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The gardening thread

That's great news, thanks campanula :) I also put some campion seeds in just before the dry spell and bugger all's come up. I assumed they'd all died off but I'll keep looking. I must also put the meadow seeds in now it's started raining again :)
 
Just another thought, two sheds - some seed has to be fresh in order to germinate. Nearly all the umbellifers and most of the ranunculaceae family lose viability. Some older seed , even though still viable, goes into a deeper dormancy and may need 2 whole seasons to break (primrose, a great many flowering shrubs). There are some seed merchants who either fail to realise or simply don't care...but if you use reliable firms (John Chambers, Emorsgate, Special Plants, Cotswold Seed Co. and Jellicoe are ones I have used with (eventual) success. Seeds usually come on sale in autumn (special plants have a whole separate catalogue for intransigent seeds). Always best to shop around, avoid dodgy firms and try to do your main sowing in autumn, so hardy perennials have a better chance of stratifying naturally over winter.

Ah no, Callie. They are erythroniums (dog tooth violets). Aren't they gorgeous? This species are sold under the name of 'Pagoda'. You can buy bulbs for these from Gedneys bulb company, for a very reasonable price, for an autumn/winter planting. They will divide and spread too. And if you decide to get some, you will see why they are called 'dog tooth' violets (although they are not remotely related to violets).
 
Got to make pea climbing frames. Awaiting a delivery of bamboo canes
Plus find space for cauliflowers and parsley that is growing quick.

Then prick out spinach and beetroot. Give them away.

Had to cancel the bulk order of compost. I don’t have the will power to do all that barrowing again.

My spuds are coming up. Lots in weird containers like window boxes. Going to make a mini allotment box and stick it out front. Maybe two.

The street tree I adopted is looking promising. Lots of flower seeds have come up. I also planted a load of small summer flower plants I started inside.
 
campanula said:
Just another thought, two sheds - some seed has to be fresh in order to germinate. Nearly all the umbellifers and most of the ranunculaceae family lose viability. Some older seed , even though still viable, goes into a deeper dormancy and may need 2 whole seasons to break (primrose, a great many flowering shrubs). There are some seed merchants who either fail to realise or simply don't care...but if you use reliable firms (John Chambers, Emorsgate, Special Plants, Cotswold Seed Co. and Jellicoe are ones I have used with (eventual) success. Seeds usually come on sale in autumn (special plants have a whole separate catalogue for intransigent seeds). Always best to shop around, avoid dodgy firms and try to do your main sowing in autumn, so hardy perennials have a better chance of stratifying naturally over winter.

Ah no, Callie. They are erythroniums (dog tooth violets). Aren't they gorgeous? This species are sold under the name of 'Pagoda'. You can buy bulbs for these from Gedneys bulb company, for a very reasonable price, for an autumn/winter planting. They will divide and spread too. And if you decide to get some, you will see why they are called 'dog tooth' violets (although they are not remotely related to violets).
Click to expand...
ta :) duly noted and will act on it in autumn
 
I try not to come across as too prescriptive, two sheds . Many seeds can be sown at any time of year and will simply hang about, waiting until their internal mechanisms are triggered. I really hope I am not sounding all authoritative cos I really just want to share my joy at the whole process. I am a dubious 'expert', tbh.
 
No, all advice really appreciated, please just go ahead :) I've got loads of seedlings coming up now and haven't got the perseverance (or space) to put more in. Autumn's perfect. I did do some last autumn which have done really well in the conservatory and ready to go out now.
 
Rage and despair makes for very effective digging (imo). Escaping from election results, I had a really productive afternoon, clearing last years potato patch for my indigo beds. Came home with a pot of forgotten Pink Fir potatoes for my tea, looking forward to planting out the (hundred+) persicaria and idigofera seedlings.
Freezing cold today and pouring with rain, so almost perfect conditions for transplanting. Not exactly looking forward to kneeling in the rain but needs must.
 
Nice and warm this morning. Planted out some cauliflowers and broccoli and parsley. Carefully pricked out and potted up spinach.

