Kitchen Garden Forum

Just had 4 scented geranium plantlets delivered....completely forgotten I'd ordered them so it was a lovely surprise for me. One of the bonuses of becoming slighter 'senior' I suppose.

People go on about pea germination and mice often blamed for eating the seeds, so I have now set them a challenge, just planted some petit pois in a hanging basket in the greenhouse, wonder how that will turn out lol

Got one of the big Spring tasks completed today - 88 Sweet Peas, 4 each of 22 varieties. Also planted out Broad Beans and hoping to do the onion family that I've grown from seed later.

Magnificent effort - well done.

I put half my onions grown from seed out into a raised bed, kept some in the greenhouse just in case, been a nice day and I've had 4 hours in the garden getting things tidy and ready if the weather holds out I might sow something.

We must be having it mild in the north west this week I've managed to plant Pease ,beetroot, parsnips,radish ,and a few shallots ,I've also prepared four raised beds covered in chicken muck then slug pellets then covered in cardboard ,I've planted quite a bit in the pollytunnel as well ,today was a lovely day proper spring type day

Things moving along slowly but surely(he says with fingers crossed)


Some salad crops

Tiger they all look healthy & happy & not at all leggy! Weather permitting they should give you great crops!

The greenhouse is packed, some stuff will be going outside when all danger of frost has gone.


There's a lot of canes in there this year!!

Good crop coming along. Watch out for the shorter canes though - that they don't go into your eye should you happen to bend over to check the plants. I always put a little cane topper on any shorter canes.

Good advice Diane and one I always try to follow having nearly once done myself a serious injury. I save the little Benecol pro biotic drink containers for this and spray them green to help them blend in a little.

I also use them as very convenient soil spike toppers for the spare spikes we have dotted around our lawn for moving around the Hills Hoist washing airer (to catch the moving sun) and one of our metal bird feeders which is an old Hills Hoist airier with the cable removed and the arms sawn down to half length. This makes a convenient device for hanging bird feeders which can be moved around to ensure that the grass underneath it never gets too solid by bird droppings and has a chance to recover. The holes where the various spikes are located get quickly covered as the grass grows so the these little stoppers plugged in upside down allow them to easily located.

we use actimel bottles too!

Hi Tiger! That is impressive, the plants all look nice & healthy & I'm a thinking if weather starts to play you could be in for an impressive crop this year.

Just picked my first purple dwarf French beans today, you know the nearly 6 foot tall dwarf ones !!

And I,m picking my first courgettes and mini cucumbers. No matter how many years you've been growing, the first crop pickings of the year are always exciting arn,t they? I picked two perfect small courgettes yesterday and had the same feeling as a child opening my Christmas stocking.

Don't ask me how I,m feeling about picking courgettes by the end of August though. Everything has its limits ! And there,s always one sneakily hidden away under a big leaf somewhere which you've missed for 6 hours and has turned into a darned marrow !