[ldavison10]

Hi,

1) Ive got a spare rhubarb plant in a pot with no space in the back garden for it. The front garden has been layered with newspaper, then black weed fleece, then mulch. If i put a hole in the paper, like i do for my flowers, will the rhubarb be okay or will the paper stop new shoots?

2) My cabbage and cauliflowers are outgrowing the outdoor shelf theyve been on for ages. Ive dug up my broadbeans so theres a gap. Would it be okay to move quite well established plants out of a container, into the garden?

3) Theres something growing at the bottom of my garden. It came out the compost and its huge. Just the flowers are bigger than both my hands together. Its obviously from the courgette family but we've never had courgette to compost. Doesnt look like melon, too spiky stems, definately not cucumber, could be marrow but again never had one to have composted. This things growing over my patio, the leaves are nearly the size of my widescreen TV and i still dont know what it is! Ive got pics just not had chance to upload them yet. There fruit coming on it behind the female flower so heres hoping its something we like!

4) I have a knee height plastic g/house with bush tomoates in. Most are now pressed against the top trying to get out. Should i remove them to outside or leave them be?

5) Ditto in my mini greenhouse, the peppers are hitting the ceiling, fruiting well but well pressed against the plastic, causing some damp i should think. Should i remove them to outside?

6) My toms in the G/h have overgrown the place, i broke the top off some, left them for a few days and theyd sprouted massively elsewhere. I need tomatoes not huge plants! In all theres about 6 tomatoes total on 6 plants. Do i just keep pruning? Seems harsh to the plant.

7) Asparagus - got one in a pot, does one crown produce several spears, or have i got many clustered together? I thought asparagus was about 100mm high and thick, mine are about 300mm high and about 2mm thick

Thanks

Lee

[FCG]

3 sounds like pumpkin. If it's in your compost... it'll be GODZILLA! Well if the leaves are widescreen TV sized, it probably isn't. But i'm putting it out there. If you need any help with the pictures i'm here all day. Thrown a weird banana on your heap perhaps? (yes I know most bananas grow from rhizomes not seeds)

The peppers can probably survive outside, with all this unseasonably hot weather, but do you have a 3 tiered or 4 tiered version? If so would it be possible to take out a level and take what is beneath out?

Let the tomato plant grow, it first gets as many leaves as possible then focuses on tomato production. Just pinch out the side shoots (where the leaves meet the stem) on each one otherwise you'll get masses of offshoots and leaves and less tomatoes. Simple i know, but i didn't find out until this year. Hacking it back may seriously damage your future crop yield, plus may retard what fruit is setting. Some flowers set early and some later. On one plant one truss has grown to about pinball machine 'ball' size while every other truss is either still flowering or has ball bearing sized green globules. Are these the ones in the knee height greenhouse? That is really too small a space for them in a hot humid situation.

No idea about the rest of your questions, but i hope i helped! (I'm probably going to be told i'm wrong now) If you cannot use the rhubarb, i would suggest giving it away via freecycle.

[Trillium]

#1 Almost nothing stops rhubarb, not even the layers of wood fencing my father once dumped on top of a cluster to supposedly kill it. Yours will be fine in that hole and will simply push aside the newspaper and whatever as new shoots appear.

#2 Potted plants can go into the ground at any time, other than severe winter  

#7 One asparagus crown throws up a number of spears. The older the plant gets, the thicker the stalks. We stop 'picking' by mid July and let the spears grow into the feeding fronds, which can get about a metre high thereabouts. If yours is potted, be sure to give it some feed now and then.

[gardengran]

the peppers in my mini greenhouse are hardly growing but the ones on my kitchen windowsill have flowers now, i think its because its an even temp. in the house

christine