|
Source: (consider it)
|
Thread: Back to the garden
|
jacobsen
seeker
# 14998
|
Posted
I found an extra hose pipe hosting spiders in the garage, bought the necessary connectors, and now have enough hose to do the front garden comfortably instead of standing in the corner nearest to the back garden and imitating a sky high pissing contest to get the liquid over to the other side.
Watering morning and evening at the moment.
--------------------
But God, holding a candle, looks for all who wander, all who search. - Shifra Alon
Beauty fades, dumb is forever-Judge Judy
The man who made time, made plenty.
Posts: 8040 | From: Æbleskiver country | Registered: Aug 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
jacobsen
seeker
# 14998
|
Posted
And am now watering my neighbour's front garden too. The beans have put forth shy flowers (I started them late) and the first trusses of tomatoes are beginning to set. Time for the FEED.
But where, oh where, are the aubergines?
--------------------
But God, holding a candle, looks for all who wander, all who search. - Shifra Alon
Beauty fades, dumb is forever-Judge Judy
The man who made time, made plenty.
Posts: 8040 | From: Æbleskiver country | Registered: Aug 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
|
Posted
It's a strange year - now raspberries are underperforming, after some other things. Jerusalem artichokes just haven't appeared, slugs demolished tons of stuff, including cavalo nero, which I thought they didn't like.
It was wet, then hot and dry. Dunno.
However, some of our niche veg are OK, e.g. Good King Henry is rampant, also angelica and lovage look good.
Tomatoes having a good year. And most flowers are OK.
--------------------
I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by daisydaisy:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
....
Anybody an expert on Jerusalem artichokes, as ours have not appeared this year? Maybe I need to dig them all up and replant.
Wow I'm impressed. I'm no expert, but I have yet to find a way to get rid of them.
Yes, when we put them in, lots of neighbours huffed and puffed, and said we would be over-run. Not so. And now they've been and gawn. I will dig them up in autumn, twirl them round in a south-west breeze, and replant. They are a very nice plant, like sunflowers really.
--------------------
I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
ArachnidinElmet
Shipmate
# 17346
|
Posted
Am currently watching Gardeners' World with added commentary:
Monty D: well the tomatoes are looking good.
My Mum: Are they? Keep it to yourself.
Monty D: and the aubergines are coming up.
Mum: Really...
Monty D: etc
Mum: Shut up.
You'll have to add the sarcastic tone of voice yourselves. As you can see, my Mum (the chief planter of the household) is less than happy about the performance of the veg crops.
--------------------
'If a pleasant, straight-forward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle manoeuvres' - Kafka
Posts: 1887 | From: the rhubarb triangle | Registered: Sep 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
|
Posted
I am now having a mammalian visitor, though I haven't seen it about. It may be coming in at night. It doesn't bury its doings, or scrape before leaving them. It's larger than a hedgehog, I think, and I'm not sure how a hedgehog could get in, anyway, now I've been blocking access to rats at ground level. It has to get over 6 foot fences, with trip hazards, and then get out again. It visited before yesterday morning, and after the morning before, and on a previous occasion, which I only spotted this morning, because it had matched the surrounding soil.
It's not fox droppings, and anyway, the 6 foot fence would be enough to stop them, I would have thought.
Douglas, the large ginger tom who used to visit before I discouraged him, has moved away, and Weasley, the ginger and white cat who would take on badgers and was well known in the vets hasn't been seen for some time - I daren't ask about him. I suspect the Grey Phantom, a scrawny but large cat with long hair, who stares at me as if I have got into the private realm of some elevated Earl if I dare to go out when he is in the garden, but I haven't seen him for some time, except over the other side of the neighbourhood, once. I think this must be a night prowler.
