"Sprouts and Slugs "
Designer Sprouts and Slugs Night Out!
“For when the garden doesn’t grow according to plan”
No two plants are the same and if your tomato plants are stragglier than the ones in the picture on your seed packet, then so be it. As long as they are healthy what difference does it make how the plants look?
Some years ago I decided to grow sprouts, especially for Christmas dinner, but in France the winters don’t always get cold enough for them to develop into the hard sprouts we know and love. This particular year, the plants were great but the sprouts had all grown like very small dark green lettuces. They weren’t sprout-shaped but they looked cute!
When the children saw them on their plates, they were suspicious and, as it’s obligatory to hate sprouts when you’re a kid, I told them it was spinach. It worked. I kept this up for weeks until one bright spark stared at their dinner one night and demanded to know where exactly in the garden I was growing spinach…. Oh well, at least none of the sprouts, that weren’t quite sprouts, got wasted!
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Sprouts and slugs in the right order!
Grow your own organic vegetables to make the finest meals for your family....Gardening for health at it's best!
Thompson and Morgan are online worldwide suppliers of seeds and other products and they have some great pictures to drool over!
broad beans brussel sprouts Carrots
Chile Peppers Sweetcorn Tomatoes
Sprouts and Slugs in the right order! -with Thompson and Morgan Worldwide
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If your garlic or onions don’t swell and do what they should do, you can still use the leaves. Chop finely and add to any dish you would normally add onions or garlic to.
The UK growing season can be very short and outdoor grown tomatoes don’t always ripen. Rather than being left with so many green tomatoes that you feel obliged to make chutney, nip the top off the plant after it has produced three or four trusses. The plant will put it’s energy into the development of fewer tomatoes but they are more likely to ripen.
Sprouts and slugs - enjoy! Enjoy what grows and even if the fruits or vegetables don’t crop well, they will produce plants that are good to look at. Adverse weather conditions, poor seed quality, bugs and viruses are all possible disaster themes for a vegetable garden, but there are lots of ways to protect your plants.
Experiment with old fashioned slug and snail deterrents. A bowl of beer sunk into the ground close to your young plants will attract the slugs that would otherwise devour a whole line of lettuces in one sitting. Slugs are natural born drunks and will happily drown in the beer, rather than eat your plants!
Try dotting tomato plants around the garden rather than growing them all in a line, then if a virus attacks, it won’t spread to your other plants as quickly, if at all.
Plant strong smelling herbs around the garden among your vegetable crops. The strong scent deters bugs and the herbs can be picked when you collect your veg.
Make or buy a cloche or clear plastic tunnel that can be placed over your small plants at night in the early part of the year to protect them from the cold especially frost damage. One cold night can wipe out your entire crop as quickly as a sober slug can.
Give your crops the best possible start by positioning them well. Check on the seed packets for manufacturer’s growing recommendations before you start.
Keep an eye on your garden so that you can catch any potential disasters before they happen. A little TLC goes a long way to producing the best possible food for your family. Sprouts and slugs in the right doses works wonders!
Happy Gardening!
More "Sprouts and Slugs and Garden" Reading!
Grow Your Own Groceries: Producing your own food is not only rewarding but - in times of economic and environmental changes - increasingly a must! Nature provides everything the human body requires to thrive, and cultivating some of those natural products in your own back garden will not only produce the best food on the planet for you and your loved ones, it is also economical, environmentally friendly and more fun than shopping.
Gardening is more than a hobby; it's a way of life. Even without a garden, many plants can be grown in containers, on a balcony, and indoors. Order it now direct from the publisher... Grow Your Own Groceries
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Herb Gardening: Herbs are becoming recognised more and more as superfoods, as if we didn't know that really! 'Herb Gardening' has been beautifully put together by the publisher (Crowood Press) into a well presented book with full colour photos.
Along with growing instructions for forty different herbs, there are lots of great ideas, including culinary delights and medicinal alternatives.
You'll also find gardening advice as well as some ideas on planning a herb garden. Order it now direct from the
publisher... Herb Gardening
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Grow Your Own Pharmacy: If, like me, you want to be able to eat the best food on the planet, grow your own!
Grow Your Own Pharmacy
• Clear instructions on planning, planting, growing and harvesting the fruits, vegetables and herbs required for a healthy vitamin intake.
• Recipes and menus to help incorporate the fruit and vegetables into your daily diet.
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Granny's Book Of Good Old Fashioned Common Sense is packed full of great ideas and tips. Granny brings
traditional home-making up to date with cooking, gardening, needlecrafts and even games to play with the kids...Click on the link below to order your copy.
Granny's Book Of Good Old Fashioned Common Sense
Cooking doesn’t have to be a chore and preparing nourishing home cooked meals for the family will certainly keep them away from the goodie shelf. Gardening encourages physical exercise and a good healthy dollop of fresh air. And you can get the kids involved too.
Before the days of computer games and electronic pets, children used to have fun without rummaging about in the fridge every five minutes. Enjoy a few rainy-day games and crafts of yesteryear with today’s kids. They’ll love it and so will you!
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