Kitchen Garden Forum

It would be good though if we could get some advice & reassurance when the weather doesn't play the game - even if it just said don't! So many newer growers go by dates, that's what Mr Google tells them - not weather, so many disappointed folk this year to date! We are all experiencing such extremes still so it would not be easy but maybe they could geographically sort the response or do a map with some tips! Ask the team thread is on here so maybe the I.T. guys could morph that somehow, but could the mag have a flyer inside with a link to the forum to post your weather & what you are sowing, growing maybe? Just a thought?

I wonder why hardly anyone on tonight's Gardener's World was wearing gloves? I wouldn't spread manure with my bare hands, or prune over grown trees and roses.

I can recommend growing Callaloo. I've grown it for ages now and it's very easy and just as nice if not better than spinach. I noticed a few seeds germinating this afternoon where I had a patch last year.
There are several different colours and like all amaranths have nice ornamental flowers/seed heads. The West Indian one has red flowers and I grow an Indian one called Mrs MGhee s which is a lovely lime green/gold. I grow a few in the greenhouse too.

I don't wear gloves unless there's splinters likely to be caught

PLUMPUDDING wrote:I wonder why hardly anyone on tonight's Gardener's World was wearing gloves? I wouldn't spread manure with my bare hands, or prune over grown trees and roses.
.

Good observational point there PP.

Soil in slightest cut or open wound can present real problems.

One chap on our plots has no choice but to wear gloves now as he has become allergic to soil

Oh - poor man. I hate wearing gloves except when pruning. Is it soil in general or just some of the microbes he's become allergic to?

Wasn't the only strange thing in the programme. We thought giving primroses and mint good drainage was a bit odd.

Diane
I don't know the answer to your question, never discussed it in depth with him. Just noticed he always wore gloves on the plot and mentioned it. That was when he said he had soil allergy.
I left it at that.

It's basic health and safety really. There are lots of more delicate things I do without gloves but I don't risk getting dirt in cuts and scratches if I can avoid it. Poor chap being allergic to soil, that's a handicap for a gardener

I had some of my first Radish of the season yesterday, pulled them out of the ground, wiped them on my trousers and ate them, so probably ate a bit of soil as well as getting it on my hands. I often walk in the hills and drink running water that is running off the hills and in late summer I will go foraging for berries and they are eaten straight off the plants too. I don't eat stuff that is below the height of where a dog might reach when "cocking a leg" and I do avoid eating yellow snow, but other than that I have done this all my life.

When we used to fish the Welsh rivers we would always fill our kettle from the side of were we were fishing ,but I would not dream of doing it around here

I prefer to garden without gloves generally but having once found shards of glass in a bag commercial compost and cut myself I now wear thin disposable ones for anything which involves potting on. I also now use them for pulling out weeds. I find that even the lighter weight ones tend to go stiff and inflexible once they become heavily soiled with earth and mud, even if you try washing them. Is there any way of keeping them pliable ?

When I was a falconer my leather glove would be kept supple using ko-cho-line grease or Neats Foot oil, both can be found saddlers/country stores or from falconry furniture suppliers.

First lettuce and radish harvest in the greenhouse today with my little great-granddaughter. She picked the lettuce for Norman, her tortoise. We also went 'fishing' in the garden pond and caught a frog, a newt and lots of tadpoles ......

My soil is cold and wet and I have not planted anything yet, except some apple trees. One of the worst Springs I can remember.

Freezing cold

Barney

Chilly morning with a bit of sunshine, minimum temp in the greenhouse last night was 4 degrees, but there is the first Swallow of the year sat on the wire at the bottom of the garden, so maybe summer is on it's way. Tatties are showing well too and the onions grown from seed are thriving in the raised bed, though no sign of any Peas, Broad Beans , Parsnips or Carrots that were sown in the raised beds almost a fortnight ago.