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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Blooming hard work. The gardening thread
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
They contract when wet, and have a waxy surface so they float on the surface tension. Don't look much like onion or carrot fly maggots, either.
[ 09. October 2015, 12:02: Message edited by: Penny S ]
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Chamois
Shipmate
# 16204
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Posted
Like others here I'm still picking runner beans and courgettes. I'm also enjoying an amazing late crop of raspberries. The raspberries didn't fruit at the usual time, because it was so hot and dry, but now the weather is more to their taste they've decided to have another go. A bowl of fresh raspberries in October is definitely an unexpected pleasure!
I've decided to risk the broccoli without nets. Have to wait and see what happens.
Posts: 978 | From: Hill of roses | Registered: Feb 2011
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
I've been risking the broccoli without nets all summer, basically because I haven't been able to find any netting anywhere I could use. Result: short, straight, leafless, flowerless stumps.
I put half a very large plastic bottle over two of the plants to save them from the worst of the pigeons and they're ok, except they've now grown to fit the shape of the half bottle.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Chamois
Shipmate
# 16204
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Posted
I've been using nets all summer, but when the plants got to over 3 feet high the nets weren't big enough any more. It was either buy a new, larger net - and work out a way to fix it over the large plants - or take a risk and not use nets during the winter.
I'm interested in how pigeons actually eat the leaves at the top of a large brassica plant. The pigeons who visit my garden don't seem very good at perching except on more-or-less horizontal branches. And there aren't any horizontal branches on broccoli plants, just a tall, very thick vertical stem with leaves coming out of it. Pigeons are much too big to perch on the leaves and I think their feet are too small to grip the large vertical stem. I can see how they can peck the lower leaves, but can they actually reach the ones at the top? If so, how?
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The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases
Posts: 978 | From: Hill of roses | Registered: Feb 2011
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
They start when the plant is small enough for them to munch and then give up with the medium size plants until these grow sturdy enough for them to perch on and resume their interrupted meal.
I think it's also cabbage butterflies that also quite like them - they (or their caterpillars, I'm not sure which) go for brassica, either way you may find there are holes in the middle of the leaves (assuming there are leaves left).
Having said that, you name it, anything you plant in your allotment will probably have a pest dedicated to eating holes in the middle of its leaves. I've been bedevilled by one that even munches rhubarb leaves.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Chamois
Shipmate
# 16204
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Posted
Originally posted by Ariel:
quote:
They start when the plant is small enough for them to munch and then give up with the medium size plants until these grow sturdy enough for them to perch on and resume their interrupted meal.
Aha! That makes sense. I'll keep an eye out, and if I find them perching I'll just have to wrap the net round the top of the plants. Or something.
The nets kept most of the butterflies off until the plants grew large enough to push against the top of the net. When that happened the butterflies were able to perch and lay eggs on the top leaves. So I've been picking caterpillars off since about the 1st week in August. The bright green caterpillars are easy because they stick to the leaves they are eating but there is also a stripy sort of caterpillar who are very sneaky and hide out in the middle of the plant. I think they come out after dark. Being able to pick caterpillars off the middle of the plant was another reason I decided to remove the nets.
I can only do this because I just grow a small number of plants. I couldn't hand-pick caterpillars from a whole allotment of brassicas but 4 sprouting broccoli plants is just about feasible.
Chapelhead - in my garden the foxes haven't yet tried munching the brassicas. But everything else has. And the foxes probably just haven't thought of it yet.
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The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases
Posts: 978 | From: Hill of roses | Registered: Feb 2011
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
When I was young, we lived in a house by allotments. (Apparently, the plan was to build a super duper secondary school on the open space, also allotments, behind, and the small patch next door would be the entrance. It is still allotments.) Most of the crop was brassicas. At a certain time of year, the stripey Large White caterpillars took off to seek out pupating sites, climbing over the fence, crawling over the drive, and climbing up the pebbledash to the eaves. we did our best to diminish next year's population when we could. Nasty little girls we were. As were our parents. We grew brassicas, too. (The garden is only grass now.
