CAMPYLOBACTER: Anyone else had it?

[Mrs Frugal]

Want some rabbit recipes, Christian ?

[Valkyrie]

Someone is going to be thoroughly sick of courgettes before this year ends! Perhaps we should start a poll - Will Christian be growing courgettes in 2010?

[Old Speckled Hen]

113 ways to eat courgettes

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/search.do?keywords=Courgette&searchType=recipes

[Cinnamon]

I have 10

[Falkor]

I have four courgettes and I am panicing! Good job the girls like courgette!

[Christian]

I have 10

 

You fancy a couple more to make it an even 12?

[Valkyrie]

I haven't got any this year - harrrr! But I now have 2 butternut seedlings whoohoo!

[Cinnamon]

I have 10

 

You fancy a couple more to make it an even 12?

 

So kind,Christian, but I think I shall pass.

Luckily I have a few takers via freecycle for my spares already! *phew*

[Christian]

I haven't got any this year - harrrr! But I now have 2 butternut seedlings whoohoo!

 

Hmmm, Basingstoke from here is only 25 minutes, could drop a couple off!

 

Want some rabbit recipes, Christian ?

 

Yes! But I think I have outsmarted him now. Found a secret hole in the chicken area and into the veggie garden! All blocked up now and chicken wired! Pesky wabbit

 

Just the mice to deal with now Will have to plant more peas inside I think. Not that I have any room for more seedlings

[Valkyrie]

Quick Christian - look on the weather thread - Claret knows someone with a gun who has been blasting naughty bunnies!

Thank you so much for that kind offer of courgettes - NOOOOOOOOO! I'm the only one that eats them here, so not this time, cheers, however OH and I have been enjoying butternut squash soup and roasts - yummmmm, looking forward to having my own ones.

The sweetcorn is up and running. The runner beans have grown brilliantly in those pot noodle pots. Some good has been made out of something revolting.

So far I have been transferring tables outside for hardening off so much stuff. Now I have room for my tomato plants that are to stay in the greenhouse. I love it when a plan comes together! Now I need more compost! Never ending isn't it?

[Valkyrie]

Just done some more peas - now that half the greenhouse contents are hardening off on the patio - taking up the table, a makeshift table with wallpaper trestles and a picnic table.

[Ain't Nobody Here]

Butternut squash, carrots, lettuce, beetroot and tomato. The tomatoes and beetroot have come up already (it's only been 4 or 5 days ).

[Cinnamon]

I love growing Beetroot - the little red seedlings are easy to see & the leaves are so pretty when its grown too

 

As our new waste disposal routine starts soo, I am going to have 6 big dark green plastic recycling boxes to use somewhere in the garden (apparantly the council don't want them back ), so I think I may plant a couple up as they already have the drainage holes & everything

[chickencam]

I have finally got around to sowing some flower seeds most just sprinkled around the frot garden, but they will probably be eaten by the slugs. I have sprinkled marigold seeds in the mulch around my tomato pots in the greenhouse and they are coming up. My calendulas are growing away and so are my sunflowers.

 

I have also got some sweetcorn coming up I planted 2 per pot and did 36 pots as usual there are 2 in some pots and none in others. I only got 3 from the first pack of 35 seed We eat a lot of sweetcorn with 5 of us.

 

My squashes and punpkins are taking their time

 

I have loads of radishes and salad leaves growing great guns in my raised beds with all this rain. just need to keep away the slugs

 

We also have some mushrooms starting in a polystyrene box in some of the well rotted manure that we got a couple of weeks ago. we bought spores in a packet Suttons I think and the soil has already gone a bit white after just over a week.

 

I love this time of year I just wish that it would keep dry for longer spells so that I could get on with the weeding at the allotment.

[redhotchick]

I'm completely depressed. I have nothing growing in my new raised beds.

I haven't had the time (Motivation?) in the past few weeks to get things going.

I have tomatoes, chillies, sweetcorn, broad beans, and brassicas in pots waiting to go out.

I was ill/busy last weekend and I'm away this weekend.

The next 2 weeks in work are chokka blok. Tough!

I think I'll try and book half a day off this Friday, just to get the sowing and growing going otherwise it will be June! Too late!

[Ain't Nobody Here]

Sorry you've not been well, Cathy . Hope you manage to get planting soon .

 

Is it OK to put chillies and tomatoes in raised beds? I thought they might have to go in a greenhouse but if I cover the raised beds will they be OK?

[redhotchick]

Sorry you've not been well, Cathy . Hope you manage to get planting soon .

 

Is it OK to put chillies and tomatoes in raised beds? I thought they might have to go in a greenhouse but if I cover the raised beds will they be OK?

 

I think chili plants and some tomatoes could go in raised beds. (Outdoor varieties, or if it was a protected area)

 

I'm planning on putting my tomatoes and chillies into the greenhouse but I haven't got all my glass in yet

 

Fingers crossed for a half day off this week!

