[martMember]

Wow Charles, always such fantastic service from you, thank you! If I may I don’t get the last bit ‘You could do something similar and open a corner of one side perhaps at the end where your door is closed.’Could you explain please?

Thanks for the trouble.
Btw very jealous of you Filderkraut, it’s huge! I only have two, rest stopped growing because of heat or have been eaten by a predator who has been roaming the garden lately. Most of the veg left is in the greenhouse or is Red Russian Kale which for some reason doesn’t get eaten.

[martMember]

For some plants it might help, think peppers, tomatoes etc. For salads, spinach etc I never use them. I do a lot of indirect sowing because pests and heat sometimes make it impossible to sow direct.
I have this model http://www.amazon.co.uk/Garland-Electric-Windowsill-Propagator-G51/dp/B000YA43HC I got it from my friends father, must be 20 years old. Works fine apart from the fact that the plastic tops are starting to fall apart. I also have this one (frighting expensive in the Uk, cheaper in Germany etc.) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Biogreen-HMTA060-120-GB-Aluminium-Thermostat/dp/B005910L5E/ref=sr_1_17?s=outdoors&ie=UTF8&qid=1323164714&sr=1-17 which I love. There are smaller heat mats and I like them better since you can put almost any tray you like on it. Another one I have (also present 15 years or so old)http://www.garden4less.co.uk/electric-heated-propagator-heat-grow-52cm.asp
Maybe an idea to ask around or look on ebay. If you have time on your hands you can build your own, just search on the net. But to come back to your question. You don’t need it but they are handy. Btw I’m in Italy (where it can be very cold!) so maybe UK readers can chip in.

[martMember]

For next summer I’m planning to put in some drip hoses for cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers. Not sure if they would work for salad. Guess that depends how you plant them. In winter I don’t need to give lots of water so do it by hand. In the summer however…. but then I’m in Italy.

[martMember]

Ok thx, I have made the patch semi weed free. My problem is I don’t have enough space to make compost at the moment. My idea was to cover the ground(clay/rock) with cardboard and some manure and semi ready compost on top with the idea to have it breakdown in the coming months. So it is half to keep remaining weeds down and part to make on the spot compost.

Sorry to see you flooded.
I have mainly raised beds here also to avoid flooding since part of the garden is on terraced ground. All over Italy they have flooding problems now, we have been fortunate but if it floods… madonna. Whole parts of hills come down.
The part I’m going to cover is the first part in not raised beds. I’ll be using it for tomatoes hopefully. They didn’t do fantastic this year but I hope some soil improvement might help. Corn and butternuts were doing well on the same spot but a porcupine ate all. Need some fencing which is great fun to make in rocky soil……

Off to have a quick read in your book on planting early broad beans and overwintering onions.
All the best, thanks for your advice and saluti

[martMember]

Thanks Charles, no worries escaroles are under way as is rocket and some chinese friends. Half of my first batch burned but some survived and yesterday I sowed a new load. I have a Escarole cuore pieno, do you know how similar is to Bubikopf, tempting to buy last one, I like the name, can’t find it here however and already have 7 types of chicory, yes I like the stuff. In your book (p214.)you mention Lisbon and Ishikura in one sentence, do you use the same time to sow those? On my packet sowing dates for Lisbon Hardy is 2 to 3 months earlier, in the past I have had more succes with Ishikura and Kaigaro. Normal Lisbon was a fail, might be bad seeds.
We have waterbombers in the air today again, leftover tomatoes get roasted on the plants, well saves energy, no oven needed.

[martMember]

Ok, seems to be working fine know, thx. Guess no one is interested in pics, I understand. Just thought pics might be interesting now an the. One more technical issue, if I click reply a new screen opens and the subject field is empty, is there a reason for that? I’d say that the subject remains the same. Don’t want to nag just wondering. Yesterday we had huge stormy rain clouds…… which blew all over…. I have mixed feelings about this year, great succes with aubergines but know everything is burned. Still have part of the tunnel covered with a shad mesh.

[martMember]

Thx Charles, I checked some books and a lot write about true leaves, always wondered why that was since most plants work fine cotyledon stage as you state.

I have a bit more light here still but have to get sowing. Previous sowing only delivered few plants- I’m going to try to find out how the pro’s grow small plants in killer heat. I covered part of my tunnel but then it still is 38C.

[martMember]

Hello Charles,

You’re wellcome.
Last year I hadn’t heard of you yet and did some experiment by myself which worked quite well. Funniest part was that there must have been quite a lot of seed in the compost/plant material that I put on top of the cardboard as tomato plants just popped out of the ground as did a lot of amaranth. The soil here is clay and rocks, maybe that should be the other way round. It compacts immensly when hot and starts cracking. Basically it is unsuited to grow anything in it as it is. The part I experimented on is producing some stuff and now with your book should work even better.

You are right about the light in winter months I have fantastic spinach and salads and kale though also here development stops somewhere in December. Might also be due to my not fantastic spot lightwise in winter. Can’t remember what production was like in my home country but cabbage and leeks I guess. We do have frosts here which kills a lot of plants in the winter. Last year a huge amount of olive trees got whiped out as well, it can be windy to. I got a tunnel to protect plants from strongest cold winds. Problem is buildup of water on the plastic which drips on the plants and then when it freezes…….

Anyway I’ll try to ul some pictures somewhere so you can see the setup and order the winter boo, they have at at the new amazon.it which saves in postage.
Sorry to hear about the book deals. I think there is a market for good info here though finances of people are tight and they are very stuborn. ‘We have always done it like this etc…..’ Also frightening the amount of chemicals, which they call ‘medicine’ they use. Lots of people don’t sow their own stuff, they buy readymade plants which to me don’t produce the most tastefull fruit and leaves. This year grafted plants are al the rage, costing an eye popping 6€ a pop.

Btw a question you write in your book you discovered putting cardboard on top works better, I wonder why and how do you keep it in place?
Saluti,
Mart

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