Controversial diet matters.

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Ricard with an H
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It stopped raining, we had a half builders-type wheelbarrow full overnight. No big compered to Coverack and no-doubt other places.

Just to prove the diversity of Kitchen Garden threads I have three photos for those who like me love a few photos, first, and I hope this is in the correct order otherwise stand on your head to read it the other way.

(1) Carrots and potatoes in and protected against assumed threats.
(2) some of the remaining weed and old growth that needs clearing for something yet to be decided on.
(3) Organic white with potato starch.(In Panibois) This is a trial for texture rather than losing gluten.
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How are you supposed to start and maintain a healthy lifestyle if it completely removes a wine lover’s reason to live?
Richard.
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retropants
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I have never used an antibac spray or soap in my house ever! In the kitchen I use a spritz bottle with vinegar, water & lemon oil for cleaning the surfaces. works a treat. I do make tea tree soaps and lemon soaps, they are popular!
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retropants
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ooh, didn't see the bread pic! looks lovely.
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Ricard with an H
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Thanks, the potato starch made it soft and inhibited the usual lofty rise so not a lot of big holes and a bit like store-bought bread.

Regarding the other matters, seems like I spent my whole adult life trying to change people I love towards what I regard as sensible approaches though 50% of my audience regard me as odd.

Well done Emma, even though I creak like a rusty door I have yet to willingly taken antibiotics and worry about the use. I have so few colds, infections sort of stuff in my lifetime that the few times I got a hit I didn't know what it was so it floored me. of-course I had Man flue. I have never had the old persons flue jab and have met plenty of females who are pathetic to being poorly even though they went through childbirth. Sort-of reverse sexism.

I'll get my coat and bugger-off now.
How are you supposed to start and maintain a healthy lifestyle if it completely removes a wine lover’s reason to live?
Richard.
Colin2016
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Hi Richard, like the netting over the blue hoops looks very neat, did you make this yourself or brought off the peg.
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Shallot Man
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:wink: Ricard with an H.

Bread looks nice. Do you deliver ?
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Ricard with an H
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Colin2016 wrote:Hi Richard, like the netting over the blue hoops looks very neat, did you make this yourself or brought off the peg.


I worked this out myself on a rainy day indoors with pencil and paper, the idea was first based on a polythene cover. Then the enviromesh to slow the wind and I realized I had a good system for dealing with just about anything. I have yet to buy the polythene covers, I can't remember who it was I bought the small polytunnels polythene but they were very helpful in getting the dimensions right.

No downsides though the enviromesh is an absolute challenge to sew for doing neat ends and fabric terminations. If you buy stock sized enviromesh it is already terminated but the stock sizes are not always convenient.

Getting the hoops right is also important, if they are much taller you have to consider a wooden lath over the tops to stop the wobble.
How are you supposed to start and maintain a healthy lifestyle if it completely removes a wine lover’s reason to live?
Richard.
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Primrose
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I was reading an old RHS magazine the other day and the issue was raised that different types of soil composition can have a marked effect on the flavour of a particular vegetable. I don't know how true this might be but I have eaten ordinary Mineymaker tomatoes in the past from a different area of the country and am sure that the flavour was marginally different.
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Ricard with an H
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I often wondered about this, take strawberries, Elsanta, many producers use this and other known names of strawberry but my ones probably like yours always taste different.

The strawberry plant I planted last year tasted better this year and was so sweet I was picking them half-ripe just to beat the birds but they were so nice it wasn't a problem. Store-bought strawberries are usually not as good. When my strawberry plants stopped producing last year i mulched with comfrey leaves and almost killed the plants with overdose but this year they were supersweet.

I had often wondered about how we all love the taste of our own produce and was that taste better because of our labours though my first carrot crop were the first carrots I had tasted in years that didn't taste like parrafin.
How are you supposed to start and maintain a healthy lifestyle if it completely removes a wine lover’s reason to live?
Richard.
tigerburnie
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Do you all replace your strawberries and move them, I move my bed every 4/5 years.
Been gardening for over 65 years and still learning.
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snooky
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Hi Richard,
You have mentioned it a few times that you have almost killed off plants by overdosing them on Comfrey leaves.How come?I always understood that mulching,if that is what you did,with Comfrey leaves, is good for plants.
Regards snooky

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Ricard with an H
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I had to assume the comfrey leaf mulch was responsible for the strawberry plants foliage going brown and withering though most plants recovered this year.

