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Gardening ?; Anyone into it ?
Topic Started: May 24 2016, 01:35 PM (313 Views)
RoofGardener
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Anyone here into gardening ? Especially growing vegetables.
Edited by RoofGardener, May 24 2016, 01:35 PM.
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marybrown
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RoofGardener
May 24 2016, 01:35 PM
Anyone here into gardening ? Especially growing vegetables.
No..absolutely hopeless at gardening..I have black fingers..I can kill a perfectly healthy plant within 3 days...
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Pro Veritas
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My folks have an allotment, I pop by and help with the heavy stuff, my sister has a quite large veg patch in her front garden.

I know the basics, and how to do the heavy work but that's about it.

All The Best
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RoofGardener
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People have suggested that I go for an allotment; there are even allotment plots quite close to the Roofgarden.

Trouble is... they take a LOT of work. After work and commuting, I only have an hour to 'play' in the Roofgarden per day, plus a bit at weekends.

(The Roofgarden is an asphalt plot.... sort of a large patio... about 30' x 30' .. so everything is in plantpots... plus a small 'tent' greenhouse, and my "pride and joy" polytunnel).

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marybrown
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RoofGardener
May 24 2016, 02:44 PM
People have suggested that I go for an allotment; there are even allotment plots quite close to the Roofgarden.

Trouble is... they take a LOT of work. After work and commuting, I only have an hour to 'play' in the Roofgarden per day, plus a bit at weekends.

(The Roofgarden is an asphalt plot.... sort of a large patio... about 30' x 30' .. so everything is in plantpots... plus a small 'tent' greenhouse, and my "pride and joy" polytunnel).

Allotments are hard work..
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Steve K
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I'm quite interested in gardening . . .


. . . as a spectator activity which is why I pay someone to do ours :-[
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Ewill
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Steve K
May 24 2016, 04:24 PM
I'm quite interested in gardening . . .


. . . as a spectator activity which is why I pay someone to do ours :-[
I'm with you Steve

I went to a garden centre this morning and packed and paid for several trolleyfulls of plants which they will deliver early Thursday morning when my gardeners are next due
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Steve K
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Ewill
May 24 2016, 04:39 PM
Steve K
May 24 2016, 04:24 PM
I'm quite interested in gardening . . .


. . . as a spectator activity which is why I pay someone to do ours :-[
I'm with you Steve

I went to a garden centre this morning and packed and paid for several trolleyfulls of plants which they will deliver early Thursday morning when my gardeners are next due
:thumbsup:
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Pro Veritas
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RoofGardener
May 24 2016, 02:44 PM
People have suggested that I go for an allotment; there are even allotment plots quite close to the Roofgarden.

Trouble is... they take a LOT of work.

They take a LOT of work initially, depending on how long it is since someone kept it in order.

My folks have had their plot for close on 20 years, and now even in what is a busy period they are maybe only doing an hour a day.

When they come to harvest the spuds we'll all rally round a lend a hand as that is a big job, and my father likes to grow enough spuds to see them through the winter and beyond.
Same with the onions, we'll all rally round to lift the onions clean them off and get them laid out to dry.

But day to day "maintenance" gardening for them doesn't seem too time consuming. The summer before last we set to a rebuilt my father's allotment shed, in effect we cobbled two old part sheds together to make one bigger shed, it took a couple of days of graft but the end result is he can keep most of his tools on site, and they have a few patio chairs for when they need a break. Wouldn't surprise me if we end up sticking a makeshift BBQ in at some point.


All The Best
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marybrown
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May 24 2016, 04:46 PM
RoofGardener
May 24 2016, 02:44 PM
People have suggested that I go for an allotment; there are even allotment plots quite close to the Roofgarden.

Trouble is... they take a LOT of work.

They take a LOT of work initially, depending on how long it is since someone kept it in order.

My folks have had their plot for close on 20 years, and now even in what is a busy period they are maybe only doing an hour a day.

When they come to harvest the spuds we'll all rally round a lend a hand as that is a big job, and my father likes to grow enough spuds to see them through the winter and beyond.
Same with the onions, we'll all rally round to lift the onions clean them off and get them laid out to dry.