I'll have to get the lion poo out again. And put the rose and bramble clippings down over the bared earth among the veggies. And possibly get one of those battery operated light things with discouraging noises.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
|
Posted
I've had a look on websites, and, in the absence of images of cat droppings, it was sufficiently like bobcat scat that it is a cat. If it's coming in at night, that's going to make discouraging it tricky.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
cattyish
Wuss in Boots
# 7829
|
Posted
I have a decent sized garden which is happy to grow any weed which likes to get its feet wet, and some plants I actually want. The lawn is made up of creeping buttercup, daisies, moss, a few tufts of grass and some reeds which only show if I have been lazy about mowing them down.
My walking onions and mint are doing really well, but so are the nettles and the occasional rosebay willowherb which has snuck in between tall shrubs and managed to escape my notice. I don't mind nettles too much because they kindly improve the compost.
Since I no longer have a dog, I now have a visiting cat who sits on a warm surface and miaows at me on a regular basis. I tell him I don't have a cat.
The garden is mine, since Mr C would rather sit in a hot room with a computer and the curtains drawn. It is therefore a bit of a mess, but comfortable. I have ambitions to get a proper greenhouse because there are increasingly large holes in the plastic tent one I got from my mother-in-law.
Cattyish, wishing I were in the garden.
--------------------
...to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived, this is to have succeeded.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Posts: 1794 | From: Scotland | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Chamois
Shipmate
# 16204
|
Posted
The first courgettes, the first raspberries and the first plums! I love summer in the garden.
Posts: 978 | From: Hill of roses | Registered: Feb 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
|
Posted
Blossom end rot on the courgettes.
And I looked out this morning to see that the bowl of the birdbath had fallen off the plinth. A very large bird unbalanced it? The night visiting cat? A completely unnoticed earth tremor?
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
Chamois
Shipmate
# 16204
|
Posted
Originally posted by Penny S:
quote:
Blossom end rot on the courgettes.
And I looked out this morning to see that the bowl of the birdbath had fallen off the plinth. A very large bird unbalanced it? The night visiting cat? A completely unnoticed earth tremor?
Oh dear!
In my garden the bird bath culprit would be a young fox. Yesterday I saw two of them trying to catch the bees on the lavender hedge, and smashing up the hedge in the process. I hope they succeed ![[Devil]](graemlins/devil.gif)
--------------------
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases
Posts: 978 | From: Hill of roses | Registered: Feb 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
|
Posted
No fox access - and the fewmets, spraint, scat, (whatever the appropriate term in venery I have failed to pick up from T H White is) was definitely not fox.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
|
Posted
Quite! Something similar happened before, cracking a much thicker and heavier bowl, and I never believed that could have been done naturally. There was a teenage boy next door. Not possible now.
Meanwhile, turning out stuff I got from my Dad's kitchen, I have found some old ground pepper and some curry powder, and I think I will apply them to any bare soil up the garden. Probably not enough smell left, of course.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
|
Posted
Bugger the raspberries, then. I'll have to eat cake.
--------------------
I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Graven Image
Shipmate
# 8755
|
Posted
Letting the veggie garden dry up. Not worth the water in this long hot summer in the 3 digits. I will replant in the early fall. Using water allowance on trees and shrubs. I have moved a few herbs into pots and have them on the porch where they get afternoon shade and wetting them down with dish pan water. You would think I would learn that spring and fall gardens are the way to go in my part of the world.
Posts: 2641 | From: Third planet from the sun. USA | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
|
Posted
I've been out and torn off and stamped on the clusters of Large White eggs on the cabbage.
And spotted a frog. Last week I found a toad as well. Good guys to have around, but I need more to deal with the slugs.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
Sandemaniac
Shipmate
# 12829
|
Posted
As of yesterday, I have a weed wand - a butane powered torch for killing weeds "without chemicals" - ha ha - by scorching them. I dunno whether it's done any good yet as they takea couple of days to wilt, but it's dangerously good fun!
AG
--------------------
"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
| IP: Logged
|
|
Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
|
Posted
I am indoors, not properly up because of late night, and watching the continuous stream of Large Whites visiting my last plant supplying greens.
Big Butterfly Watch! Ha!
