Selfsufficientish.com

we are in the middle of early winter planting season. Early winter? Surely you are well past mid-winter now. Yesterday was the first pick of maincrop peas, 2 x 20' rows to supply enough peas to freeze for the winter. I picked a kilo (shelled weight) and froze 4 packs. The rows are looking particula...

I sincerely hope reusable plastic is OK to have, not only have I several plastic watering cans, I also have one and a half gazillion plastic flower pots, plus seed trays, propagators, wheel barrow, water tanks, buckets, hose pipes, strimmer, mowers, plastic handled tools and two polytunnels. Flo, if...

This is new to me that I thought I'd share. A few days ago when it was a thoroughly wet day something in the middle of my window caught my eye. At first I thought it was one of my missuses hairs caught on the wet window, by watching it, it was obviously alive and mobile. I just remembered to look it...

I'm not very knowledgeable about blight. We've never had it! We have a blight warning in effect from today, so I will probably get it. But the potato plants have just about finished growing so won't lose any crop. For blight (Smith Period) you need temperatures above 10c and humidity above 90% for ...

I'm more concerned about what else you'd kill, microwaving it. All the beneficial bacteria etc wouldn't survive either presumably. I don't know how they produce potting compost nowadays, but years ago potting compost was always sterilised. Before the "invention" of soil less (peat) compost, I remem...

Just loosened the soil from my shallots a day late (plant on the shortest day, harvest on the longest), plus I also loosened the garlic as well. On another thread I mentioned that I had harvested my autumn onions and I have been digging new potatoes for a few months. Other than that, courgettes, cau...

I have a wheelbarrow half full of spent compost from my potted winter tomatoes. I usually scatter it on any vacant beds, but I was wondering if I could reuse it as potting compost. As it was used for tomatoes it could harbour blight spores or any other nasty spores or pest eggs, but if I were to ste...

Already sorted Ms Flo, all bones during the winter months get burned on our wood burner, then wood ash and bone ash get spread on the soil in spring. Summer months the bones get baked in the oven and either wait for winter or get incinerated on the next bonfire. We don't do landfill waste here at Ch...

Anyone got an answer Err, no. I'm constantly digging up self inflicted plastic. Lots of very fine fishing line from when I mulched and then dug in fresh seaweed. Also tea bag plastic that went through the compost bin, I didn't realise the "paper" tea bags were lined with plastic. That one is sorted...

Weedo wrote: ↑

Wed Jun 19, 2019 11:08 pm

It seems winter has finally arrived

It seems summer has possibly arrived here, just in time for the summer solstice.
Nothing extraordinary, just pleasant sunshine.
This is what I have to endure through our sitting room window on days like this.
.
.

Thank you for all the advice! The leaves are starting to fall over now It occurred to me that my notes are a bit ambiguous and maybe confusing. It might be an advantage to you if I go into a bit more detail. To start with I have no idea where you are, so I am presuming somewhere in the UK. The are ...

Cauliflowers plants get quite big and would need lots of watering if you put them in pots, although I can't think of any reason why they wouldn't be OK. It used to be said that if a cauliflower plant suffers from lack of water at any time it will not produce any curds, but I think that's an "old wiv...

I'm a bit dubious about harvesting the onions because a couple of times I've thought they looked ready then I pulled one out and it was tiny! The easiest way to tell when onions are ready is they fall over, that is the leaves fall over and bends (kinks) just above the bulb. When they do that they a...

You know that summer is on it's way when the tomatoes start ripening. These are Gardener's Ecstasy, new to me, and are the first to ripen out of the other 23 varieties. The weather over the last month has been reasonable for the way I grow. The wind in the north for most of the time means sunny weat...

I'm certainly celebrating today Flo, and it just goes to show how "accurate" the weather forecasters are, we were supposed to get 2.5 mm of rain overnight and as I have (had) 2 empty tanks any rain is welcomed. Well this morning I have one and three quarter full tanks amounting to 1700 litres, which...