But day to day "maintenance" gardening for them doesn't seem too time consuming. The summer before last we set to a rebuilt my father's allotment shed, in effect we cobbled two old part sheds together to make one bigger shed, it took a couple of days of graft but the end result is he can keep most of his tools on site, and they have a few patio chairs for when they need a break. Wouldn't surprise me if we end up sticking a makeshift BBQ in at some point.


All The Best
I used to get into allotments..and nick the stawberries and raspberries.. :-[
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marybrown
May 24 2016, 04:53 PM
Pro Veritas
May 24 2016, 04:46 PM
RoofGardener
May 24 2016, 02:44 PM
People have suggested that I go for an allotment; there are even allotment plots quite close to the Roofgarden.

Trouble is... they take a LOT of work.

They take a LOT of work initially, depending on how long it is since someone kept it in order.

My folks have had their plot for close on 20 years, and now even in what is a busy period they are maybe only doing an hour a day.

When they come to harvest the spuds we'll all rally round a lend a hand as that is a big job, and my father likes to grow enough spuds to see them through the winter and beyond.
Same with the onions, we'll all rally round to lift the onions clean them off and get them laid out to dry.

But day to day "maintenance" gardening for them doesn't seem too time consuming. The summer before last we set to a rebuilt my father's allotment shed, in effect we cobbled two old part sheds together to make one bigger shed, it took a couple of days of graft but the end result is he can keep most of his tools on site, and they have a few patio chairs for when they need a break. Wouldn't surprise me if we end up sticking a makeshift BBQ in at some point.


All The Best
I used to get into allotments..and nick the stawberries and raspberries.. :-[
A neighbour of ours when I was a kid did the same with my parents gooseberry crop - he was found covered in his own shit with severe stomach cramps at the bottom of his garden where it adjoined ours, under-ripe gooseberries can be awful like that.

Funnily enough he never bothered scrumping in our garden again.

All The Best
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marybrown
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May 24 2016, 04:56 PM
marybrown
May 24 2016, 04:53 PM
Pro Veritas
May 24 2016, 04:46 PM

Quoting limited to 3 levels deep
I used to get into allotments..and nick the stawberries and raspberries.. :-[
A neighbour of ours when I was a kid did the same with my parents gooseberry crop - he was found covered in his own shit with severe stomach cramps at the bottom of his garden where it adjoined ours, under-ripe gooseberries can be awful like that.

Funnily enough he never bothered scrumping in our garden again.

All The Best
I was very selective and a lot more clever..
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Affa
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Allotments are social gathering places!
Places where men (usually) hang out to be away from the missus - like your shed, only more communal.

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RoofGardener
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When I retire, an allotment is something that I would seriously consider.

Providing - of course - I can equip it to the same level as my Polytunnel.

(electricity, radio, kettle, broadband etc... you know... the gardening essentials )
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Tigger
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I only grow veggies, I've little interest in flowers.

I have a herb garden which currently has coriander, some poorly looking sage and some out of control mint in it, we have spuds, carrots, swedes, runner beans, radish and rocket on the go, along with some apple and a cherry trees, we also have a single pear tree which either produces dozens of succulent pears that have to be harvested the second they are ripe, or in some years half a dozen that are as hard as nails and fit only for the compost heap.

Steaming new potatoes with fresh mint and runner beans straight from the garden is one of life's little pleasures for me, the difference between shop bought fresh and really fresh is amazing.
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Curious Cdn
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RoofGardener
May 24 2016, 01:35 PM
Anyone here into gardening ? Especially growing vegetables.
Yes, I grow sone vegetabkes every year for fun. i have three raised beds and I grow Tomato, Chives, Basil, Rosemary, Dill, Parsley, Leaf lettuce, Beats (for the greens and for pickling), snow peas, scarlet runner beans and I have a bit of mint (hard to keep at "a bit"), Lemon Balm, Oregano. I don't grow everything.

