Unavoidable!

Yes Loofah, I think gardening is like that. Once you have the bug there's no cure
If you've run out of space you could get started on some containers. Those spring onions would do perfectly well in pots and you could use the space for the carrots :yez:

 

It'll soon be grow bags in the bathroom & bedroom & hydroponics & grow blubs in the attic.:hehe:

I just got a book on window sill gardening. Its got the best dwarf varieties to grow indoors in it.

 

It just shows though, I began with a vegetable patch and then moved on to other things when I had more room. Now I do not grow the vegetables at all.

 

must admit i grow less veg than i used to - though that's because theres so much brilliant tasty local veg for sale round here....but still like to keep my own soft fruits & have plenty of home grown apples. Not much digging involved with these!
Theres plenty of tomatoes grown well around here too but I just cannot resist sowing those seeds in spring!!!
YEP - gardening is a bug that lasts a lifetime!
NOTHING tastes as good as your own home grown produce! :gnthb:

 

Hi Jennylyn,

You are right there. I watched a program last night about the terrible times around 1314. It seems there was some volcanic activity that devastated the crops, combined with a cattle plague & then followed by the black death. People were starving, it must have seemed like the end of the world.

Every bit of the garden was put down to crops, it makes you realise how much you can produce from a bit of land.

We have been eating well this summer from a bit of land that was a building site in the spring.

I'v just fed 2 children with one potato, it was that big!

 

Blimey Ziggy. Never let it be said that you don't know how to spoil your kids!! LOL :D:D

I used to dream of having half a potato all to myself.

Chopper

 

When I built our deck, I had visions of sitting there sipping something long and cool and admiring my handiwork in the rest of the garden. And do I? No! Having 'run out' of garden, the deck is the perfect warm sheltered place for strawberries and outdoor tomatoes to grow and ripen in their containers, for seedlings to sprout, for pots many and various and for another cold-frame. There is room for a chair - but that would mean sacrificing some growing space!

 

Haha, I know how to spoil mine. My daughter and her partner are currently living in a flat with no garden. When she visited early this year, I dug up some rhubarb and put it in a bucket for her to force, so she had something 'homegrown' to cook.
She put it in the bathroom and apparently they could hear the new leaves unfurling! Food and fun! :lollol:

 

Half a potato?

When I was a lad a few potato peelings had to last a week amongst nine of us kids.


Whenever I read this sort of discussion I'm reminded of a particular tale in a volume of short stories by the Canadian author Stephen Leacock, written between the two World Wars. I first read it when I was still at school.

It's called "Self Made Men."