And something big has been breaking off parts of leaves, as well. Not slugs and snails. I shall have to give up trying to get another couple of heads out of it, and bring it in.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
|
Posted
My garden is too lush, too fertile, too fecund, but not for the stuff I want.
The Virginia Creeper is attempting to get back across the pond- it has reclaimed the space I removed it from a month ago, and then gone on to double the growth. I was going to cut it back again, but it is now raining too hard.
The forsythia has put out a load of vertical stems and is occupying far too much space, and needs heavy pruning. I'm sure it is twice the size it was at the beginning of the year.
The rambling rose which I grew from the rootstock of a neighbour back at my last home has filled the space I pruned a month ago.
The bramble is doing what brambles do, but not as usual after falling over in a gale but bearing too much fruit for me to cut it back yet.
The honeysuckle and the jasmine are on the attack.
The wild and the garden geraniums are doing well, and the willow herb is very happy. As are the two varieties of Lysimachia, and the London Pride.
But the onions are vanishing, the cucumbers making pathetic attempts at not dying and the peas are weakly putting out only one or two flowers in a square metre of raised bed. Despite having fertiliser applied at planting, and a second dose since.
Bah. If it isn't clearing the mess from the cable not-laying, and the repaint, it's doing the weeding and the cutting back again and again and again. I can't get it to a state where all I have to do is gentle maintenance and sit out when it isn't raining.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
|
Posted
I have managed to cut back a huge amount of the creeper, which has filled to overflowing one of those plastic canvas sacks for garden stuff, where I will leave it to wilt down a bit before lugging it across the garden to the compost bin. All of it grew over the last month and a bit.
Apart from green manure, what is the point of the stuff? For about five minutes in the autumn, it puts on a display of New England Fall red, which I miss if I'm out at the shops. The rest of the year it's a thug like Russian Vine - but no-one talks about it in the same terms as that plant.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
Ethne Alba
Shipmate
# 5804
|
Posted
Apparently some people/ folk in a political party in Norway are suggesting that twice a year citizens of Norway could hunt Spanish Slugs. this species is a menace, apparently driving out smaller native slugs.
I think the idea is based on the popularity of Earth Hour...
Q:
Are spanish slugs those darn great brown ones with orange frills?
Coz if so i will happily do whatever needs to be done! They've decimated my sunflowers....beans....peppers ....and are currently chomping their way through a usually resilient and hardy clematis. they've been caught in the act.... ![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
Posts: 3126 | Registered: Apr 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Ethne Alba
Shipmate
# 5804
|
Posted
On a more calm note, any ideas for encouraging my honeysuckle to flower? Plenty of growth, but as yet only four flowers this year.
But that is a 100% improvement on it's earlier five years........
Posts: 3126 | Registered: Apr 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
|
Posted
My one with clusters of pinky/cream flowers has taken off very well, feet in the clay, but the one with pairs of cream flowers, in a tub, has only flowered this year after several doing very little, but it seems to have found its feet and is growing well, so I have hopes of next year. Maybe yours is like that?
I was told that honeysuckle needed blood fish and bone meal, as they were very hungry - the one in the clay certainly doesn't need any more. It's going to go vegan. The tub one may get a dose. I'm hoping it has got out through the holes I put in the bottom. Where it is I couldn't dig to put plants in as its a very narrow border, and about nine inches down there is another set of patio flagstones. (Cue suspicious music.) I have assumed that the roots of the jasmine, the dwarf plum and the honeysuckle will go exploring to find suitable soil. The plum has definitely found somewhere good as it doesn't look anything like dwarfed. I'm having to prune it almost as much as the creeper.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
Ethne Alba
Shipmate
# 5804
|
Posted
Ah.
You could have a major point there. This poor ole thing is in a pot and thinking about it, hasn't been fed...at all...
(hangs head in shame and shuffles off to do exactly that...)