Are you suggesting it wasn't the mulch of leaves ?

When it comes to comfrey tea I made it in a dustbin filled with water and an onion sack full of leaves leaving the whole lot until it stank, then I would pour the liquid onto soil around plants. The colour of the liquid would be like weak tea though that's not a very scientific measure is it ? Some planting loved it but others died. Flowering pot plants were particularly susceptible, watering comfrey with comfrey tea meant it grew very strong though I can't remember which plants other than pot plants didn't like it.

It takes a long time to get to know what you are doing in a garden or allotment/plot if you don't have other more experienced gardeners around to bounce off. I always thought my neighbours were experienced gardeners but they inherited nice gardens and/or just throw stuff away and replace if it fails. Other than that they just walk around looking and poking then come to my garden thinking I'm an expert because I talk the talk and grow salads, flowers, a bit of veg and make compost.

It's the blind leading the blind here so you have to accept I rely heavily on you people for advise and guidance. Often it takes a whole year to realize failure or success then I wobble into another year hopefully influenced by those failures or successes though it's taken four years for me to realize I plant things far too close together. The main reassign for doing that has been my view that the weeds fill the gaps so why not plant closer so the weeds don't get in.

I don't think it works.
How are you supposed to start and maintain a healthy lifestyle if it completely removes a wine lover’s reason to live?
Richard.
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Mouse2
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Richard, I think that most gardeners, even really experienced ones, will say that every year is an adventure in a garden - even with the same treatment each year, some things that usually do well will fail now and then for no obvious reason. Sometimes the vagaries of the weather are the obvious (?) culprit, other times not.
People round here seem to think i'm some kind of expert too, but that's maybe because I turn to the internet for advice/info when needed so like you, I "talk the talk", or more likely because if I see a particular veg struggling to the extent where I think it is not worth nursing, I rip it out and start again, if there is still time. As a result, the vast majority of my plants probably look very healthy to the casual onlooker, or a blind man on a galloping horse. :lol: Mind you, that doesn't apply to my mum - when she strolls down my garden on one of her occasional visits, she doesn't miss a thing, so if there is a sickly-looking plant lurking anywhere, she will point it out! I'm not complaining though, because she always has valuable advice to offer regarding any flowering plants :)
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snooky
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Morning Richard,
When did your strawberry leaves turn brown?They do this naturally in Autumn after throwing runners for new plants and then a rosette of new leaves form to become a plant next year.So it might have just been the natural cycle of nature and not being damaged by a mulch of Comfrey leaves.
Regards snooky

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A balanced diet is a beer in both hands!
WARNING.!!... The above post may contain an opinion
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Ricard with an H
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I love you're little Mouse, so we have Mouse and mouse2. Nice.

I see your point, I'm on the obsessive side of balanced behaviour and seemed to have spent my 75 years being crap or middle of the road at everything I did though don't think I'm lacking confidence or depressive. I just dislike failure as a complete waste of time though I still wade into things with lack of forethought at a time in my life I should be smarter.

Yesterdays attempts at pulling weeds out from the middle of my short row of fabulous lavender, this is the first successful lavender I have ever-ever grown. Its down to a sensible position for lavender, at the top of a bank. It was the start of a lavender hedge on one side of the terrace and sea buckthorn on the other side, when I saw the weeds growing up through the lavender two years ago I aborted the lavender hedge because at least with sea buckthorn I can deal with the emerging weeds underneath the top growth. What a shame and the short row of lavender is very happy, coping with the salty air and coping with the strong winds of the sea.

Before I planted the mature lavender plants I made sure of drainage and left the planting trench long enough to produce weeds, then I torched the soil to deal with seed-bank. Last year when the lavender was dead and weeds grew through the dormant lavender I managed to glyphosate the weed growth which was risky but worked, but I still have grasses and other invasive species growing through my lavender.

Thanks Snooky that would explain them going brown then. I told you Im a plonker at this gardening lark.
How are you supposed to start and maintain a healthy lifestyle if it completely removes a wine lover’s reason to live?
Richard.
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