[GrannieAnnie]

Oooh, I'll look out for Kitchen Garden John, not seen it before, but then we don't get a lot up here, boring place, and the OH doesn't like going into town much and buses are not very good, but I'll have a look next time i'm up there.

[Heather_S]

I really like my copy of Matthew Biggs's Complete Book of Vegetables. I like it so much I wish I had bought the follow up The Complete Book of Vegetables, Herbs and Fruit but I suspect there's a third of overlap between that book and the complete veg one. I just noticed on amazon that the complete veg, herbs, and fruit one was published 5 months after I bought my veg book  :roll: I'm just having to use google for fruit and herb information instead.

The book has information on all sorts of veg, including tropical ones, it's geared to the UK so it has all relativant information and suggested types. It lists cultivation of plants, pests and diseases, any companion planting, and at least one recipe for each vegetable. It touches briefly on growing in containers, growing mini veg, crop rotation, various methods of sowing seed etc. It's a good basics book although it might be an overload of information to someone starting out.

[tublet]

hi, no DO NOT work for grow your own mag.Came across the mag on an above posting and went looking on the net for it. Will now go looking for the one you mentioned.
Took my secure plot over in October with a friend. She helped me find it, did one days work and hasn`t been seen since!!!
I inherited a well cared for shed AND a greenhouse. I can hear you all now,Oh hasn`t she been spoiled. The plot had been parlty worked in 2005.
The 1st thing that I did was accquire some pallets from work and make 3 compost bins. I then started clearing , only one bed was worked, I am still clearing. At home I garden on clay plot 4 is located on very old flood plain, so the digging experince is very different.
Have planted raspberries and rhubarb so far. got pots chitting and have my first ever tomato seedlings growing on bedroom window sill. Have always bought before.
I have questions like, How do I know how many seeds to  sow, to feed my family of 4 out of a packet. I am finding this site VERY useful. Bye for now. Tublet

[John]

Sorry Tublet

I suspected, wrongly, a sort of commercial post.  I don't mind people suggesting things / companies but I do get annoyed at people who join to make one commercial post  Usually I delete them and ban the user name,  allotment growing is nothing to do with enhancing pills for men to make parts grow.

Maybe I should leave them as a laugh?

Sounds like you have a really nice plot there - well found.  I'm glad you find the site useful. It's very hard to know when it's personal - I find that when I do sites for a client on subjects I'm not in to (like armoured cars) much easier to judge 'appeal'.

Isn't it exciting though, watch those little seedlings growing and knowing in a few short months you'll be eating tomatoes from them?

[GrannieAnnie]

No John, dont' leave those 'other' posts on for a laugh!!  Its nice to have a nice place to go and talk to likeminded people, especialy with this mix of newbies like me and more expeperienced people who don't mind us asking stupid questions!!!

I was a member of a lovely cross stitch site, but we got so many weirdos on there trying to cause trouble (how can you slag people off when you've never met most of them???) that one of the girls created a passworded site just for us regulars, it gts a bit boring at times, but I have a couple of friends there who I 'talk' to, and one of them I've met and we are good friends now.

So just you keep those weirdos out!!!

Talking of silly questions, do you more expereinced people water your seedlings from above, or below?  Last year I lost a lot of hanging baskets seedlings, because I think I drowned them.  Must get a smaller rose for the watering can!!  Then I went to Kent for a week to see my daughter, and when I got back, OH had drowned most of what I had left in the greenhouse, even my new little white lavender!!!!

[John]

Yep, I'll keep the sillys away.  they can push their wares into the sea!

There are no silly questions - sometimes the obvious isn't obvious.  I spent half a day trying to find the answer to a question that was so obvious that no-one had posted the answer!  I'd written nearly 50 lines of code to do a task that takes 3.

Anyway - watering. When I have a seed tray, I use an indoor watering can and avoid the seedlings. Moving on into modules or pots, I really water before planting on to allow the compost to soak it all in first. With module trays we soak them from the base in an old cat litter tray.

Overwatering is a big fault - you need some air in the compost.  Little and often is far better than letting it dry out then soaking.