Posts: 3126 | Registered: Apr 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
|
Posted
Pruning eh? I have done something heroic in that line. The beech hedge was getting taller than me, so I set out to reduce it armed only with secaturs and a rusty sickle saw. Every few feet I would clear away the twiggage to reveal a nascent tree trunk.
The piled off cuts are practically tree-sized by themselves.
Tomorrow I must investigate if the vast (and now wilted) foliage on the tubs of potatoes actually betoken the presence of any tubers. Going out to dinner Saturday, and if there is a crop I've promised to bring a giant Dauphinoise.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
|
Posted
I am going to prune the Albertine. Again. With a long arm pruner.
Only I'm not going to take the arisings down to the dump. I am going to arrange them over the veggie beds to discourage the phantom scat depositor. Along with some time expired curry powder.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
|
Posted
I have pruned the forsythia, but only partly, taking out the lower branches which have grown over my spring bed, filling up all the space almost to ground level, and completely blocking light from the peony the previous owner left for me. It doesn't look as though I have cut much out, but I had a huge pile, and will only be able to fit some of it into the bag to go to the dump. There should be another somewhere, which would cut the trips down.
It has produced a lot of upward growth as well, lots of sky-seeking stems, which, like the ones I've been trimming, will be very soft. I know I'm only supposed to cut out a third each year, but is putting on so much growth that it would take over the garden if I let it.
The cat has been excavating, but not leaving scat. At least, I think it was a cat. The neighbour hasn't seen it, either.
I had to rush out to pick blackberries as the blackbirds have discovered them. And I seem to be the only local supplier of water as all the woodpigeons come down to drink at the tank or the birdbath.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
Sandemaniac
Shipmate
# 12829
|
Posted
It's huge, purple, tumescent, and I am inordintaely proud of it.
Yes, that's right, first aubergine from the greenhouse!
AG
--------------------
"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
| IP: Logged
|
|
Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
|
Posted
Gosh, the images your post conjures up.
--------------------
Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
| IP: Logged
|
|
Sandemaniac
Shipmate
# 12829
|
Posted
![[Two face]](graemlins/scot_twoface.gif)
AG
--------------------
"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
| IP: Logged
|
|
North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
|
Posted
I think I may be growing record breaking tomatoes!
Container, chosen to fit into my porch: £7.49; 3 tomato plants:£5, plastic caps to stop me poking my eyes out on the bamboo pole supports: £2, screws to hold the string supports: £1.50. Total £15.99.
The tomato plants have reached the porch ceiling and are now growing across it. There are two green marble sized tomatoes so far. Would £8 per tomato constitute a record breaking cost?
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
The tomato plants have reached the porch ceiling and are now growing across it. There are two green marble sized tomatoes so far. Would £8 per tomato constitute a record breaking cost?
I think it would certainly qualify.
I've had a look on Google, which wasn't helpful about tomatoes, but it did point out that Harrods have been known to sell cherries for £1.65 each, or £41.16 for a punnet of nearly 300g.
"We sell French Glamour Edoa cherries from a small producer in the Pyrenees with a limited number of trees. They grow in the open and are only available for four weeks in the year. Each cherry is hand-picked at optimal ripeness with direct, same-day distribution into Harrods."
I think you could legitimately claim your tomatoes are from a small producer in Scotland with a limited number of tomato plants that also grow in the open (call them free range, organic, and hand-reared) and are only available for a few days a year. Each tomato is, obviously, lovingly cared for, then hand-picked at optimal ripeness with direct, same-day distribution into a genuine Scottish kitchen.
If yours are heirloom or heritage tomatoes you may be sitting on, or gingerly venturing through your porch under, a small green fortune. See how it goes and then contact a top London department store's food hall with this unique limited edition offer.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
|
Posted
Quit feeding the plants, immediately. Cut back on water. This should drive them to go to fruit, instead of stem and leaf.
--------------------
Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
| IP: Logged
|
|
North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
|
Posted
I'm not feeding them. I planted them in compost from my own compost heap and think it may have been too much for them.
It's just a small porch, four feet by eight feet, and the three rampant tomato plants have taken over.