Tomatoes do very well, here. So do do soft fruit, cherries and peaches. Also, there is a major wine producing region right beside us on the slope towards Lake Ontario and Lake Erie that prduces vintages competing sucessfullty with French and German wines.(You will never see any of them unless you Brexit and get away from EU officiousness.). Our growing season is shorter than yours as tge wintrs are colder but the spring/sumner/fall are sll sunny and warm, here. Also, we are way to your south. We are on the same lattitude as Florence, Italy, so we get longer days at the beginning and end of the growing season.

I just spent the weekend building a "critter wire" bunny enclosure to cover the dill, lettuce and parsley.They don't like anything else. our bunnies ( hares, technically) look quite similar to yours but behave somewhat differently. They tend to be loners and they don't dig complex communal warrens. Also, they can't burrow through concrete or Grade Five Steel, as yours seem to do. They are a lesser pest than your European rabbit. There is another rodent, here, the so-called "Ground Hog" or "Woodchuck" that seem to fill the same ecological niche as your rabbits do and they are a major problem for agriculture. The raison D'etre of our bunnies seems to be to feed the many higher predators that live here. One of the classic examples of interacting systems that we all learn in high school are the sinosoidal ups -and-downs of the Lynx population following the same sine wave pattern of Snowshoe Hare population, about a quarter cycle out of phase.

Anyway, the wire mesh "bunny cage" left my hands and arms scratched and punctured. I looks like I've been wrestling with cats.

My wife is laughing at me. "You think that you're smart enough to out wit the bunnies? SURE you are!"

My teenage children tell me that I'm a cross between Elmer Fudd and Homer Simpson.
Edited by Curious Cdn, May 24 2016, 11:47 PM.
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Curious Cdn
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RoofGardener
May 24 2016, 06:21 PM
When I retire, an allotment is something that I would seriously consider.

Providing - of course - I can equip it to the same level as my Polytunnel.

(electricity, radio, kettle, broadband etc... you know... the gardening essentials )
How is tte Wi-Fi reception in the "back forty"?
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Oddball
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RoofGardener
May 24 2016, 01:35 PM
Anyone here into gardening ? Especially growing vegetables.
I used to be very keen on gardening both veg. and flowers - that is until the demise of my good health. Home grown veg. tastes so much better than even the best shop bought - the one exception being that frozen peas [especially petit pois] taste better than fresh.
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marybrown
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Tigger
May 24 2016, 11:18 PM


Steaming new potatoes with fresh mint and runner beans straight from the garden is one of life's little pleasures for me, the difference between shop bought fresh and really fresh is amazing.
I agree..freshly dug new potatoes are heavenly..mint..butter..and that earthy smell and taste.. :thumbsup:
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Oddball
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marybrown
May 25 2016, 12:58 PM
Tigger
May 24 2016, 11:18 PM


Steaming new potatoes with fresh mint and runner beans straight from the garden is one of life's little pleasures for me, the difference between shop bought fresh and really fresh is amazing.
I agree..freshly dug new potatoes are heavenly..mint..butter..and that earthy smell and taste.. :thumbsup:
Just got some early baby Jersey Royals, looking forward to cooking and noshing them in the next few days, but as you intimate, still not as good as baby potatoes fresh from the garden and boiled within the hour, topped with mint and a knob of butter!
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marybrown
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Oddball
May 25 2016, 03:29 PM
marybrown
May 25 2016, 12:58 PM
Tigger
May 24 2016, 11:18 PM


Steaming new potatoes with fresh mint and runner beans straight from the garden is one of life's little pleasures for me, the difference between shop bought fresh and really fresh is amazing.
I agree..freshly dug new potatoes are heavenly..mint..butter..and that earthy smell and taste.. :thumbsup:
Just got some early baby Jersey Royals, looking forward to cooking and noshing them in the next few days, but as you intimate, still not as good as baby potatoes fresh from the garden and boiled within the hour, topped with mint and a knob of butter!
I'm a truly hopeless gardener and I grew some potatoes in large pots..when I went to harvest them..the tops were healthy..but the potatoes had all been eaten by slugs..
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Pro Veritas
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marybrown
May 25 2016, 04:03 PM
Oddball
May 25 2016, 03:29 PM
marybrown
May 25 2016, 12:58 PM

Quoting limited to 3 levels deep
Just got some early baby Jersey Royals, looking forward to cooking and noshing them in the next few days, but as you intimate, still not as good as baby potatoes fresh from the garden and boiled within the hour, topped with mint and a knob of butter!
I'm a truly hopeless gardener and I grew some potatoes in large pots..when I went to harvest them..the tops were healthy..but the potatoes had all been eaten by slugs..
Mix some soot with the soil - slugs hate it, and chimney sweeps are only too happy to get rid of the stuff.

