Are there any backyard veggie gardeners here?

[astarra]

Jude, alot of my garden last year was seeds from supermarket veg, and they worked well. Hope there are no nasty consenquenses...

[obbie]

Pumpkins are easy to grow, just throw the seeds in, and water them.

[obbie]

Wonder I just asked my DH, we have about 90-100 roses. 20 more arrived today to plant this week.

[Jude59]

Astarra,  glad to hear of your success. It's kind of exciting seeing what happens. The capsicum plants look really good so far.  I am going to try pumpkin this way too Obbie.

[snappy]

Jude i hear that red chillis from the supermarket produce trees that will deliver more chillis than you can use.  I am going to try this this year.

[mcmich]

Yes Snappy, you will have chillies coming out of your ears. I have frozen chillies and have given away bag upon bag of them.

[obbie]

My Mum has bell chillies. I pick heaps and freeze. Fantastic

[Cuilidh]

My DH loves a good bitey chilli but also likes them to have a nice taste.  Our problem is finding a chilli that has a good taste as well as a good bit of heat.  Any ideas or suggestions anyone?

[achookwoman]

Wombat made a hole it the wire fence around the veggie garden.  He doesn't eat the veggies,  but the hole will allow rabbits and wallabies to get in.  DH has put a sheet of tin over the hole as Wombats don't like metal.  They are stupid animals and difficult to stop once they have a mind to do something.  We will see what happens. 
About collecting seeds.  I have read that the seeds you collect from your own plants,  do better than other seeds as they are well suited to your climate.  I love the little plants that grow from seeds dropped in the garden.

[keiramax]

I generally collect seed from my best performing plants/veggies and save.  The plants are generally better suited to my climate, more disease resistant, better fruit etc. 

You can have mixed results from saving seed from supermarket veg as it depends on the type of plant/variety, where it was originally grown (ie grown in Qld and trying to plant in Melb), whether it needs certain cross pollinators, or is a F1hybrid, etc.  But it's fun experiment, just don't get disappointed if it doesn't fruit or you don't get what you are expecting.

I've had interesting results saving my own seed from pumpkins which I've grown. I accidentally grew two types of pumpkins from the same family in the same patch, the seeds I collected that year when planted out gave me a strange hybrid of the two.  Still tasted good, but wasn't what I expected.

[Jude59]

I'm thinking I'll also sow seeds from reputable places. But it will be interesting to see. The tomato plants our friend had were just brilliant and so strong. So pleased to get my hands on one of his tomatoes for seeds.  It's interesting to see what happens, but yes in future I will save my best performing plants as seeds.

[Halex]

Medussa, my kaffir lime is fine, looks the same all year round

We dug & weeded the patch at the weekend, so all ready to plant

H

[Aussie Brenda]

I love this forum, now i can't wait to get home to turn the veggie patch over and start my spring planting.  Thanks Girls (and fella's.)

[knittercook]

This family business in Tasmania have a great selection of seeds, I saw them on a cooking show recently.

http://www.southernharvest.com.au/

[keiramax]

Well next year hopefully I'll have lovely fresh blueberries.  I purchased 10 plants today and will plant out on the weekend once I've decided where.  They are a mixture of varieties but all are deciduous.  Will deflower them for this season to give them a chance to get established.

Slowly establishing lots of different berries, I currently have raspberries, blackberries, jostaberries and a silvan berry and now blueberries.