Humph's Happy Horti-cult: harvesting, preserving, mulching, leaf-gathering, bulb-dibbing, seed catalogue-surfing and hunkering down for winter

[Lexilicious]

Following on from the original March to August thread. For all - whether still gardening through the winter or planning to sweep the shed, hibernate, sharpen the tools and get started again in the spring.

Happy gardening again!

I think I'd scramble it and have with smoked salmon...

Planning on planting the oca in our old recycling boxes as apparently we're about to get big bins instead. Thought I'd put the old ones to good use.

Went to a hop farm today for work. Now want to grow hops. Anyone do hops? They smell delicious (in a beery kind of way).

May I say, this is a really lovely thread. It's so nice sharing little plans and coveting new varieties of stuff, in a way that I don't think would be quite as easy going on a proper gardening forum. I mean I think it's because the gardening is secondary that we can just natter easily about it, without the sort of village show perfect blooms competition envy undertones you might get if this was chrysanthemumsnet.com...

so today as I am off work with lurgy I promised myself I'd start those seeds. Did toms of two types, and chilli/sweet peppers. Also (leading to the revelation above) I went through this thread to make sure I had written everything in my perpetual gardening diary, and had some nice rememberings of what I planted and planned and promised myself...

According to last year's records, there could be frogspawn in my pond next week... I think not this year, too cold too recently.

Just running in very quickly as taking DS for hip check up and hopefully all clear. Have just received the River Cottage Every Day Veg book I saw on another thread. I'm on page 36 so far but think it is fantastic for anyone growing veg and saving a fortune on weekly shop.

I love this thread too

me too

Love the HFW veg book too.

Apart from the fact this thread costs me money (will now have to go and look at the Every Day Veg book) I too love it. After all, if it wasn't for you lot I still wouldn't have any flowers in my garden

I particularly like the thread because I am new to this and none of you make me feel embarrassed by my lack of plant know-how.

Also, who else can one talk to about the garden? I bore my friends sometimes occasionally mention it to my friends but not in the detail I WANT to discuss it in.

I like stalking this thread. I read it everyday.

hello funnyperson, do join in if you fancy it

I love this thread too and am sniggering at chrysanthemums.net.

Please talk to us, funnyperson. We don't bite often.

Stalking. Heh heh. Have you got the stamen-a for more?

Oh, leaf it out, Lexi.

You've just twigged on, have you?

No, I'm just ribbing you, Petal.

Look here just bract off a bit. Am only half hardy, this time of year is difficult for me...

Ok, I'm not going to carpel about that. Good night!

The thing is I am shy and also my garden is north facing and shady and so the number of hellebores in bloom=4 (of different varieties) and snowdrops=2 and leafmould =non existent, as the leaving of leaves on lawn all winter thing didn't work so on Sunday I gave in and raked all the leaves up. So thats why it is only stalking.

We can work with north facing funny, mine is (see profile) and it's great to look out from the house to the sunny end. Or are you overshadowed by big trees or something?

My flower garden is north facing (so my veggies can have the sunny south facing plot) and it's a riot of colour from April to the first frosts. There's a lot that will grow in north facing gardens.
How damp/dry is it?

I'm watching a lovely programme on iplayer with Sarah Raven called Bees, Butterflies and Blooms. I her. In Episode 2 she's trying to get Harrogate's Britain in Bloom committee to move from overbred begonias to single-flower pollen/nectar-rich plants. That is totally my gardening philosophy - nothing that isn't either yummy for me or for bees.

I luff her too. I missed all the programmes but will try to catch up via iPlayer. I wonder whether she's on Twitter?

I've fallen off twitter recently. I couldn't quite get what it was doing for me, I was just broadcasting trivialities. I probably need to narrow and focus my followings. I left Facebook a year ago because I was just putting up pictures, getting annoyed at people's status updates that I was perceiving passive aggressively, and getting advertised at. All I've lost is party invites, but our real friends remember us and invite us by calling/texting anyway. I was going to get into Picasa in a bigger way to do the photo sharing but it didn't really have a user friendly enough upload-to-sharing pathway IYSWIM.

I watched that. Her garden was heavenly and made me LONG for summer again and my wild flower meadow. I am so pleased they are planting up the Olympic park with wildflowers, what a brilliant idea.

Cautiously joins lovely thread.

I LOVED that programme too. Loved her garden (swoon) and the Olympic park. I don't have much of a garden right now. Well I do, but I have a rented house so I'm not allowed to touch it. I have a few grow bags/pots squeezed on the patio. However by the end of the year I'm hoping to buy a house and get somewhere with a garden all of my very own. I'm fantasizing already about having a wildflower meadow instead of grass and a lovely veg plot, and selling things out the front of the house. And chickens if I win the lottery

Yes, this is a lovely thread - all cosy and warm and the most contentious it ever gets is when somebody asks "AIBU to plant beans instead of carrots".

We have new people! Hello Funny and Worzel . Should I also say hello to any other stalkers just in case thread is super popular...

Feeling very spring-like here today. Was desperate to get into the garden this afternoon but didn't quite get work finished early enough. Have made a very long list of things to do for the weekend though. I'm getting rather about having to look out my office window at my broken veg plot so I really have to get that sorted. Then I can start feeling properly excited about getting some seeds going.