All The Best
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marybrown
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May 25 2016, 04:04 PM
marybrown
May 25 2016, 04:03 PM
Oddball
May 25 2016, 03:29 PM

Quoting limited to 3 levels deep
I'm a truly hopeless gardener and I grew some potatoes in large pots..when I went to harvest them..the tops were healthy..but the potatoes had all been eaten by slugs..
Mix some soot with the soil - slugs hate it, and chimney sweeps are only too happy to get rid of the stuff.

All The Best
You have 'chimney sweeps?''
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Pro Veritas
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marybrown
May 25 2016, 04:16 PM
Pro Veritas
May 25 2016, 04:04 PM
marybrown
May 25 2016, 04:03 PM

Quoting limited to 3 levels deep
Mix some soot with the soil - slugs hate it, and chimney sweeps are only too happy to get rid of the stuff.

All The Best
You have 'chimney sweeps?''
Yup. A guy who lives about 3 mins walk from my folks' house does chimney sweeping, he's an ex fireman so knows all too well the risks involved with not sweeping chimneys.

About twice a year he drops off a bin liner half full of soot, my folks leave it out for a year in the bag because fresh soot can "burn" plants and then mix it with the compost that goes in the potato trench and around the plants - rarely if ever have any issues with slugs.

All The Best
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Steve K
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May 25 2016, 05:35 PM
marybrown
May 25 2016, 04:16 PM
Pro Veritas
May 25 2016, 04:04 PM

Quoting limited to 3 levels deep
You have 'chimney sweeps?''
Yup. A guy who lives about 3 mins walk from my folks' house does chimney sweeping, he's an ex fireman so knows all too well the risks involved with not sweeping chimneys.

About twice a year he drops off a bin liner half full of soot, my folks leave it out for a year in the bag because fresh soot can "burn" plants and then mix it with the compost that goes in the potato trench and around the plants - rarely if ever have any issues with slugs.

All The Best
:thumbsup: and thanks for the tip, absolutely detest slugs

We have our chimney swept about once every blue moon and sod all soot comes down because we use those granules you sprinkle on the fire and they burn the soot off.

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Steve K
May 25 2016, 05:46 PM

We have our chimney swept about once every blue moon and sod all soot comes down because we use those granules you sprinkle on the fire and they burn the soot off.

Now unless I am very much mistaken if you have an open fire you are required to have the chimney swept at least once every 12 months, otherwise in the event of a fire that starts anywhere near the chimney your insurance company will look for reasons not to pay out. Chimney sweeps round here actually issue a certificate when they have swept the chimney - much like gas engineers do for boiler services.

All The Best

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Steve K
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May 25 2016, 05:52 PM
Steve K
May 25 2016, 05:46 PM

We have our chimney swept about once every blue moon and sod all soot comes down because we use those granules you sprinkle on the fire and they burn the soot off.

Now unless I am very much mistaken if you have an open fire you are required to have the chimney swept at least once every 12 months, otherwise in the event of a fire that starts anywhere near the chimney your insurance company will look for reasons not to pay out. Chimney sweeps round here actually issue a certificate when they have swept the chimney - much like gas engineers do for boiler services.

All The Best

I've heard that too. But it gets silly when there's no soot there

Call me a reckless risk taker
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Tigger
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Steve K
May 25 2016, 05:46 PM
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May 25 2016, 05:35 PM
marybrown
May 25 2016, 04:16 PM

Quoting limited to 3 levels deep
Yup. A guy who lives about 3 mins walk from my folks' house does chimney sweeping, he's an ex fireman so knows all too well the risks involved with not sweeping chimneys.

About twice a year he drops off a bin liner half full of soot, my folks leave it out for a year in the bag because fresh soot can "burn" plants and then mix it with the compost that goes in the potato trench and around the plants - rarely if ever have any issues with slugs.

