I decided this year to try and go a little "self sufficient" and grow my own veggies and some strawberries. Well!! I never realised how much work was involved but also how much joy it seems to bring to me and also to the children as we see the "fruits of our labours". Even Mr BunE nearly got excited yesterday after eating some of my own grown carrots with his salad. My kids excitedly look out each morning from our window to see what has grown and what the slugs etc have pinched over night. We have now adopted the attitude that we plant a bit extra so there is some for them and some for us. Any others of you do veggie growing. Any wise words? Any tips etc? At present we are growing, carrots, onions, radish, tomatoes, lettuce, potatoes and strawberries. But now i would like to do some more stuff, any ideas?

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I have been gardening for years now, in the USA, in the east, west, and south, and I have discovered one thing...You can't share your tomato plants with tomato worms. (They're the really ugly fat green things with the green guts) If one gets left unchecked, it can wipe out your entire plant. When you see the softer parts of the leaves gone, leaving just the tougher stems, you probably have a worm, maybe more than one. You probably don't want to use a lot of chemicals, I know I don't. First, look on the ground for worm poo, little raisin-like pieces, and the bigger the worm, the bigger the poo. A full sized worm will leave poo the size of the tip of your little finger. After you see the poo, start searching directly above it, near the eaten area, and you might be lucky and find the worm, clinging to the underside of a stem. If you can't find him, but you just know the little bugger is there (they are VERY hard to spot), here is another trick. Go out in the early morning, when the air is very still and no leaves are moving, and use your hose with a nozzle adjusted to a very very fine spray. Now spray it over the tomato plant, it needs to be fine enough that it doesn't move the leaves, and as cold as possible. This pisses off the worms, and they rise up and move their heads back and forth, and you can see them if you are watching carefully. Now pluck the little bastard out of there and squash him!
How's that for a hint? Let me know if it works!
I have more hints, but no time now......

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Life is short! Break the rules! Forgive quickly! Kiss slowly! Love truly, laugh uncontrollably.. and never regret anything that made you smile.

i burst out laughing when i read that, Poots. you really have something against worms, huh?

our family has a black thumb.

here's my contribution to this thread: a link to information about gardening from Wikipedia! where they say useful things like: Gardening is the practice of growing flowering plants, vegetables, and fruits. Residential gardening most often takes place in or about a residence, in a space referred to as the garden.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gardening


tomato hornworm is one of my favorite words in the AE wordlist. the n00bs never get it.

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It's a bit late for planting summer-cropping veggies but you could/should think about planting things for winter, including salads. There are lots of good tips on the BBC site. I like growing runner beans in a container - I use a large (very large!) round planter, make a wigwam of canes, then plant the beans round that. You need to put stones in the bottom of the planter, partly to help drainage but mostly to stop the planter tipping over - once the beans grow, the wigwam makes it a bit top heavy. It also needs watering every day. To keep slugs away (they lurve runner beans), I smear Vaseline round the edge of the planter, making sure I don't miss a bit and I put grit on top of the compost - it's easier to renew grit in a planter than on a whole veggie patch.

Fortunately we don't get Tomato Hornworms here very often, they're actually caterpillars of a variety of Hawk Moth found in the Americas. We do have Hawk Moths in the UK but our varieties live on shrubs and trees, e.g. the Privet Hawk Moth, the Lime Hawk Moth, etc. I used to love Privet Hawk Moths when I was a child - we had a privet hedge and I could often be found staring into it! May explain a lot...

um.. if you want to plant corn.. you can just plant one you have to do a couple rows.. i figured this out a couple years ago when i planted three stalks and they didnt grow well.. so yeah, corn has to be done in groups

We grow fruits, veggies and herbs in our garden. My parents take care of the fruits and veggies. What do we have? Hmm.. strawberries, apples, cherries, figs, pears, plums, raspberries, peaches. We used to have corn! <3 corn. Um veggies.. tomatoes (okay, so that's a fruit, not a veggie, lol), radishes, aubergines, courgettes, spinache.

And the herbs.. Basil (a few types), parsley (a few types), oregano, rosemary, chives, spinache, mint (a few types), coriander, and my head has gone blank. I'm not much of a gardener at all. That's something my parents enjoy doing. But I grow and take care of the herbs, 'cause cookin' is my hobby. And.. I feel like I own the herbs, 'cause I'm greedy like that.

Edit: Btw, Poots.. your post had me chuckling. Nice tips. I feel educated in worm poo XD I don't have tips, 'cause I generally don't have a problem with growing the herbs. And I'm too lazy with the fruits and veggies.. though my parents don't have too much of a problem with worms or other weird creepy things.

There are more spiders than anything else! :(

I tried to grow beer by planting some bottles of beer, but it didn't work.

Now I know how they make beer.


<<< Click the link

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lol, BM! that was too funny! And that dude's hair.. !!

BM you crack me up! So you cant grow beer then??????
I got all worried about Pootsie's worms! Then was all relieved to find out we dont get them in the UK. Phew! My veggies are doing well. Can we plant corn in this country in our gardens?

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