[ 10. October 2015, 20:45: Message edited by: Penny S ]
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chapelhead:
Is there anything that doesn't want to much it's way though my brassicas? ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
Probably any children you try to feed them to
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
I've decided that the thin garden along the driveway is going to be planted with different kinds of thyme. When I was a child I read a book called The Time Garden by Edward Eager about children who travelled in time using different kinds of thyme.
I found a stall at a local market where the stall holder grows about 30 different types. So far I have common, silver, golden and orange.
I need to do more weeding before I buy more.
Huia
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Charity gives food from the table, Justice gives a place at the table.
Posts: 10382 | From: Te Wai Pounamu | Registered: Oct 2002
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
I love those books! I have a complete set. I bought them for my school book corner in the hopes that I would pass on the pleasure. Now I keep them for relative's offspring.
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
We have a single garage attached to our house. Then there is a path between our garage and the boundary fence with our neighbour. We have an ugly area of cracked and uneven concrete which I'd like to improve cheaply. To the east is the back of the garage, to the south is our house, and to the north is the boundary fence. The only sunlight comes from the west, and there's some shade from the west, too, as that neighbour has a tree in their garden.
The fence is ok; it has a rambling rose growing up it, and some other plants (currently the last of the montbretia).
The obvious solution would be tubs, but they haven't been successful. The shade and lack of sunlight means that when it rains the concrete stays damp for ages. We don't have a window which overlooks it, so we can't see it from the house, but our freezer and some of the recycling boxes are in the garage so we walk across the concrete to the back door of the garage a lot.
Suggestions?
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chapelhead:
Is there anything that doesn't want to munch its way though my brassicas?
I keep misreading this and wondering why you're wearing brassicas.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Chamois
Shipmate
# 16204
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Posted
I have now completed the Big Autumn Dig. ![[Yipee]](graemlins/spin.gif)
My shoulders and arms are sore. The rest of me is feeling very smug.
Posts: 978 | From: Hill of roses | Registered: Feb 2011
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
Which variety of daffs blooms the earliest in the spring?
All my gardening is in tubs and I have the crocus and tulips sorted, but would like to put in som really early daffs ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Drifting Star
Drifting against the wind
# 12799
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Posted
Tête-à-tête.
Generally speaking, the ones with smaller flowers and shorter stems tend to be earlier, although they really are a law to themselves, and the time they flower will depend on the weather for the whole of the previous year.
Daffodils in general tend to flower earlier when they're well established, too, so they may well get earlier as the years go on.
There's also one called Narcissus ‘First Hope’, which used to be called January Gold, which speaks for itself really, and another called Early Sensation which may flower at Christmas.
We usually have at least some tight buds around at Christmas from what was originally just a mixed bag of bulbs. Daffodils will open in a vase from really tight buds.
[ 29. October 2015, 10:12: Message edited by: Drifting Star ]
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The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Heraclitus
Posts: 3126 | From: A thin place. | Registered: Jul 2007
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
Thanks for the info Drifting Star. It
may explain why my newly planted daffs came up later than others my neighbour has had for years. I wondered why.
Huia
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Charity gives food from the table, Justice gives a place at the table.
Posts: 10382 | From: Te Wai Pounamu | Registered: Oct 2002
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Sandemaniac
Shipmate
# 12829
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Posted
Yesterday I had to pick no less than five cauliflowers before they went over. This whilst trying to empty the freezer so we can fit a sheep into it...
AG
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"It becomes soon pleasantly apparent that change-ringing is by no means merely an excuse for beer" Charles Dickens gets it wrong, 1869
Posts: 3574 | From: The wardrobe of my soul | Registered: Jul 2007
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
Removing the horns might help, but the poor thing will still feel the cold, even with its woolly coat.
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
I've been out in the half light righting the angle of the old water tank I use to collect rainwater. I'd noticed it had listed to one side rather a lot - approaching ten degrees, so it had lost some of its contents.
I had to empty it. Some went into a dustbin I bought in the drought year when the shops had run out of water-butts. Other containers have taken some of the rest, but some had to be emptied on the ground.
On moving the tank, I revealed a void which had been excavated by rats, and had been partially blocked by some pea gravel (by me, earlier in the year). I used the rest of the gravel to fill the space and level it, moved the tank back and put some of the water back as well. By then it was too dark to transfer the rest. I'd already soaked my trousers! I've got a piece of corrugated plastic roofing material over the top of my compost bins to direct rain into the tank, should Abigail dump any in our direction.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Celtic Knotweed
Shipmate
# 13008
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
Removing the horns might help, but the poor thing will still feel the cold, even with its woolly coat.
