Osteospermumsnet.com - flutter your foliage, pick your produce, shake your seed packets and bring your blooms to the Spring Show

[Lexilicious]

Welcome to the gardening quiche :)

Earlier malarkey was here

All welcome whether you are a Sackville-West or a Dimmock, an Oudolf or a Swift. Whether you dream of digging or dig for dreams.

Fair weather or foul, we've got disco lights in the potting shed and fairy lights on the terrace. Bring gin, wine just doesn't cut it round here.

I havn't seen Gardeners world yet, but these are not sheperds huts[although i like those as well].They are from a company called Garden Exteriors.They have a central stove for cooking or heating, room for sleeping/sitting and the central area can be used as an office.I couldn't get the dc's to move out of the lodge as they felt so comfortable in there[planning sleepovers and picnics].Dh is looking for a garden office as well[so this will have to be multifunctional].They are really adorably rustic and idealy suited to our garden.

Oh wow. I've just been googling. They really do look like something from Middle Earth. Fantastic!

I have just been checking with our local planning office.One of the rules is that any building has to be situated more than 20 m from a highway.This lodge is best positioned right next to the road,but will have a hedge between it and will be completely unseen by even our neighbours [and us unless we walk down the garden].So i will have to check with our local planning officer first regarding the viability of erecting this structure.Our neighbours have a large Hartley greenhouse so the rules must be relaxed in certain situations.
The fireworks lacecap hydrangeas i bought yesterday i suspect have been grown as an indoor plants.The label says plant outdoors after flowering.I want to plant them now though.Do i harden them off first or just chuck them in the ground?.

They look fab teta I'd love one of those but I fear my dh has plans for a tree house that will take precedence.
Wet here this morning but I'm hoping for some dry weather so I can get the tomato house rigged up. Those yellow stuffers won't grow themselves!

Teta - the regulations are not that complicated wrt where you're allowed to put it etc. AONBs don't have particularly strict building regs - Conservation Areas are worse and World Heritage sites also problematic. However, even if you don't have permitted development rights to put it up, you can still apply for planning consent for it so that it goes in the right place for you even if that is not in accordance with the permitted development regs. Just costs the planning fee. If its not going to look wrong, damage existing trees or hedges etc, planning consent shouldn't be refused.

I have fab news!! I can take boy-child to GQT on Wednesday! I have phoned up for my ticket, which they had to make an exception for me to do over the phone (charity attached to the parish church, opening hours 9-4) and I just have to get there before 5.30 on Wednesday to pick it up. When you buy a ticket you put your question in, and the team pick which ones they're going to answer, if yours is one, you sit in the front row.

The Boy has to be good, not make any noise, and if he does I have to scoot out. He is only just potty trained too so I may have set myeslf up for a bit of a drama! Means I will need to take a picnic dinner for him too, as it will probably be about an hour-90 mins of recording to make less than 45 mins of programme - hey perhaps radiohelen knows more? My only experience is going to a couple of recordings of QI/HIGNFY. (p.s. I am also growing yellow stuffers - were yours free with a magazine too?! Not the sort of thing I would buy, just through unambitiousness really)

LexiSuperExcitedLicious!

Hey Lexi.. my yellow stuffers were indeed free on the magazine I got it for the cucumbers really but I'm happy to go with the tomatillos, chillis etc as well.

It sounds about right for 45 minutes - they usually record double. My experience is limited as I'm a commercial radio radiohelen and we don't make programmes like this. If lo does make a noise they'll have to re-record that bit so they mean it when they say he'll have to be quiet. Mine would never be quiet for long enough, although the mics will be pointed at the panel so they shouldn't pick up too much if you are towards the back and can zoom out when the singing/crying/shouting/giggling starts!

Kitchen garden magazine accidentally fell in my basket in Booths on the way home tonight. Dh is working so guess what I'm doing ...

Did you put a question in then Lexi?

Ate the first of the over-wintered cabbages tonight. Very nice & I'm really not a cabbage person so I'm surprised how much I enjoyed it.

They look lovely Teta.

Well ya-huh, course I did!
So if you listen to GQT in the next few weeks and hear someone asking about peach leaf curl somewhere near Watford, I am totally outed!

Need to download engrossing iPad games for nearly 3yo now - any recommendations?

Go Lexi!

As mine are of the girl variety Lexi our i-pad and i-phones are full of Peppa Pig, Disney Fairies & Angelina Ballerina - probably not that good for a small boy.