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
|
Posted
Yeah, it sounds too rich! Well, you must take photos and explain that the plants are taking over. (Once some pumpkins volunteered in my front yard -- also a compost experiment. I lost the front walk entirely, and thought I would need a machete to get the car out.)
--------------------
Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
| IP: Logged
|
|
Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
|
Posted
I took three large bags to the dump with prunings from the Albertine, the bramble, some ivy and the forsythia. These will, with the huge amounts others were taking, get made into 'soil improver' and sold back to us. My stuff is too woody for my compost bins. There will be more forsythia. It has delusions of grandeur and wants to be a tree.
I picked three tomatoes and some blackberries, during which procedure I fell over, but only onto soft stuff, and didn't spill anything. Usually I can reach it while standing on firm ground, but since the wind tore the trellis off the fence and dumped the trained stems, already fully in flower, on their face, it isn't easy. Trying to hoist it back up enough to fruit was not a simple process. It is a viciously prickled plant.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
Lothlorien
Ship's Grandma
# 4927
|
Posted
Plenty of blackberries down here Penny, huge clumps . However thay are classed as a noxious weed and need spraying with poison. When we had a place in the bush we and our neighbours had them on our land. January long weekend was our traditional picking time. Protective clothing, long planks of wood to bash them down a bit so we could get in to pick them, billycans to hold them and the snakebite first aid kit, just in case. Snakes happily live in the blackberries as the thorns ward off predators.
Pastures Protection Boards or their equivalents in rural Australian areas police the spraying and landowners can be fined for not spraying.
--------------------
Buy a bale. Help our Aussie rural communities and farmers. Another great cause needing support The High Country Patrol.
Posts: 9745 | From: girt by sea | Registered: Aug 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
|
Posted
I can see why they would be regarded as problematic out of the native range. The reproductive habit of sending out loops to root further out is very effective. My plant is on a mission to take over the garden - it would be interesting to see which would win - the bramble or the Virginia Creeper! It takes a lot of training and cutting back. Its adventitious stems are as thick as my thumbs, and they put on several feet a week! I joke that you wouldn't need stop motion filming to see the growth happening.
After the fruiting season, I'm cutting some of the canes right back to ground so I can put the cable conduit in the right place (the fitter threaded it through the plant) and the neighbour can replace his fence. I'll leave a few longer to form the basis of next year's fruiting. And they will be fixed firmly to solid trellis.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
Chamois
Shipmate
# 16204
|
Posted
Haven't been here for a while, I've been too busy picking fruit. I've got a wonderful crop of raspberries this year. The freezer is full and the family are starting to say that they really don't want any more - which is a first.
The outdoor tomatoes are doing well, the courgettes are catching up after a slow start and it looks as though I may finally get a few runner beans.
The plums on the second tree are starting to ripen. See you all back here when I've dealt with the produce ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Happy gardening!
--------------------
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases
Posts: 978 | From: Hill of roses | Registered: Feb 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
|
Posted
I've just been out for a very early watering session, as 30 deg C is forecast, and a prune of the forsythia - got the last tall stems down - and the rambler, and the neighbour's ivy. Also a collection of blackberries and a courgette - one succumbed to blossom end rot again, and the one and only peach. Slightly early, but some things looking like beetle larvae had made a start, and a snail had crawled onto it. It's only little - like an apricot. Next year I'm going to put muslin bags round them. And there is one runner bean pod.
Worn me out for the day.
[ 23. August 2016, 07:45: Message edited by: Penny S ]
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
jacobsen
seeker
# 14998
|
Posted
I'm at the hack-it-off/down stage, if not quite heading for a flamethrower. The garden is looking neater, but a few days of sun following all that rain seems to have resulted in a near doubling of undergrowth, overgrowth and foliage in general. A second trip to the tip looms.