No, the wool has gone off to someone else to be spun into yarn. The poor sheep has gone quite to pieces, and will definitely freeze.
On the plants side of things, various bulbs got put in pots a couple of weekends ago. In theory they should be flowering from March, and the existing pot of snowdrops from about Feb. Does anyone know if having the snowdrops on an open south side of a building rather than a very enclosed north side will make much of a difference? (New house, and the south is the easier side to put pots right now)
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My little sister is riding 100k round London at night to raise money for cancer research donations here if you feel so inclined.
Posts: 664 | From: between keyboard and chair | Registered: Sep 2007
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daisymay
St Elmo's Fire
# 1480
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Posted
I always put some food for the birds up in my place where I have many good stuff. And it is still green, not finished yet.
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London
Flickr fotos
Posts: 11224 | From: London - originally Dundee, Blairgowrie etc... | Registered: Oct 2001
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georgiaboy
Shipmate
# 11294
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Which variety of daffs blooms the earliest in the spring?
All my gardening is in tubs and I have the crocus and tulips sorted, but would like to put in som really early daffs
Some years ago we planted a variety named IIRC 'Ice Follies.' They were rather tall, had rather large almost pure white flowers. In our climate (upper south USA) they were our first to bloom, usually in mid-February, often pushing up through the snow.
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You can't retire from a calling.
Posts: 1675 | From: saint meinrad, IN | Registered: Apr 2006
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
I have laid up for myself treasures in the potato sack, where moth and scab have corrupted. I have had to throw most of the crop away, due to a beastie which is not really known in these parts, and which I had to search for under the term "tiny white worms in the potatoes". Potato tuberworm, it is, and apart from waving itself about like hairs out of its tiny holes in the tubers, it fills it full of frass and fungi and stuff, and reproduces prolifically via its adult moth stage, pupating all over the place.
I'm going to have to deliver the tubers and the haulm and all the bags they have been growing in bagged up and disguised as household waste so they are incinerated. I'm going to have to douse the growing area with Jeyes fluid - none of the university articles online mention how to clean the growing area. I've warned my gardening neighbour, the only potato grower within flying distance. And as he hasn't had it, I'm wondering where it came from - flight distance is short.
I am not a happy bunny.
But as they do not like temperatures below 52 F, I don't expect they'll overwinter too well.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Sandemaniac
Shipmate
# 12829
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Posted
Oh dear, that's a bugger, Penny. It annoys me enough when onions rot in the sack, to lose an entire crop like that...
I'm railing against a forecast for wind the day I want to start reglazing the greenhouse. Grr!
AG
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"It becomes soon pleasantly apparent that change-ringing is by no means merely an excuse for beer" Charles Dickens gets it wrong, 1869
Posts: 3574 | From: The wardrobe of my soul | Registered: Jul 2007
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
I have got about a third, counting the very tiny tubers - any recipe for blueberry sized potatoes? And some I thought OK turned out not to be when I washed them.
I should have harvested earlier. The ones I did get in earlier are fine, though. And I did well for tomatoes.
I'll have to watch next year. They aren't confined to potatoes. Any solanum species, tomatoes, peppers, aubergine (eggplant), tobacco (not planning on that, but people have nicotiana as garden flowers), and they'll go for leaves if they can't get tubers, cutting crops by weakening the plants. Native to Meso-america, and a serious problem to farmers. They really can wipe out a crop there - even after harvest when the tubers are in store.
[ 27. November 2015, 18:26: Message edited by: Penny S ]
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Sandemaniac
Shipmate
# 12829
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Posted
Well, three hours of rough digging (it's mostly too wet to do anything else), and I've got almost three quarters of the second half-plot (difficult concept time - I have two half-plots, not one whole plot) dug for the winter. Still plenty to sort out, but digging is the big job. The fun bit is that a lot of the last quarter is the flower area which always ends up a mad unkempt mass, knee deep in roots and un-untangleable rubbish. It's also the lowest bit of the plot, so wettest... If the weather gods could just keep off from too much rain until I've got it sorted..... ![[Help]](graemlins/help.gif)
AG
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"It becomes soon pleasantly apparent that change-ringing is by no means merely an excuse for beer" Charles Dickens gets it wrong, 1869
Posts: 3574 | From: The wardrobe of my soul | Registered: Jul 2007
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
Well done.
