russianmama

Spring Bulb Supplier?

kevc, thanks sotongeoff, for the website for Walkers! Bit behind with emails - was in the garden most of the day yesterday! Beautiful sunny day here in the West Midlands , with a couple of showers, allowing me to have some food and a coffee as a break!

Spring Bulb Supplier?

Walkers for bulbs. Very pleased with mine.

garlic

Hi Alan4711 - you're very welcome! I find majority of gardeners are a pretty friendly lot and are happy to share their knowledge and experience in response to questions asked.. I've been gardening for more years than I care to remember and have always found folks really helpful.

If you work out how many cloves you get from a single bulb, then the price doesn't seem quite so bad! And you have next years' cloves to plant out 'for free' so to speak!

Rosemary is a mediterranean plant and as such is a tough old bird, so that's why it doesn't soften I think.

Experiment with any herb you fancy! Happy gardening!

garlic

I'm afraid you get what you pay for! Price may seem high, but when split into cloves and price divided, it looks a good buy. Suggest Isle of Whyte Garlic Farm for garlic bulbs. Bought from there when on holiday and had good results the following year, despite getting  blight! (in Hampshire). Bought the following year from them at Hampton Court Flower Show and again good results, in Midlands this time. Then decided to use a supermarket one and results not good, so I'm back to doing it 'properly'!

Read the description of variety to select the one that suits you, then you get, hopefully, the sort you like. Happy growing!

Pickling Beetroot Recipes

Hope this helps.

Pickling Beetroot Recipes

Cook leaving some stalk and not cutting root. Won't ''bleed' then. Slide skin off, take off root & stalks Just slice them and put in a jar, vinegar on top to cover. Different vinegars make a change -  try white malt, cyder vinegar, raspberry vinegar. A splash of balsamic vinegar, either when you serve some pickled beetroot, or added to  malt vinegar in the jar when you do it is nice for a change.

Also nice is 'Beetroot in Jelly' a recipe my Mum used over 50 years ago when we had guests - made an 'extra' to put on the table when we had salad:

Slice beetroot into a bowl and cover with blackcurrant jelly, made up as instructions on jelly packet. Put in fridge to set. 

Talkback: Magnesium deficiency

Gardeners never stop learning! Real Gardeners  share tips, hints, seeds & plants, gluts of produce and make the world a very much nicer place! Long may it be so!

Talkback: Field horsetail

I have been fighting this for 4 years! Tried a lot of stuff, with limited sucess. It does, however get less invasive if one keeps pulling up fresh erruptions regularly. Thinking of trying SBK. Blairs tip to crush does help! Just been to Harlow Carr whre they've abandoned one of their beds infested with this and have grassed it. For those with in their lawns regular mowing seems to disuade! Good luck!

Overrun by blue flowers

Without a description of leaves,flowers it's anyone's guess. Sympathise with getting a picture up - I wouldn't know where to start, so keep trying and we'll try to help!

Mini greehouse slugs

A light scattering of cooking salt on floor inside your greenhouse will deter. Also 'Slug Off' - looks like granules of orange clay. Follow instructions on box.They dry up slugs slime. Have done wonders for my pots of hostas. Also crush dried eggshells with a rolling pin so they are very fine and add to compost as well as to tops of pots.  It's a ceaseless round, but keep going. Picking them off by hand may seem a bind too, but anything to keep the numbers down! Good luck!

Talkback: How to force daffodil bulbs