing about jasmine. Chilies need warm weather in order to set fruit. Do you have them in a heated greenhouse? For the curling leaves, you might try making some warm, sudsy water (dish detergent will work) and dip the plants in it so that the suds adhere to the leaves. Let them dry without rinsing. Usually curling leaves indicate insect infestations - some of which are barely visible. Over fertilizaton can also cause the leaves to curl and burn.

Lil, different varieties of seeds have different life spans. Onions and leeks will usually only germinate well the first year. Tomatoes will continue to germinate for 7 years. Most seeds will stay good for 3 years. Each year the germination rate declines, however, so they may need to be planted more thickly than if you use fresh seed. Things that influence seed viability include light, moisture and temperature.

*wanders around inspecting stuff and sniffing the compost*

I don't really miss having a garden - it's a lot of work I can quite do without - but I do miss the miracle of growing stuff from seed. Although there is a new coleus houseplant out called 'Lord Voldemort.' I might have a go at that if I can find a packet of the seeds.

I could grow coleus outdoors in Florida... is the Voldemort variety a very deep dark color? Perhaps with blood-red edges and veins?

I've heard you can control the heat of your chiles by how much you water them, as well as the amount of sunlight and heat they will receive. The less you water (once the plant has fruited, of course), the hotter the pepper.

Does anyone else know if that is true?

*glares at her chilli* Damn, it HAS got insects. Right, where's the soap. The chilli my aunt grew from seed and gave to me when it was three inches high. It looks a bit of a mess, but now that I've peered at it closely... Thanks for the tip.

As for the jasmine, I got it recently already potted up and trained into an arch. It's - I think - chinese jasmine and ought to stay indoors until it's quite warm outdoors. Shall I pull these brown dead flowerheads off? I think I might simply because they look horrid. I don't have a greenhouse. I don't have a garden. I have a narrow strip of tarmac and a doorstep. On which I keep two geraniums and a rosemary plant (all in pots). Indoors I have a parsley, a basil, the blasted chilli, a peace lily that never flowers, but the leaves look nice, the jasmine, a very elderly and somwhat depressed looking African violet that didn't like being repotted last month, an aloe vera (survives being ignored remarkably well) a pink amaryllis which for reasons I cannot fathom always flowers in April rather than Winter, and an Aralia Elegantissima now five feet high which apparantly I must call a dizygothica or possibly schefflera, which confuses me utterly. Anyway, we got the multi-named one five years ago when it was barely six inches tall, so we're rather proud of it.

I had to look up oleus, since I had no idea what that is - and I found a nice picture of the Lord Voldemort one:
http://www.rosydawngardens.com/images/coleus/lordvoldemort.jpg

Anyone need seeds for Indian Cress? I harvested loads of them last year, stored them in a box on my balcony (in temperatures below freezing), took them inside, soaked a couple of them in luke warm water, planted them - and now they're growing like crazy!

Last year they grew quite long and dangly - any tips on how I can make them grow a bit sturdier?

That voldemort plant is lovely!

As the growing season is about to start, does anyone have any effective non-poison methods for controlling slugs? I did my regular slug patrols last year but inspite of that lots of our plants were munched. I've heard all sorts of suggestions for weak coffee solutions sprayed over the plants (doesn't that affect the plant?), egg shells, sand and all sorts but not sure what to try this year...

Slugs like beer. Yup it's true they like beer, set some beer traps up and they dive right in and get drunk and can't get out.
The only problem with that is you have to go and empty them every few days and it's horrible! Pour them on the compost heap where they can decay down with all the other dead garden stuff and recycle it all.
If it's stuff in pots, copper tape works. We used to get our french beans eaten up but tried the tape and got plats that grew.
Eggshells/grit/sand are supposed to work as is bran (dries them out as long as the bran is dry, not much use in our garden!).

Kelli, I would recomend you get a copy of the 'little book of slugs' published by the centre for alternative technology - http://www.cat.org.uk/catpubs/book.tmpl?sku=lbos&cart=1112263377505885
It's a fun look at what you can do to try and stop the slugs.

As for other thing commented upon...
You can help make your soil more acidic by using garden compost, or come christmas time get a real tree and the afterwards put the cut up needles and branches on the soil. We did this for our blueberry bush and it's thriving. Not that it probably needed helping in this way as ours is an acidic soil already (ah, those peat moorlands are grand to look at from the garden ).
Lord Voldermort, lovely, a little dark for my tastes maybe though.
One thing that seedlings need is light and if they don't quite get enough then they grow leggy - long and spindly - reaching up for the light. Turning the pot if it's on a windowsill helps.

Crikey! Seems like I've picked up some stuff in trying this gardening lark!

*comes in and plumps his arse next to the compost heap, wiping a midgy fly out of his eye*

I grew a chili plant in a pot last year and it got the curling leaves. I got a good picking of chillis from it, all the same. I just gave it plenty of water when the fruit started - first as tiny little green peppercorns, but they took off when it got hotter.

most of the veg I started from seed has either been trampled by workmen or not got enough sun.

The veg patch at my place is out of action for the next few months. I need to get tree fellers in to deal with the trees all along the side, and anything planted will be crushed by falling logs.

But never say never! I have herbs and onions and garlic growing in any place there was bare soil!

Hallo, King Bomba, welcome to the atelier! Or at least, to the greenhouses in the garden behind the atelier (check A304354: it contains a link to the offsite atelier where there is a fllor plan that will explain a lot). Where on the surface of the planet is your garden?

The sharp frost yesterday has killed my new senetti plants The leaves have gone all manky and the flowers have shrivelled

A similar fate greeted most of my tomato plants too, even though they were in the greentent. Will have to start over again with those, but as we have no troble getting them to germinate I'm sure we'll end up with *some* plants.

Grumble.

Blimmin weather. Our geraniums seem impervious, mind you, they're even flowering again, and the rosemary is looking nice.

Indoors, the African Violet has developed teeny flies now. S is spraying it with soapy water regularly (I can't quite reach, it's on a shelf over the stairwell and I am shorter than S). But they're leaving the chilli alone, and it is putting out new little branches with leaves on. The amaryllis is in full leaf but showing no sign of bud, and the peace lily is also declining to flower, but hey, the leaves look nice.

One of my orchids developed wee-white-flyitis - but I've been wiping its leaves with a damp cloth and it seems to be under control.

A couple of years ago, I had one of those wee plastic greenhouses with four shelves. We got to the stage where each shelf was covered in seed trays with seedlings of an inch or so's height. Then the wind blew the damn thing over and all my trays landed upside down on the ground in a tangle of shelves etc.
I was so that I stamped my feet in rage. Mr T was no help at all - he just laughed at me.

Right - time for a then back out to the garden.