All The Best
:thumbsup: and thanks for the tip, absolutely detest slugs

We have our chimney swept about once every blue moon and sod all soot comes down because we use those granules you sprinkle on the fire and they burn the soot off.

Before you go to bed check your vegetable patch and catch the buggers red er...handed, I put them in a bucket of salty water as fatal punishment.

An alternative, and I'm not making this up, is to bury a few beakers near and around your prize veg and top them half way up with beer, proper beer mind not non alcoholic crap, the slugs and snails will go for the beer and fall in and drown!
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Jessamy Bride
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I did that beer glass thing once for the slugs.....Its emptying it I didn't like ......Ewwww

I don't do vegetables.... but have a well kept garden and some fruit trees.
Its one of those things where you proportionately get of it.... as much as you put in.
It has its own rewards.
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Rich
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May 25 2016, 05:52 PM
Steve K
May 25 2016, 05:46 PM

We have our chimney swept about once every blue moon and sod all soot comes down because we use those granules you sprinkle on the fire and they burn the soot off.

Now unless I am very much mistaken if you have an open fire you are required to have the chimney swept at least once every 12 months, otherwise in the event of a fire that starts anywhere near the chimney your insurance company will look for reasons not to pay out. Chimney sweeps round here actually issue a certificate when they have swept the chimney - much like gas engineers do for boiler services.

All The Best

Same as that, I have my chimney swept every September in readiness for the winter and a certificate is issued, costs me £45.00 and takes the man about an hour, afterwards you would not know he had been, no mess or smell.

As for gardening, I stick to flowers, particularly Clematis.
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RoofGardener
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My original plan was to eschew effete flowers in favour of manly vegetables. Stepping out of my door to wrestle a runner bean into submission for the plate.... and the occasional Kayak expedition across the Damp Patch to harpoon a courgette.... ahh.... good times.

But then I discovered that you need SOME flowers, or you don't get enough pollinating insects (especially bees), so I allow a FEW in.

As for slug remedies... well.... I reckon if you ask 5 gardeners, they will argue for half an hour over it, and produce SIX remedies.

I just use those little blue pellets from Wilko's... and I've had a LOT of dead slugs this season !
Edited by RoofGardener, Jul 1 2016, 02:43 PM.
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Steve K
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RoofGardener
Jul 1 2016, 02:26 PM
My original plan was to eschew effete flowers in favour of manly vegetables. Stepping out of my door to wrestle a runner bean into submission for the plate.... and the occasional Kayak expedition across the Damp Patch to harpoon a courgette.... ahh.... good times.

But then I discovered that you need SOME flowers, or you don't get enough pollinating insects (especially bees), so I allow a FEW in.

As for slug remedies... well.... I reckon if you ask 5 gardeners, they will argue for half an hour over it, and produce SIX remedies.

I just use those little blue pellets from Wilko's... and I've had a LOT of dead slugs this season !
and never seen a hedgehog by any chance? Those blue pellets kill them

/S:
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marybrown
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I have never been a gardener..I only have to look at a plant to kill it..Hedgehogs are squashed all over the roads here...
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Steve K
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marybrown
Jul 1 2016, 03:58 PM
I have never been a gardener..I only have to look at a plant to kill it..Hedgehogs are squashed all over the roads here...
We love Gardening. Which is why we pay a company to do it for us. Why am I going to get dirty, sprain my back and all round pissed off for making a right cods of it when there's an alternative?

File under: lazy and decadent
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Curious Cdn
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I have an isue with bunnies eating my snow pea foliage. I saw a trick on the internet that I've successfully tried whereby you plant dozens of plastic forks all around whatever you wish to protect, tines sticking up. I've planted an array of six dozen forks. They look like the German obstacles on Omaha beach. My wife almost peed herself laughing when she saw it. I have since added a little sign with a skull & crossbones and "ACHTUNG ... MINEN" on one side and HALT! ... HASE RAUS! on the other. Maybe, I'll take a picture and post it ... if I can figure out how to post it on your forum from my tablet.
Edited by Curious Cdn, Jul 1 2016, 09:06 PM.
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