Posts: 8040 | From: Æbleskiver country | Registered: Aug 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
|
Posted
(sigh) Four years ago a friend gave me a slip from a fig tree. I planted it in the sunniest spot, and carefully covered it over every winter. It has grown to be taller than I am. Not a fig do I see! Summer is now winding to its close and it is clear that this is going to be yet one more figless year. I am tempted to go all Biblical on it. What should be done?
--------------------
Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
| IP: Logged
|
|
Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
(sigh) Four years ago a friend gave me a slip from a fig tree. I planted it in the sunniest spot, and carefully covered it over every winter. It has grown to be taller than I am. Not a fig do I see! Summer is now winding to its close and it is clear that this is going to be yet one more figless year. I am tempted to go all Biblical on it. What should be done?
I also planted a slip from a fig tree several years ago, and it's doing beautifully but without fruit. However, the reason I wanted it is that I think the tree itself is very pretty, and never really expected to get figs from it. If it did produce fruit, the birds would probably get them before I did (like when I had a pomegranate tree). I recommend just enjoying a pretty tree rather than "going Biblical"
--------------------
"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
Posts: 9835 | From: Hogwarts | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
|
Posted
You may need to be brutal to your fig tree to get it to fruit.
My parents have a fig tree in their garden which didn't fruit until they asked my sister how the Greeks treated their trees; she lived just outside Athens for a while. That tree was pruned, root pruned and confined to a fixed bed to improve the drainage. They decided that painting it blue wasn't something they wanted to do, which is apparently something else that is done in Greece.
Coddling a tree that grows in cracks in walls and on rocky hillsides makes them put on green, not fruit, gives them too much water and/or nitrogen
[ 25. August 2016, 06:18: Message edited by: Curiosity killed ... ]
--------------------
Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
|
Posted
I have a buddleia which has lavender flowers. It is glorious in full bloom and abuzz with bees, but it has had a very short flowering season this year - the first blooms appeared mid-July and they are all past now.
Several neighbours have dark purple buddleia which are going strong.
Why has my buddleia been such a flash-in-the-pan this year?
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
You may need to be brutal to your fig tree to get it to fruit.
My parents have a fig tree in their garden which didn't fruit until they asked my sister how the Greeks treated their trees; she lived just outside Athens for a while. That tree was pruned, root pruned and confined to a fixed bed to improve the drainage. They decided that painting it blue wasn't something they wanted to do, which is apparently something else that is done in Greece.
Coddling a tree that grows in cracks in walls and on rocky hillsides makes them put on green, not fruit, gives them too much water and/or nitrogen
It's a gardening maxim that one cannot over-prune. My m-i-l said that pruning should be done in a rage or by an enemy, and her garden was full. My Dad persuaded a dormant apple tree to fruit by pruning it very severely and giving it a stiff talking to. He did feed it well but there was very little waste growth.
In Cyprus the vines and olives are cut right back, to about 12" off the ground, which makes them hazardous if you are trying to make up time through one on a hike.
--------------------
"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
|
Posted
Good advice. We have large raspberry and blackberry beds, and every year my wife goes at them like a Fury, while I cower in the corner. Afterwards, they are reduced to small stumps, but next summer, they manifest great fruitfulness. I don't know about figs at all.
There is also the difference between plant food which stimulates foliage and fruit, but then again, some things should not be fed. Liquid seaweed seems to cover most bases.
--------------------
I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
|
Posted
I don't have to prune this fig -- Nature does it for me. It dies right down to the ground in the colder winters, and the root is saved only because I cover the base of the plant with oak leaves. Every spring it grows again, and this year it has become taller than I am, in a span of 4 months. But nary a fruit!
--------------------
Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
| IP: Logged
|
|
Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
|
Posted
I think I shall have to be mean to the Victoria plum. It is supposed to be a patio version on a dwarfing rootstock, but it is big, and putting on a lot of foliage. I did have a hack in the spring, but more is probably required. (Its roots have been allowed to penetrate the base of the tub it is in, and I am forming nasty thoughts about what is under the patio which is a bit under a foot under the surface patio.)
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
Printer-friendly view
