Be Excellent To Each Other

That is cool. Thank you.

Here is one. Well, not an app but a site.

Go to this site and set your town: https://www.gardenfocused.co.uk/adjust-dates-uk.php

That will adjust all of the times on the site to your local last frost dates.

Then visit this page and select all the things that you fancy growing and it will give you a week by week plan for what you should do and when for the best success in your zone and with your frost dates. https://www.gardenfocused.co.uk/calenda ... alised.php

I’ve got my pepper seedlings started, some onion, garlic and shallots on the go (still time for all of those, no fear) and some peas are sprouting in trays in the porch

I think these are the plans I’m going for in my beds this year. There’s still a bit of space so o may end up getting some more pea supports and double my pea plants.

That plan is awesome.. I am not that organised.

I have to be organised because it’s my coping mechanism.

I think it is great. What did you use to make the plan?

I can also see my raised beds when I look out of the window. Sadly they are piles of wooden planks as I haven't shifted my arse to put them together yet...

An app called veggie garden planner

https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/veggie-ga ... 1329927332

A friend recommended it to me last year. It plans your beds with correct crop spacing and you can drag and drop things to experiment with layout and it will show you beneficial companion planting (they’re the hearts, where two on ants have a mutually beneficial relationship and line being planted next to each other for nutrient exchange, or pest control, etc) but also where two crops might have a negative effect on each other (in which case you get a little lightning warning symbol)

You put in the dimensions of your beds and just drag and drop what you are planning on.

What are you thinking of growing? Anything exciting?

It’ll also give you a handy sowing and freeing calendar generated from the veg you select

That is fab..

I am opne to suggestions, probably toms and carrots.. And lots of lettuce, rocket. Perhaps some herbs.

Maybe some onions? I use 1-2 onions every day so I’m trying to grow a few. If you are after any seeds in particular let me know as I may have some. I’ve got about five varieties of carrot for example (because we are going to try red, orange, yellow, white, and purple ones this year). Garlic is a good thing to start growing over winter, too. You’ve probably missed the window for it this year but it might be a good one for winter 22-23?

Oh and I LOVE fresh peas. TOM THUMB is a dwarf variety which only grows about 40cm, but has plenty of nice pods full of round peas.

I can see the huge mass of brambles growing over my wall from my home office window. The birds love it though, so that's my excuse.

I will pop onions on my list...

2 beds. I will sort the frames out when it stops raining.

We have planted some potatoes. Topped up the beds with more compost. Put some peas in.

Started some veg in a propagator.

We have planted some potatoes. Topped up the beds with more compost. Put some peas in.

Started some veg in a propagator.

I see the potato sacks! I also spy a composter. We just bought a shredder so I can more efficiently shred our packing materials for composting and were giving hot composting a go this year.

It’s like normal composting, but sexy.

I have just sown this ridiculous number of tomatoes.

I do not have room for this number of tomato varieties, so will have to think of some strategy down the line…

It is full. A lesson learned egg shells are rubbish and don’t breakdown well.

Shredding sounds a good idea. I have lots of brown paper from Amazon packages.

I want a shed and water butt next.

They add good calcium to the soil. Just crush them up before hand. If you save up and then bake the clean dry shells it’s even better.

What’s this then?

An old knackered shed, that needs replacing.

I will try that.. thanks

Your shed looks a lot more stable than ours does, to be honest. Ours is a weird configuration that I haven’t seen anywhere to get it replaced, though. It’s more like a lean-to that doesn’t actually lean against anything. I would love to put a new one there but I can’t find anything that would work in that shaped space Plus it has lighting and electric and I think it’d be a PITA getting someone to fit those to a new shed.

These make bespoke sheds

https://www.shedsnow.co.uk/

They deliver and fit. They could be helpful.

I haven’t got anywhere with Shed Quest, as we just have more pressing house jobs, but veggie garden 2022 is under way. Potatoes are coming up, I have about 35 tomato plants and about 15 pepper plants on the windowsill, peas are growing, carrots have germinated, garlic is growing, and shallots and onions are looking good too.

I spent a long time up a ladder trying to trim some high hedges. It was hard work and while I'm glad I can now see out the windows I'm not all that pleased with the straightness off the cut (and I'm only about one third of the way across these particular hedges). I think I might just pay someone to do the rest.

Fire always works.

Your garden already looks so neat and productive @mimi!

I won't say I havent been tempted, but It's been incredibly wet lately. I do also quite like the hedges, when they are neat and tidy.

Do you have one of those telescopic hedge cutters? You can angle the cutting head so you can essentially just walk sideways whilst it does the work for you.

Thanks! We’ve been here just over a year now and I think we’ve got a nice balance with the little vegetable growing space in the back and then the rest of the garden. There’s another bed going in here with tomatoes, and there’s a little patio area half way up the garden that has all of the potatoes and patio veg. I’m looking forwards to getting the sweetcorn going this year.

Kinda, I got one from aldi that has a hedge trimmer on a pole, not telescopic but long ish. It also has a chainsaw attachtment, a whipper snipper head, and an edging tool. I got it a few months ago but some of the hedges have been left for too long and the sticks were too thick so I ended up using the chainsaw bit.

It's also quite heavy.

Yeah, the one Russell has is, too. It’s certainly too much for me to handle.

It sounds like getting a pro in is your best bet, and then you can just try to maintain it.

A while back I put some seeds in a small pot as I couldn't decide which bed to put them in. Recently I saw loads of shoots peaking out the soil, and as it looked so cramped in there I decided to repot them into a larger pot. When I was trying to remove the old pot, all of its contents fell upside down into the new one. I tried to rescue as many as I could, but fear I might buried some to deep.

But I think they're pretty resilient and at least some should find there way to the top.

Packet was only £2 so not much of a loss if I don't get the extensive bloom I was aiming for.

In other news, the lawn tulips have come up and are looking great. However, with them and some reseeding I've been doing, it looks like it'll be another month before I start mowing the lawn.

Fingers crossed for the seedlings. We’re they something nice? Would love to see how the tulips look in the lawn if you have a picture.

Yep, here's the lawn tulips and the box tulips.

You can see that I'm too afraid to cut back the heavy grass around the planter lest I end up cutting the tulips down too. I do like the deep maroon however.

Some yellow oxalis.

I actually like the long grass being there. I feel without it the tulips would look a little awkward stuck out on their own

Yeah, I agree with Cras, it helps soften them into the space. They all look beautiful and healthy!

Thanks both!

Looks like they've recovered from their unplanned house move. Lots of lovely green shoots coming up now.

Hooray, it's perfectly acceptable to sharpen a mattock using a grinding disc on an angle grinder!

I still need to properly justify buying a bastard file.

They prefer "half round" these days. Get woke

Pff. Being able to say the word Bastard in Technology without getting into trouble was the best thing about that lesson in the first year of secondary school

Hand and a half file.