They were both what we commonly call successful business
men--men with well-fed faces, heavy signet rings on
fingers like sausages, and broad, comfortable waistcoats,
a yard and a half round the equator. They were seated
opposite each other at a table of a first-class restaurant,
and had fallen into conversation while waiting to give
their order to the waiter. Their talk had drifted back
to their early days and how each had made his start in
life when he first struck New York.
"I tell you what, Jones," one of them was saying, "I
shall never forget my first few years in this town. By
George, it was pretty uphill work! Do you know, sir, when
I first struck this place, I hadn't more than fifteen
cents to my name, hadn't a rag except what I stood up
in, and all the place I had to sleep in--you won't
believe it, but it's a gospel fact just the same--was an
empty tar barrel. No, sir," he went on, leaning back and
closing up his eyes into an expression of infinite
experience, "no, sir, a fellow accustomed to luxury like
you has simply no idea what sleeping out in a tar barrel
and all that kind of thing is like."
"My dear Robinson," the other man rejoined briskly, "if
you imagine I've had no experience of hardship of that
sort, you never made a bigger mistake in your life. Why,
when I first walked into this town I hadn't a cent, sir,
not a cent, and as for lodging, all the place I had for
months and months was an old piano box up a lane, behind
a factory. Talk about hardship, I guess I had it pretty
rough! You take a fellow that's used to a good warm tar
barrel and put him into a piano box for a night or two,
and you'll see mighty soon--"
"My dear fellow," Robinson broke in with some irritation,
"you merely show that you don't know what a tar barrel's
like. Why, on winter nights, when you'd be shut in there
in your piano box just as snug as you please, I used to
lie awake shivering, with the draught fairly running in
at the bunghole at the back."
"Draught!" sneered the other man, with a provoking laugh,
"draught! Don't talk to me about draughts. This box I
speak of had a whole darned plank off it, right on the
north side too. I used to sit there studying in the
evenings, and the snow would blow in a foot deep. And
yet, sir," he continued more quietly, "though I know
you'll not believe it, I don't mind admitting that some
of the happiest days of my life were spent in that same
old box. Ah, those were good old times! Bright, innocent
days, I can tell you. I'd wake up there in the mornings
and fairly shout with high spirits. Of course, you may
not be able to stand that kind of life--"
"Not stand it!" cried Robinson fiercely; "me not stand
it! By gad! I'm made for it. I just wish I had a taste
of the old life again for a while. And as for innocence!
Well, I'll bet you you weren't one-tenth as innocent as
I was; no, nor one-fifth, nor one-third! What a grand
old life it was! You'll swear this is a darned lie and
refuse to believe it--but I can remember evenings when
I'd have two or three fellows in, and we'd sit round and
play pedro by a candle half the night."
"Two or three!" laughed Jones; "why, my dear fellow, I've
known half a dozen of us to sit down to supper in my
piano box, and have a game of pedro afterwards; yes, and
charades and forfeits, and every other darned thing.
Mighty good suppers they were too! By Jove, Robinson,
you fellows round this town who have ruined your digestions
with high living, have no notion of the zest with which
a man can sit down to a few potato peelings, or a bit of
broken pie crust, or--"
"Talk about hard food," interrupted the other, "I guess
I know all about that. Many's the time I've breakfasted
off a little cold porridge that somebody was going to
throw away from a back-door, or that I've gone round to
a livery stable and begged a little bran mash that they
intended for the pigs. I'll venture to say I've eaten
more hog's food--"
"Hog's food!" shouted Robinson, striking his fist savagely
on the table, "I tell you hog's food suits me better than--"
He stopped speaking with a sudden grunt of surprise as
the waiter appeared with the question:
"What may I bring you for dinner, gentlemen?"
"Dinner!" said Jones, after a moment of silence, "dinner!
Oh, anything, nothing--I never care what I eat--give me
a little cold porridge, if you've got it, or a chunk of
salt pork--anything you like, it's all the same to me."
The waiter turned with an impassive face to Robinson.
"You can bring me some of that cold porridge too," he
said, with a defiant look at Jones; "yesterday's, if you
have it, and a few potato peelings and a glass of skim
milk."
There was a pause. Jones sat back in his chair and looked
hard across at Robinson. For some moments the two men
gazed into each other's eyes with a stern, defiant
intensity. Then Robinson turned slowly round in his seat
and beckoned to the waiter, who was moving off with the
muttered order on his lips.
"Here, waiter," he said with a savage scowl, "I guess
I'll change that order a little. Instead of that cold
porridge I'll take--um, yes--a little hot partridge. And
you might as well bring me an oyster or two on the half
shell, and a mouthful of soup (mock-turtle, consomme,
anything), and perhaps you might fetch along a dab of
fish, and a little peck of Stilton, and a grape, or a
walnut."
The waiter turned to Jones.
"I guess I'll take the same," he said simply, and added;
"and you might bring a quart of champagne at the same
time."
And nowadays, when Jones and Robinson meet, the memory
of the tar barrel and the piano box is buried as far out
of sight as a home for the blind under a landslide.

 

:lollol:Happened to me too!!

First the borders, tubs etc. in the back garden.
Then the front garden
Then the lawn
Then getting a greenhouse
Then growing from seed mostly flowers
Then aquiring an allotment
Then growing veg from seed

Etc, etc,etc

And it goes on - good fun though and a challenge

 

I've not got much to add to this thread other than agreement. As somebody who has just started this summer with some potatoes, I've now acquired a greenhouse, grow pods, pots, tubs and a little stretch of back garden. I have carrots, onions, radishes, rocket, raspberry's, strawberry's, blackberry's growing now with broad beans, more onions and garlic to look at putting in sometime soon.

I've been bitten and once I calm down maybe I will plan things a bit better. At the moment I just want to grow ANYTHING!