I've just (as in only) moved some large flower pots and treated the contaminated areas with Jeyes Fluid. Which was a major performance. I couldn't open the can. It had a childproof lid. Press down and turn - it just didn't. So I sawed the top off with a serrated knife and then drilled a hole in the inner lid with another blade, nearly cutting myself while doing it. And then, it doesn't look or smell like old Jeyes Fluid. It used to turn blue in the water, but this time it didn't. Anyway, I've watered the surrounds of the places where the larvae were in case of pupae attempting to over winter. And I've also sprayed the peach (which still has its leaves) with Bordeaux mixture against the peach leaf curl, and moved all the canes to the corner by the back door. Then it got dark.
[ 09. December 2015, 16:57: Message edited by: Penny S ]
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
I have trellis!
All down the left hand side of the garden. My Guide Dog pup, Twiglet, has grown very tall and I was worrying she may leap the fence one day.
I thought to grow beans, peas and sweet peas up it in the spring - what are the best variety for a complete amateur? They will be grown in large pots.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Sandemaniac
Shipmate
# 12829
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
I have trellis!
You can get cream for that, y'know. Peas tend to straggle rather than climb, but runner beans were apparently grown for their flowers long before anyone thought of eating them - see if you can find a heritage variety with bicolour flowers, Marshalls seeds do St George which is red and white, or Celebration which is pink. Borlotti have the coloured pods as well. Sweet peas I think just pick something you like, or get a mixed packet - they appreciate being started early under glass, and like a deep pot to make the roots go down, other than that they're pretty simple.
Currently festering because it keeps raining when I want to get the digging finished. If I try now it'll be like shit.
AG
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"It becomes soon pleasantly apparent that change-ringing is by no means merely an excuse for beer" Charles Dickens gets it wrong, 1869
Posts: 3574 | From: The wardrobe of my soul | Registered: Jul 2007
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
I'll second runner beans: and if you start them in pots and stagger the planting, you can have beans from about June through to quite late in the season. I don't bother with early or late varieties, just plant the things.
I've still got some smallish beans coming through now, though I doubt they'll get much bigger than little finger size. (My family all love runner beans and you can't get them frozen.)
The grass is still growing, so I may have to mow again, in December ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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Sandemaniac
Shipmate
# 12829
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Posted
Well, I did get some digging in in the end, though it took nearly as long afterwards to clean my boots and tools as I'd spent digging. Hopefully I'll get a bit more in before Christmas now.
The big news, though, is that the Knotweed and I have nearly finished rerubbering and reglazing the greenhouse! It's been complicated by the previous owner using rather a lot of window glass to replace panes instead of horticultural glass (4mm vs 3mm thickness, so 25% heavier, and none of the fittings fit properly), and often in odd sizes - when you have a pane that has dropped leaving a gap it's very easy to miss the fact that it's also half an inch short!
Just eight panes to go now, then I shall put in some broad beans and sweet peas to celebrate!
AG
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"It becomes soon pleasantly apparent that change-ringing is by no means merely an excuse for beer" Charles Dickens gets it wrong, 1869
Posts: 3574 | From: The wardrobe of my soul | Registered: Jul 2007
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Sandemaniac
Shipmate
# 12829
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Posted
Today dawned clear and bright, so I finished the greenhouse, then washed all my pots (so the entire neighbourhood has a subtle aroma of Jeyes' Fluid), let them dry, stacked them and put them away for the rest of winter. I've also made a temporary fix to the bizarre bodge at the corner where the garden is higher than the greenhouse, and I'd had to excavate the glass from four inches of soil, and I've started digging out the strange random triangle of gravel as well. I think it might have been a soakaway for the dog pens but as at least some of the concrete will go when I get a mo (and a skip, and a temper on to beat the living shit out of the stuff)I think we can live without it. Especially as it'll fill the holes in the front driveway.
