New here

... and English.

Am I alone?

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher
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I'm not British, but I do live in a former colony :)

I started visiting this board about 6-8 months ago and have found the people here to be very helpful and informative. There's one fellow in particular...forgot his name...who has a wealth of experience growing garlic; he especially has given me tips on my own garlic crop.

Speaking of your being English: I watched a fascinating show on educational television a while ago about Victory Gardens in WWII. They touched on people raising rabbits in backyard hutches, etc. Neat stuff.

Mark

Reply to
Mark

English.. ?? Hard to define these days! LOL

Technically I'm British.. However I'm European by blood!-)!

Alone.. never but 'where' are you.. There's always uk.rec.gardens if you are gardening in the UK.. Though everyones pretty friendly here too. // Jim North London, England, UK

Reply to
Jim W

There are many ...

That would be useful.

We don't have television (but we don't eat our young any more) but I do remember WWII. Many people grew vegetables, rabbits, pigeons, pigs etc in the tiniest of spaces. Larger areas such as parks and sports fields were given over to allotments.

My mother kept rabbits, not in the back yard (we only had a tiny front garden, living in what's called a two bedroomed back to back terrace house) but they were for the pot. My husband's family did the same. I remember my mother killing a rabbit with a blow to the back of its head, my husband never saw that but said that one day the hutch door was open and he was told that the rabbit had escaped. somehow he knew that wasn't true ...

During the war my father's father kept a pig in his tiny garden. You must remember that this was very close to the centre of a large city in Yorkshire: Leeds, not in the country. His house was three storeys high but it only had one room per storey. They lived in the 'cellar kitchen', it was beneath ground level and was accessed by stone steps leading down to the room. It had a shallow stone sink, a set pot, a huge mangle, a soft wood table covered by oil cloth with two chairs, a large coal fireplace with an integral oven, a dresser and a horsehair sofa. Oh, and a rocking chair and rag rug, otherwise the stone flagged floor was uncovered. The lavatory was under the stone steps which led up to the 'ground floor', used as a bedroom. There was only cold water so the kettle was constantly on the trivet on the fireplace.

The pig was fed on household scraps, such as they were, it must have had something else but perhaps neighbours gave it their scraps too. We didn't have much waste food but there were potato peelings. Right until I was about thirteen people used to call at houses asking for 'pig swill', that is food waste.

I could never understand why my mother's sister only had flowers in her garden. We live in that house now and I know there was space enough for vegetables. I suppose it was because she had more money than we had and could afford to buy things we couldn't.

During the war our garden was too small to grow anything but a few soot-stained flowers but when I was ten we moved and had a garden big enough for my father to grow vegetables. I wish I'd taken notice of what he did ...

Now I grow many of our own vegetables but it's late in the day and I don't remember everything I learn. But I persevere and we eat very well. Tonight we had runner beans, tomatoes and cucumber and my own baked rosemary and garlic bread as well as my own dry cured ham.

I reckon we eat better than most people!

And I love it :-)

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

Welcome aboard Mary. I am not English nor have I been in that country. We do all have something in common here, we love to garden. Otherwise how could I admit here that all my squash died this year? Nobody looses their squash, just me. Everything else died also. Before that happened I made sauerkraut from my cabbage, and we put some Brussels sprouts in the freezer. Now if my sweet potatoes come out of it and make something, maybe I will have redeemed myself. I did come up with some really big garlic this year. Took a blue ribbon and Grand Champion at the fair.

Dwayne

Reply to
Dwayne

My single pumpkin started to rot at about 4" :-(

We had a bumper crop of sprouts last year and I froze some but they're awful. I'd like to know how to freeze sprouts so that they taste half as good as fresh ones.

Well done!

Mary

generations

Reply to
Mary Fisher

Thank you.

I was taken to BC about ten years ago, I ended up giving a talk in Kamloops in February ...

Nothing more to be said, really :-)

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

I'm not English, but my husband is. We live in the USA.

I also have an English gardening-friend who lives near us.

Pat

Reply to
Pat Meadows

Aaaah pedigree LOL! I can go back several generations inc to Yorksire family and those who went to US..

And the Dutch side of my family in a similar vein.. Working on the fam tree at the mo actually the web is great for this! (Sorry going a bit OT here!)

I did mean URG! Sorry mistype!-) But yes this is specific to the edible though there are a lot of veggie growers on URG as well ya know;-)

My real area of interest in multi usecrops (eg edible ornamentals) and growing more unusual edibles.. hope to try some teff next year (its a grain) among other things.. But being down in London (UK) means I can push a lot more crops that might not do well elsewhere!.

// Jim

Reply to
Jim W

I grew it this year also, and yes, it's very pretty.

It didn't grow nearly as fast or as large for me as Fordhook Giant (plain green chard with white stems). I'll probably mostly plant Fordhook Giant in the future.

Pat

Reply to
Pat Meadows

Like half the world. :)

ANdrew

Reply to
Andrew McMichael

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