crops you find worth growing

MrG · Post by **MrG** » 05 Sep 2011, 15:30

emordnilap wrote:
It's not a wise idea to export nutrients on any large scale but otherwise, you're right.

You'd be happy as long as you fed them at home and they used your compost toilet though right

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 05 Sep 2011, 15:41

Even then, you'd be exporting nutrients, in the form of your guests' energy.

Heh heh. You'd have to do what a friend of mine in England always did - everybody who visited seemed to end up doing something, some job, helping out in some way; he was that canny at inveigling them that they often didn't realise they were being co-opted.

MrG · Post by **MrG** » 05 Sep 2011, 15:45

That's exactly how it works in my house. They are usually cooking the dinner! I seem to be a master at inviting people round for dinner and then before I know it they have taken over doing all the work and I am sat there getting wrecked. Works for me

Cooking the dinner or fixing one of the many broken things as I said.. but its mostly them that breaks stuff

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 07 Sep 2011, 02:39

MrG wrote:That's exactly how it works in my house. They are usually cooking the dinner! I seem to be a master at inviting people round for dinner and then before I know it they have taken over doing all the work and I am sat there getting wrecked. Works for me

Cooking the dinner or fixing one of the many broken things as I said.. but its mostly them that breaks stuff

I don't know? If your providing the groceries and the gas to cook it I'd do my best to cook it up as best as could be and call it a square deal.
Doing the dishes after though is a bit of a stretch unless you A. (were female) and look good in a miniskirt and
B. have a come and get it smile.

featherstick · Post by **featherstick** » 07 Sep 2011, 09:10

vtsnowedin wrote:
MrG wrote:That's exactly how it works in my house. They are usually cooking the dinner! I seem to be a master at inviting people round for dinner and then before I know it they have taken over doing all the work and I am sat there getting wrecked. Works for me

Cooking the dinner or fixing one of the many broken things as I said.. but its mostly them that breaks stuff
I don't know? If your providing the groceries and the gas to cook it I'd do my best to cook it up as best as could be and call it a square deal.
Doing the dishes after though is a bit of a stretch unless you A. (were female) and look good in a miniskirt and
B. have a come and get it smile.

Watch out VTS - first you sink into their arms....

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 07 Sep 2011, 21:28

featherstick wrote:
vtsnowedin wrote:
MrG wrote:That's exactly how it works in my house. They are usually cooking the dinner! I seem to be a master at inviting people round for dinner and then before I know it they have taken over doing all the work and I am sat there getting wrecked. Works for me

Cooking the dinner or fixing one of the many broken things as I said.. but its mostly them that breaks stuff
I don't know? If your providing the groceries and the gas to cook it I'd do my best to cook it up as best as could be and call it a square deal.
Doing the dishes after though is a bit of a stretch unless you A. (were female) and look good in a miniskirt and
B. have a come and get it smile.
Watch out VTS - first you sink into their arms....

Thanks but that bit of advice is more then thirty years too late for me.

Mark · Post by **Mark** » 14 Sep 2011, 21:35

Blueberries are another good one - we've had a monster crop this year off x2 bushes that are 3 years old. The only trick seems to be to plant them in ericaceous compost. Other than that, no maintenance other than some netting.

Blueberries are mega expensive in the shops and they're also supposed to be a 'superfood'....

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 14 Sep 2011, 21:57

Asparagus. Though ours is suffering a bit at the moment because I was daft enough to plant sunflowers near it.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 14 Sep 2011, 22:12

Call it companion planting.

Anyway, why should it be suffering? The asparagus will be dying down soon having done it's stuff for the year.

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 14 Sep 2011, 22:20

Sunflowers are apparently very nutritionally greedy. Ukranians (who know about these things) tell me that, unless you have some seriously high-octane compost to deploy, the advisable rotation for sunflowers is seven years(!)

Meanwhile, our asparagus hasn't actually done anything yet, it's still adolescent.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 14 Sep 2011, 22:35

RenewableCandy wrote:Sunflowers are apparently very nutritionally greedy. ... unless you have some seriously high-octane compost to deploy.

So long as all the sunflower plant is put on the compost heap you will have that exact compost. Put the compost on the asparagus bed next year.

Catweazle · Post by **Catweazle** » 14 Sep 2011, 23:07

biffvernon wrote:
RenewableCandy wrote:Sunflowers are apparently very nutritionally greedy. ... unless you have some seriously high-octane compost to deploy.
So long as all the sunflower plant is put on the compost heap you will have that exact compost. Put the compost on the asparagus bed next year.

Alternatively, feed the sunflower seeds to your chickens, spread their droppings on the soil, it will be supplemented by whatever else they eat.

alternative-energy · Post by **alternative-energy** » 15 Sep 2011, 00:10

Quinoa
First time I have grown this amazing grain. A 1.5g seed packet from realseeds has turned into 5kg of nutritious grain. So easy to grow, weeded the bed once and no problem to harvest and winnow.
Next year I hope to harvest 20kg which should give me enough to see me through the year. Highly, highly recommended.

Plant parsley next to your aparagus in the first couple of years, both will do well.

featherstick · Post by **featherstick** » 15 Sep 2011, 10:15

Tell us more about the quinoa, alt-en. Whereabouts in Kent are you?

How did you harvest and winnow?

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 15 Sep 2011, 11:54

The seed itself is very easy to harvest by hand on a small scale and is usually ripe in August. Cut down the plants when the first ripe seeds are falling easily from the flower head, lay out the stems on a sheet in a warm dry position for a few days and then simply beat the stems against a wall or some other surface, the seed will fall out easily if it is fully ripe and then merely requires winnowing to get rid of the chaff.

That was from http://www.pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?Lat ... ium+quinoa

Where did you get the seeds, AE?