The potting shed - the tea is on, come in for a natter.

[radiohelen]

It's nearly April... So far in my ickles plastic greenhouse - aka the four tier tardis - I've got tomatillos, tomatos, leeks, beetroot, peas, parsnips, green cauliflowers and some flowers, sweet peas and nasturtiums.

I planted my spuds and more rows of broad beans. Still got the onion sets and garlic to put in.

I've pruned my new apple tree and gooseberry bushes, dumped potash on the goosegogs and currants and mulched with compost.

I've also potashed my peonies in the hope of better show than last year.

What have you been up to?

I think my apple tree has died, no buds on it at all all the other fruit trees have had lovely blossom. Even my second apple tree is short of foliage. We've had a very mild winter here and I'm wondering if the apple trees have caught some sort of bug. I'm very new to this gardening business.

However, my onions are doing very well and I may put in another couple of rows, the spinach is doing well and I have teeny weeny parsnip, carrot and beetroot seedlings.

My friend who has been holding my hand through all of this told me yesterday that all of the seedlings I was lovingly cultivating were in fact weeds - but how do you tell the difference, it's impossible.

radiohelen that is some statistic! Good news for me though,as one of my sidelines is selling flower and veg plants to those who can't/don't want to start their own from seed.I thought that more people might grow their own because of food prices,so sowed more 'selling' plants than normal,just in case.I have a little stall outside with an honesty box and have done quite well in the past few years.It is also useful for selling excess veg.

I haven't been called in to sort out mistakes as such,it is normallysomeone wanting the garden whipped into shape after years of neglect or sometimes,someone starting out all enthusiastic and losing interest after starting a new border or something.A few are completely clueless and just want it to 'look nice' so leave me to get on with it.

The only other thing we lost this year was the pomegranate tree which always looked rough anyway. We were down to -10-12 at points so we've got off lightly I think. Today's jobs are building guinea pig homes & hopefully another fruit bed

OK so what's going on with my blackcurrant bus? It's got "branches" that are bald in the middle with lots of leaves and flowers at the top and bottom. Last year it got attacked by whitefly and its leaves got all misshapen and small. I doused it in soapy water a few times and then went for chemical attack but the leaves never recovered. Any thoughts on what I should be doing?

Sorry - that's blackcurrant bush... it's early - I'm playing with lego and walking round the garden during appropriate play breaks to check the estate!

Still haven't got round to planting anything - think this year will just be getting a framework in. although i still can't resist buying those 'bargains' from wilkis and morrisons......ho hum - they will just have to wait in pots for now.

Have just finished 'pruning' a forsythia hedge - 25 bushes! It was rather overgrown with most of the cut branches taller than me. Then spent ages shredding it all - now just need to sort out the compost area so I can compost it all. Another job to add to the list
Radiohelen - haven't watched Gardeners world for years - got so fed up of watching them planting huge plants in huge flower borders, especially as I only had a tiny garden at the time. So is it worth watching again?

We stopped getting garderners world magazine fir that reason, although our pond was copied from there!

Dh is building last veg bed today. Will have to think about what to put in it as we didn't expect another one!

Last raised bed in. Used loads of sacks of soil. Only half full need to level the paths next.

Harriet if only you lived closer to me, I've got several tons of topsoil sitting in my garden that I'm struggling to find a home for. I'm hoping the sleeper delivery man will deliver my sleepers soon so I can find a use for it.

I do have a question for you experienced gardeners though, this is my first year of gardening and up until now I've tipped a packet of seeds into a tray and hoped for the best, hence my 80 plus tomato plants. I've also got what looks like up to 100 brocolli seedlings, how many realistically does a family of four need to feed them through the winter and probably freeze a few as well? I need to plan my beds out and make sure I've got enough room for my plants but I'm pretty sure I don't need them all.

So already I've learned a lesson, a whole packet of vegetable seeds probably isn't needed.

I do 6 broccoli, dds don't eat it though. Just dh& I & the freezer.

I've stopped doing toms from seed as I had 50 then bought different varieties

I've got about 16 tomato plants left... we had a few casualties - slugs, random deaths after potting on, that kinda thing. It is too many.
I also have 7 tomatillo plants - I gave the neighbour one... this too is too many.
I will say nothing about the hundreds of onions I appear to be raising thanks to a 50p for a pot full deal I got! Not to mention the garlic hoard, although you can never have too much garlic. No vampires on my lottie

I'm putting my feet up and looking forward to a glass of muscle relaxant before dinner. This has been an intensive week on the allotment. I have now planted:

• 40 seed potatoes - Juliettes and Picassos. I have some Belle de Fontenays to go in ASAP
• 250 onion sets mixed red, yellow & white
• 50 broad bean plants
• 70 peas

A garden is a lovesome thing.

cuppateaplease Gardeners World is definitely worth watching again now that the lovely Monty hath returned Gone is the awful newness, fully grown plants and hideous water features ...don't get me started on that Toby chap!

I planted out the seed potatoes today- Maris Piper and Pentland Dell, put some new strawberry plants in, and got the raspberry canes and a blueberry bush ready to go in tomorrow!
The onions and garlic are doing well, but something has munched on all of my carrots!! ..not slugs/snails, I'm stumped!!!