All in all, a good, productive, day.
AG
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"It becomes soon pleasantly apparent that change-ringing is by no means merely an excuse for beer" Charles Dickens gets it wrong, 1869
Posts: 3574 | From: The wardrobe of my soul | Registered: Jul 2007
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Sandemaniac
Shipmate
# 12829
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Posted
Oh, and I also spiked the sheet of mud with odd green tufts that appeared when I took the mower to the lush greenery a few weeks ago, and as it's so warm stuck some birdfeed - sorry, grass seed - down. We shall see!
AG
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"It becomes soon pleasantly apparent that change-ringing is by no means merely an excuse for beer" Charles Dickens gets it wrong, 1869
Posts: 3574 | From: The wardrobe of my soul | Registered: Jul 2007
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Banner Lady
Ship's Ensign
# 10505
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Posted
Summer solstice just gone and so are the berries. TP spent the last few days cutting back brambles and tidying the main runners into neat skeletal espaliers. We have our first gooseberries although he had to google when to pick them (thank you to Penny the naked gardener from the UK!) Apricots by the bucketful, and they are the best we've ever had. Plums almost ready to be picked. First figs have ripened, but the cherries are pretty much done.
On Christmas morning a pair of red and blue rosellas got stuck into the last few cherry plums on our tree - it made me smile to think they were enjoying their own plum pud that day. Lots of lizards in our garden this year. No idea what they are eating, but I guess it means 30 yrs of organic gardening has created a fairly healthy ecosystem.
Sadly the painted elm in our front garden has developed elm blight. Must be from trees a few blocks away, and I understand there is no recovery from this disease. Interestingly the other elm, still in a pot at the back of the house has no blight at all. Not sure if it is a good idea to replace the sick one with the healthy one in the same place, but we have until late autumn to decide.
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Women in the church are not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be enjoyed.
Posts: 7080 | From: Canberra Australia | Registered: Oct 2005
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Chamois
Shipmate
# 16204
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Posted
Originally posted by Banner Lady:
quote:
Sadly the painted elm in our front garden has developed elm blight. Must be from trees a few blocks away, and I understand there is no recovery from this disease. Interestingly the other elm, still in a pot at the back of the house has no blight at all. Not sure if it is a good idea to replace the sick one with the healthy one in the same place, but we have until late autumn to decide.
I wouldn't risk putting it in the same place. I believe the elm disease virus is carried from tree to tree by flying beetles, so it may not infect the soil, but every type of plant selectively removes its preferred nutrients from the soil so it's never a good idea to replace like with like without at least a few year's break.
Winter solstice just finished here, so the garden birds are singing again. The bluetits are visiting my nest box already!
Posts: 978 | From: Hill of roses | Registered: Feb 2011
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Nenya
Shipmate
# 16427
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Posted
Mr Nen mowed the lawns at the beginning of the week. Admittedly they had got very long, and we kept waiting for a dry day which never came, but they're now a mangled mess with some patches which are yellow and others which are muddy. I do hope they're going to recover.
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They told me I was delusional. I nearly fell off my unicorn.
Posts: 1289 | Registered: May 2011
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Sandemaniac
Shipmate
# 12829
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Posted
Blown off the allotment after an hour or so's digging out twitch. Mind you, I was greeted when I arrived by someone's plastic tool chest rolling across the plots towards me, so I can't say I wasn't warned. Thank goodness for fences to stop the big lumps!
Right, assuming the heavens don't open, I'm about to go put in a rose cutting. Almost certainly not the right time of year, but the other day I was talking to someone where we used to live, and realised that someone had broken a piece off the lovely rose at the end of next door's driveway that I'd always meant to ask if I could take a cutting of. So quick as you like, I had that! It's perked up in a mug of water on the windowsill, so it's time it went into the ground to take its chances.
AG
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"It becomes soon pleasantly apparent that change-ringing is by no means merely an excuse for beer" Charles Dickens gets it wrong, 1869
Posts: 3574 | From: The wardrobe of my soul | Registered: Jul 2007
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
My wild strawberries are in flower - joining the dianthus, primroses, scented geranium, etc, etc, etc. In fact the only things not in flower at the moment are the trees and the spring bulbs.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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