Edible Gardening

"Probably" is probably the operative word. One year, I planted half my leeks trimmed and the rest untrimmed. Apart from the normal variation in individual growth, there was no significant difference.Plenty of compost under 'em does the trick for me.

Last week I planted some dwarf runners, this week they are up,what do you reckon the chances are of getting a good crop in Oct? Just thought I would give it a go as most runners all come at once and as there is only me and I hate frozen beans, the variety is "Hestia" any one had experience?

I had problems with blossom end rot but was advised to try out Plant Magic from it is Calcium based and great at preventing diseases in all my plants.Guildyear

Thanx guys I have to admit there might be very few I want to keep as I'ave tasted some and they are really horrible these ones had really spiky canes yet some which had smooth canes were very nice indeed! Hel.xxx.

Prastio - nice tip about the flower tip! - I'll do that in future. They're still edible enough when large (a particularly big 2006 specimen was given to the neighbours, and got curried and eaten at the local Sikh temple ) but are indeed *so* much tastier when small. Just a bit of black pepper...

Kristen is right, Laura, all Cucurbits produce a glut of male flowers at first. This is to ensure that, when the female flowers are produced they will be easily fertilised.

I used to have drip irrigation in the greenhouse but after a few years it started to have problems. It is probably much more advanced nowadays. A seep-hose would work well with the runner beans but the sprinkler covers about 60 sq metres in one go and does the runner beans, toms, courgettes,...

The sowing date for these carrots for spring is approaching. I'm assuming the earlier I sow them, the sooner they will be ready in spring, but dont know about any pitfals.On average if I sow them in August they will be full size in which month? Sept? Oct?Will small carrots in spring...

Well done, we enjoyed our first dinner all from the garden last sunday, (apart from the chicken :D) best potatoes, peas and carrots i've tasted in a long time!!!

The sweetcorn tassels are coming along nicely, theres 2 cobs starting to form lowerdown on most of the plants - toddler still helping to 'tap' the plants most days, (although if theres some ripe strawberries he's more interested in those, although he's learning what the different plants are...

Thanks for your help peeps. fingers crossed it shouldn't have too much affect on the whole plant as i have picked off the bad ones

I don't actually 'mist' but I do spray them with the hose :thumb:

They also are supposed to alleviate a poorly belly

Yes I think the same as palustris. Just as an experiment I have taken cuttings of potatos, you tend to get just the one tuber from the resulting plants. Not sure but these could be good for seed tubers the following year as they have no root contamination from the parent plant.

Thanks tweaky.:thumb: I thought it was damaging the root that attracted them. I scraped a bit of soil from the "fun" type and managed to get 2 carrots for her. She generously gave her brother one but kept the biggest for herself:D

Looking good, Fmay.:thumb:

Thanks for that Kristen. I think I'll pick the ones I've got and see if more comeJohn

Mine have started to also shoot from the bottom, but until jsut recently they hadn't produced any viable side shoots, and I didn't want to pinch the top out as they would then have to make side shoots, and it would be a while before I got any more fruit.Given that I've got side shoots I reckon...

thanks at the moment my onions dont look too bad but the rust appeared very suddenly on the leaks and looks quite heavy.They also seemed to have grown quite quickly this year and look ready to eat apart from the rust .Last year they were rather stumpy.

There have been some horror stories regarding growbags and what they contain.Since we've all been encouraged to recycle our green waste it all seems to go into some of them,glass crisp bags etc,from the less consciencous recycler.Apart from that I'd just give the poorer peforming plants...