have absolutely loved reading the pages of this thread....great stuff red, george, milius.
am going to have a go at the garlic red....so i can get a clove and plant now as you said?.....straight compost?.,...and are my baked beans nearly ready dude?
this year i've grown tubs and tubs of blackberries.....going to make jam....i bought my now huge blackberry monster for 50pence when he was literally just a dead looking stick in a pot on the reduced shelf at a garden centre, caught my eye, felt sorry for him, bought him home.....now hes all trellised up along an entire side of the garage....i swear i saw a cat enter under his foliage once and not come out again lol....
also carrots (from free seeds given in the local newspaper) in big pots just for a laugh as i'd been told it wouldnt work but they seem to be doing fine and fattening nicely at the tops, guess they need pulling soon...found them tricky to get going and foliage so fragile.....
also green chilli peppers grown from the seeds of a chilli i dried out that my neighbour grew two years ago...not too many on the 5 plants but i tried the first one a coupla days ago, just nibbled the end off and trust me my mouth knew about it lol....i reckon crunching up a whole one, seeds n' all would cause cranial combustion....have got two hanging up drying for seeds, will crop a couple each week for seeds and cooking also.
and a few potatoes, dwindling now but for 4 straight years i've continued getting potatoes from the same originals, best crop was last year.
next year i'm doing red bell peppers, aubergine, chillis and probably something else as yet undecided.....have done onions and marrows plus more in past. i also have a herb patch.....fresh mint, butter, new potatoes....heaven....
apart from the blackberries and potatoes i grow everything in long and normal pots....not in the ground and involve very little science, knowlege and rarely plant when i should or pay any attention to instructions, i dont germinate properly or really do anything correctly lol...most the time i just plonk the seed straight into multipurpose in small pots, wait till something happens then repot them outside in bigger ones....bad i know but its never failed yet and its always yielded a bit of fun, some nice flavours and enough for a satisfying meal or two. i'd love to be able to grow on a large scale and take it more seriously but lack of time/land etc prevents it.
but the best thing of all is that my eldest oliver always gets involved and muddy and really enjoys it too....we've also stored seeds from flowers he grew at school for next year and it teaches him not only 'gardening/home steading' but so much more, understanding the seasons, cycles, relationships, weather, preparation and the natural world including about green/black fly, slugs, snails, diseases....and much more.
keep it coming please Sirs!
regards
sonni
ps.....i've also got a hedgehog who visits nightly in the hope i've left something out for him....which i dont do every day on purpose but when i do he seems very grateful for the meal worms....i've got a squirrel who recently discovered that he can find food by commuting from the woods about 50 metres away, through my neighbours garden, up and along my fence over the shed roof to the neighbours the other side and he comes back about ten minutes later usually carrying a large conker in his mouth....at least thats what the look like, i didnt know squirrels ate conkers? i've also got a nice bird table which attracts magpies, wood pigeons, collared doves, wood peckers as well as all the small energetic ones, tits, robins, black birds the lot....i watch them through my workshop door....very pleasant.