[chickencam]

I have 2 of last years chilli plants which have been on the kitchen window ledge all winter and I have put them outside in their pots because the flowers weren't setting indoors. They have some aphids and whitefly (how come they came into the house ) so I don't want to put them in the greenhouse. They seem much happier so far but they have only been out there in a sunny spot for a couple of days.

[redhotchick]

At last!

Tonight I planted out:

5 courgette plants, 2 varieties Diamant and Black Beauty.

5 broad beans, Sutton and Bunyards Exhibition.

Sweet peas, Heirloom and ...(goes to check)...Old Fashioned Mixed

Perpetual Spinach 7 plants

Butternut squash, 2 plants

I've mostly used biodegradable pots or jiffy 7s, so minimal root disturbance.

Fingers crossed the slugs don't find anything. I've given them a liberal sprinkling of pet friendly, organic, anti slug stuff.

I sowed a few things too

Runner beans, Scarlet Emperor

Dwarf French Beans; Purple Queen

Mangetout, Oregon Sugar Pod

More broad beans varieties as above.

Some dwarf beans, Tender Green (randomly between rows.....I was running out of space)

Mizuna

Pak Choi

Rocket and lastly,

Mixed lettuce.

 

I'm on a roll now! I feel a lot better after that! I made 3 rows of tall cane support structures for various beans/peas too.

Please, please don't let the mice dig up the seeds or the slugs/snails eat the seedlings, or the chickens eat them or the chickens scratch them up, and let the weather be kind; warm with a soft rain overnight would be lovely. Thanks.

 

I can be a bit haphazard and not everything gets labeled properly! I always think I'll remember, but never do!! I can usually tell what is what, but not the exact variety

[Valkyrie]

I have done more peas (that my dad had collected last year - mum just found them) and I think they are Gladstone's, although there was another pod with a different variety, so I might do them next year to see which one he picked - those are all in the root trainers which I have had a lot of success with.

Also some dwarf French beans that dad grew last year - these are sown in the dreaded Pot Noodle pots - the runners loved those.

And now for some oddities:

In a bucket one broad bean is growing in my discarded/old compost from old pots and so is a climbing French bean and a mizuna type salad leaf. They are looking really healthy, so I will try to transplant them today.

In the garden I have fenced off the veggie area because of naughty chickens and now the sweetcorn is in, cauli's, calabrese, and sprouts, celeriac and mini turnips. Toms potted up and dotted around the garden. Now I have to check on the tom varieties because naughty chickens have picked out the labels.

The parsnip bed is quite sp"Ooops, word censored!" and I think that is due to small slugs or snails (no slime trail visible) - something has munched the leaves of the seedlings, maybe even some sort of grub/insect. The larger plants are not munched so aren't so flavourful to the culprit I suppose. So as I have quite a few swede plants in pots, I shall fill the gaps with them instead. Next year I will try them in the pot noodle pots to see if the initial protection works. The same problem last year, but before that I had a good harvest for a couple of years after a bad bout of poor - or munched after - germination. I think I will get sow mustard to sow after harvesting to clear the ground of nasties and provide green manure where the parsnips will be going next year - then a dilemma - parsnips won't like the manure and will probably fork - oh well, at least the bed will be free for something else then.

[Ain't Nobody Here]

I read in a gardening booklet thingy that if you smear vaseline along raised bed edges, it deters slugs and snails . Worth a try .

 

I've already sprinkled crushed egg shells round mine. Fingers crossed .

[redhotchick]

I've had another sowing/planting session this evening.

I planted out some sweetcorn (minipop) that I had started off in pots in the house, and I sowed:

Leeks - Musselburgh

Beetroot - Detroit 2 and Boltardy

Parsnips - Tender & True and Gladiator

Carrots - Royal Chantenay and Little Finger

Fennel.

 

I'm starting to run out of space in my raised beds!

No point having them empty!

[Snowy]

I've sown my runner beans today - quite pleased with myself as they were beans saved from last years harvest! It will be interesting to see if they grow as well as the parent plants!

[Ain't Nobody Here]

I sowed beetroot about 10 days ago and they're doing well. Is it right that you just get one beetroot from each plant? (I a bit short of space in the raised beds and wondering if I should transplant all of them .)

[Valkyrie]

The beetroot seeds are usually in clusters so you might get more than one plant coming up - as long as you know you only have the one seedling, you will get only one root. I try and delay them - pot them up and only transplant the biggest at a time - at the moment I have assorted sizes of golden beet, but I have also done a red one called "Action" which seems to be racing along at the same rate of growth. I will still try to delay some by keeping them in the pots. With some of my chard I dotted a couple in a hanging basket. It's such a jigsaw puzzle trying to find a spot to pop things in.