Gosh Lexi you're very brave.Can you put a pull-up pant on him for the day?.No idea about i-pad games i'm afraid,mine just play with their nintendo.
I have planted the lovely pelargoniums i bought yesterday.I hope we don't have any more frosts.I've just been looking at the nursery website and the prices are so much better than Crocus and Sarah raven.i think i'm going to order more as the species type i bought doesn't seem to be available anywhere else.I also really love the scented ones -especially the rose and cologne scented ones.I think my erysimum addiction is mutating into a pelargonium addiction[but sadly i still have 40 plugs of Sarah Ravens Winter Orchid to pot up].

hahaha I do like this thread.

40 plugs of Sarah Ravens winter orchids. hahaha.

2.9 year old trying to potty train in GQT hahaha

someone liking overwintered cabbage. hilarious.

merits and machinations of a glamorous shed being erected in a world heritage site being discussed. hahaha.

cheered me up. really. it did. what a world. so glad to be in it.

No , sorry, I 've just realised I might offend because you lot were all being serious

But please please please dont give the 2.9 yer old an ipad/iphone.

I have a thing about 2-3 year olds who aren't potty trained being given iphones. I come across them at work. Then their mothers ask me why they have speech delay. Then their mothers get offended when I mention they might like to make toilet training a priority. And do you know what, the reason is that toilet training a little one is hard. It takes time and patience. It takes mothering. Whereas giving a toddler an iphone is easy. Reading and playing with a little one, heaven forbid actually talking to a little one ain't so glam as being a research scientist dontcha know. Just don't expect me to admire the intelligence of a child who can scroll down the apps but cant speak. One is cause and effect: basic 15 month skill. The other-well the other is language, humanity, serious brainy amazing stuff.Rant over.Sorry.

Funnyperson have you been on the potting shed 'gin'?.I really don't think playing with an ipad for the time taken to record GQT constitutes child neglect or anything else.Yes this thread is a very proper english one thats why we all like it.Do you?

Funnyperson - I may be about to award my first MN to go with the gin. There are plenty of MN threads which discuss the meaning of life but this isn't one of them except we all know that the meaning of life is gardening.

Ah funny, don't worry about my DS. he didn't see a minute of tv until he was nearly 2. He was in a restaurant with us on Saturday eating with a knife and fork. He tries to kiss worms and bees in the garden. He lays his little table for dinner when he sees me start cooking. He saw me reaching into a high cupboard for bread flour months ago and toddled off to get me his stool to stand on. He can peel carrots. He knows you don't eat potato leaves but you can eat salad leaves from the plant. He's been having conversations with us since he was 2. Last week he said to me "girls are not frogs." this started a conversation about whether girls are princesses. Guess the frog thing was about kissing one that turns into a prince. Tbh, I would rather take books along to GQT because when he can't work one of the ipad games he gets a bit annoyed. Books keep him quiet for hours. Which reminds me, I left hm in bed at 8.30 with a book, and I should probably check now that he's turned off his light and gone to sleep like he did one day last week... :)

Funnyperson, you been at the Potting shed meths ?!

Maud, I was given the hydro stuff and was a bit dubious at first as it seemed wrong, plants need soil, plus the whole other scene it's usually associated with. But actually , I'm impressed. I was in research before my current job and it appeals to my inner geek as I'm checking pH and CF levels ( with my big blue lab truncheon that makes me snigger).

Very exciting Lexi that you're off to GQT and Kimmi I'm in awe of you doing the allotment at a time in pregnancy that I found it an ordeal to get off the sofa !

My correspondence course arrived last week. The wind was taken out of my I was about to do a pHD, how hard can this be sails. It's a bit more in depth than I was expecting. It will be fine but am going to have to be serious about making time for it.

Funnyperson

Very excited for Lexi - do you know when it'll be broadcast?

Keep up posted on the course, Wynken. Are you doing it for personal reasons or professional?

If I plant my rhubarb this year, will I be able to move it next summer? The place I really want it to go won't be available (is covered in semi-rotted compost which cannot be moved!) for ages and my poor rhubarb needs to go in the ground.

I have chillis! A few weeks ago I hand pollinated some of the flowers and left them to it. They're indoors until the weather is properly warm anyway. I've just spotted two little green chilli fruits on one!

Well done Lexi!

Grockle - I have just demonstrated that rhubard doesn't mind rough treatment. The plant I dug up rather incompetently and broke into several
pieces is thriving and growing better than before, do I think moving a plant will be fine.

Is it all quiet on the western front tonight?The weather today has been a little strange.We've had 2 hail storms [with pretty sizeable hailstones that hurt your head],thunder,strong winds and sunshine in an educational trip to a nat.trust. place.We are now forecast a frost for the next 2 nights and i have had to bring my pelargoniums under cover.This weather is back to front and upside down.

Yes, hail here too today. I'm just hoping the pelargoniums don't get trashed.