Could I come and join you? We've just had our overgrown bramble-ridden garden cleared and landscaped and now have a veg patch and greenhouse that we can use! Only been in the house for just over a year so no idea what grows well here or not, and we're fairly novice growers (only had tiny gardens with tomatoes, runner beans and herbs before)

Last week I planted strawberries in our fruit bed (we have some well established blackcurrants, gooseberries and rhubarb there too) and some celeriac, carrots and spring onions.

I have a 3yo who loves digging. Discovered that he will happily leave the celeriac and strawberry plants alone, but he is obsessed with digging over where the carrot and spring onion seeds are so they will be growing freeform rather than in nice straight rows! He is so enthusiastic about looking after his vegetables, bless him, that I couldn't shout. So I think that sowing seed directly into the soil is probably not going to work for us until he is a bit bigger - when the baby will probably be old enough to do the same!

Also need to plan what herbs to plant up as we found an old Belfast sink in the clear up (we joked that the rubbish tips left by previous owners contained everything except the kitchen sink, but it appears they contained that as well :o) We're thinking it will make a good herb planter.

Because of the limited time we have with two small children to garden and learn about things, and because footballs get kicked around and little boys run in the borders, we're focusing largely on easy edible things for now and will deal with flowering shrubs and borders etc in a few years time. Even our new edging in the front garden is planted with lavender and rosemary so we can eat it :)

Phew. Having spent all weekend with DP sorting out bits and bobs in his garden, I am on my way back to mine having accidentally acquired some alpines.

Tomorrow (my not at work day) my plan is to put up a trellis for my sweet pea seedlings and start a big container with poles for climbing beans.

tortilla my lo is the same. I've planted everything in modules, old plastic food trays or toilet rolls. They are waaay safer in those. His attention span is too short for cress on a flannel let alone a sunflower or a nastursium. I guess just having him pottering around destroying my potato mounds is enough

Anyone know what I can do with my bay tree? It is looking very sickly - leaves are yellowy green or brown so it looks like it is dying. It was a 30th birthday present so I'd quite like to rescue it if possible. Feed? Prune? It is a lovely ball shaped standard one so pruning could ruin its looks, but I'm willing if that is what is needed.

Heading out now to water our new grass, plant beetroot and some more strawberries.

tortilla is your Bay in a pot or in the ground? If it is in a pot then it sounds like it needs to be moved to a bigger pot.

Gnomedeplume - it's a pot. I'll try a new one - thank you!

As I'm completely new to this gardening lark, I've got hundreds of tomato, pepper and broccoli plants, but realised I'd only planted enough onions for probably two meals of spag bol, so I spent the afternoon planting a few more.

Have repotted all the pepper plants and planted some dwarf sunflowers in pots.

The little vegetable plot I dug over a month ago thinking it would be big enough - is just not big enough at all. I've trying to get some wood so I can make raised beds but the guy I've ordered it from seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth.

However big your beds are they end up too small!

I'm trying to sneak more plants in but dh keeps catching me. Now banned from fruit and herbs

Got sweet peas in today & ordered bedding plants. Garden looking good :)

Can I join in? Last year we tore out our front garden lawn, shrubs and all. After a year smothered under black plastic, we have just finished putting in four beds ready for fruit, veg and flowers. Hurrah!

But despite digging in as much mulch as I could lay my hands on, the soil is so dry and dusty. AM I the only person in the UK longing for rain? Just a couple of nights of good steady down pour and I'll be happy.

The little greenhouse is full of seed trays and the girls are checking every day for shoots.

I also managed to kill a rather hideous Ceanothus over the winter, so I have just finished sneaking some herbaceous plants into the gap it left.

My wood delivery arrived yesterday so we can make DS2's raised vegetable bed in the garden, he's decided he'll be growing pumpkins, melons, strawberries and salad so I'll let him get on with it.

Oh and I also managed to pick up another two raspberry plants from Lidl really cheaply so had to find somewhere to put them, if all the fruit bushes I've bought this year grow I'll be eating jam until my old age.

Yesterday my poor little broccoli plants got sun burned, we live in a south facing house and the front is a bit of a sun trap, I put the seed tray outside on the dining room (as it's actually hotter outside than in the house) and in the afternoon DS2 noticed that the seedlings were going brown. Brought them back in and gave them a drink but they're looking sad. Fortunately the 6 I put into the garden under the cold frame are doing fine.

This afternoon I'm going to try and sort out the raised bed at the front of the garden and plant some bedding pants and try to set some off from seed also.

I know what you mean about longing for rain Duchess but I'm loving this sunshine and being outside in the garden. I noticed all my gladeoli and iris bulbs where starting to peek through the soil in the flowerbed I dug out a couple of weeks ago - got just a teensy bit excited about that.

hello lovely gardeners, can I come in?

I had a call a couple of days ago to say we have reached the top of the allotment waiting list - we went to look at the plot on Saturday - medium size, beautiful location, not too many weeds, and they have left us some rhubarb and fruit trees. We're waiting to hear if we 'passed' the interview.

Anyway, we're complete beginners (small city garden, so I've only done tomatoes, rocket, potatoes in tubs, herbs and lettices so far)

We haven't got a complete plan yet- we'll start with a couple of rows of spuds (clay soil, they will help to break it up a bit), and I'd like to do french beans. I'd also like to start a strawberry patch and plant a few gooseberry bushes, and maybe a blackcurrant bush. I'll also plant some rocket.

Any suggestions of other easy-to-grow stuff for beginners. We will need to protect it well, as we have badgers, rabbits and foxes.

Whats the best thing to dig into the soil before planting?