price of rice to go up this year

[Geordie_Rob]

(4 February 2013, 12:05)NorthernRaider Wrote: I managed to raise some cherry tomatoes, 4 tiny swedes and 1 poxy little butternut squash last year, and loads of peppers !!! it was a disaster last year.

Never a disaster mate. It's a learning experience.

For anyone who has never grown anything before, try this.

Get an ordinary spud & stick it on your window sill for 4 weeks.

Once the 4 weeks is up, get an old bucket (or a new one for a quid from b&q etc..) & add a few drainage holes.

Put an inch of compost in the bottom & put the spud in the centre. Cover with soil until only the very tips of the shoots are showing.

Water. Mark day 1 on the calendar.

Everytime the shoots grow, add more soil so only the tips are showing. Do this until the soil is within 2 inches of the top of the bucket. Keep well watered but not water-logged.

On day 150, tip the bucket contents out & eat the best tasting spuds you have ever eaten in your life.

Put old compost & green tops into compost bin.

* Watch out for any frost. It'll kill off the green tops down to soil level. Keep an eye out & bring indoors if needed.

* In some places I've wrote compost & soil. I mean general compost for both. I use the cheap gro-bag type compost & it does absolutely fine.

* If it goes well, try something more adventurous next year. Peas fresh off the plant are yummy aswell.

[NorthernRaider]

(4 February 2013, 12:14)preservefreak Wrote: do you grow the butternut squashes in a container? I thought they needed huge amounts of space

Yeah I grow em in a tub with a diameter of about 30 inches but the plant itself covers a larger area as it grows, when the fruits form I put pieces of old carpet underneath them to protect them from the soil and slugs.

[Scythe13]

Interestingly, my wife said that if it was too wet to grow crops in the coming year, we should have a few months over in China and learn to plant Paddy Fields!!! haha.

[preservefreak]

(4 February 2013, 13:00)NorthernRaider Wrote: Yeah I grow em in a tub with a diameter of about 30 inches but the plant itself covers a larger area as it grows, when the fruits form I put pieces of old carpet underneath them to protect them from the soil and slugs.

I'll see if I can get some heirloom seeds and try some butternuts this year