Funnily, that’s what my wife said as well 
These images do lie a bit though. They are not gigantic, though fairly big for Norwegian standards. The biggest one (top image) I guess is around 7cm long (almost 3 inches), measured from hind leg to front leg.
This thread went from serene morning viewing to pure horror!
The only complaint I have about the spiders here is they’re lazy mofos. Still too many flying bugs managing to get into the house.
Work harder ya bums!
Those spiders belong in the kill it with fire thread.
Who’s going to catch flying pests if there aren’t any spider webs around?
They may not be efficient, but better than leaving it all up to man-made pesticides and devices
Kill spiders on sight in your garden if you want. Just don’t be surprised if insect overpopulation then destroys all your precious plants. And if you killed them with chemicals, you may accidentally kill pollinating insects too, screwing your garden even more.
Sorry, I should have posted some nicer pics as well, for balance 
We do in fact have roe deer visiting quite often. They love our apple and plum trees (unfortunately).
And here’s a garden image for good measure. It’s kind of overgrown, at least parts of it.
I think maybe they’ve been working too hard over here. I’ve never seen so few flying insects… probably not the spiders’ fault though.
Very tasteful!
I’m too shy to show my garden as it has turned into a wild mess a bit hippish I suppose but not how I imagined considering the work I put in. On a positive note I went to tend to it today and collected a bunch of stuff. A few tomatoes, cowpeas, 2 types of basil, a bunch of savory, a few sprigs of sage and lovage, okra (which might be woody as I let them grow too large), bitter melon, and Malabar spinach (which isn’t actually spinach but tastes similar).
I haven’t grown cardoons, but I have prepared and eaten them. They are tasty but a bit of work to prepare - they need to be well trimmed and blanched before doing other stuff with them and they’re spiny.
Oh ok, I’ll give it a go and see what happens. There is this thing called blanching (not related to cooking) that I didn’t know about until I grew this. Basically, you have to wrap most of the plant in newspaper or burlap for a month at the end of the season in order to make it editable.
I’ve grown them but decided I couldn’t be bothered at the prep/blanching stage.
Did you cut them back and try to overwinter them? I do like how they look…
I eventually just dug them out, but after cutting them back they would pop up again, fairly hardy and yeah nice looking plants. I’ve never actually tried eating them, I’m in Australia and they’re not common here at all. I was just browsing seeds one day and thought they sounded interesting so gave them a go.
Same, I think they are a more Mediterrian thing? Seems like the climate in Australia would be better suited for them than here in the northeast USA.
Anyone else getting pumped to do some gardening?! I decided to organize my seeds today as they were a f’ing mess…
Detroit beets slap like Larkin, btw.
Ohh, I love this thread. It also means summer is right around the corner!
Not sure I’ll do a garden again this year as I haven’t got a spot ready yet. Probably a few pepper plants to hold me over.
I’m definitely ready. Tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants will be ready to transplant from pods to pots soon, eventually moving to the raised beds. We’ve got radishes, a few types of lettuce, muzuna, bok choi, onions, leeks, and carrots recently sown.
I see you buy from Baker Creek as well. They’re great. We’ll have to try the Detroits this year as an over-winter beet. We’re big fans on the chioggia and we also grow your standard red and golden beets.
Tomato seedlings:
Hot pepper, eggplant, and more tomato seedlings:
Radishes:
Looks amazing as always!!