I can see water fleas in my pond. I went and dipped the park pond yesterday after washing the gravel and refilling it. Cat was drinking from it too so all good.
 
I planted my potatoes 5 weeks ago at Easter and they've finally come up - I think I must have buried them a bit deep, but hopefully they'll come good now.

Everything else is doing well, spinach should be ready to start picking in another couple of weeks, and early peas and beans are in flower so should be starting to produce pods soon too.
 
I planted out my indigo bed today. This was exhausting. I made 8 x 4m drills, a foot apart...which meant I had to shuffle along all the rows, bent double because no room for kneeling. Poked hundreds of 6inch deep holes and upended the pots and separated all the seedlings as I planted. A bit like doing leeks (except I had hundreds of the fuckers). I couldn't straighten up after a couple of hours of this and had to totter up the plot to a handy chair. Weeks of grass growing at a crawl have come to an end, so I also had to strim all the grass paths and rogue out shitloads of wild oats from the 'meadow' (more bending). I do actually love my paths. After 18 years of trudging about on weedy, lumpy paths (I have a LOT of raised beds), I remade all the paths, 3 years ago, digging, levelling and reseeding and I finally understand lawn love. Weeds cannot really compete (long-term) with grass, as long as it is kept short and cut every week (because of tillering) but this is an onerous task, (takes me over an hour and 3 batteries). One of those days where I felt old and decrepit. Spraying a bloody huge gravel drive and weeding at work tomorrow so I plan to make the offspring do all the digging (alkanet) and knapsack hauling while I mostly sit around on my little weeding stool, with my special onion hoe (lethally sharp with an extended 90cm handle).
 
Also rescued this from the semi dead section of the garden centre :hmm: I have no idea what it is but the little green shoots were alluring :DIMG_20210508_121327368.jpg
Ignore the pot of actual dead stuff at the bottom
 
Oh, that's a rather nice summer bulb Callie (sometimes called summer hyacinth), which grows really quite tall and stately, (white flowers) but is surpisingly good for long-term pot-life. They are, like lilies, one of those really useful July bloomers, which can be artfully shuffled into view when about to do it's thing, and hoofed off out of the way when the show is over. Having a (tiny) container garden, I have a lot of bulbs, corms and such as I find that anything which can store a decent amount of energy in a fat root or bulb (solid sunshine) is always good value for containers or small spaces. I have a scythe...which is lethal enough in a field. My battery strimmer for the allotment is a handy 70quid job from B&Q. Mowers never go to the edges so a strimmer was needed anyway and a small and light one is easy to use and get a nice level finish. Compared to the enormous and temperamental petrol ones I have for work, I bloody love my little strimmer.
 
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My winter-sown beans and peas aren't even thinking about flowering yet :mad: I blame the cold weather, lots of stuff's just been sitting around not dying but not growing either. Even had trays of seedlings in the (much warmer) garden just sat refusing to grow to a size I can actually sell them.

Bit of a communication fuckup so no gardening group today. Just seen an email asking if I can do Thurs instead but I've already done most of the jobs I'd saved for this week's group now :facepalm: Only things that still need doing are boring shit like weeding and scrubbing out manky old pots from the shed, can't really sow or plant much more until compost arrives. LOTS more sowing to be done then though - replied to an "old veg seeds" post on freecycle (yeah I know) and instead of the handful of ancient packs I was expecting, got about 70 packs of seed almost all still in date. The lovely couple I got them from even emailed back to ask if we could use a potting bench after I mentioned the gardening group. One of our night staff who's proper into his gardening has given us a load of pelargoniums too and he's dropping some spare pots off this week.

campanula said:
plan to make the offspring do all the digging (alkanet)
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I've been pulling alkanet seedlings out of the tarmac at the station and potting them up at home...
 
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Why iona. It's a bloody menace. My eldest snuck some into the wood and it has gotten out of hand in one year. Borage, I could understand (sorta, I wouldn't) and comfrey is absolutely fine and dandy. I actually love alkanet, vipers bugloss, omphalodes...in fact all those blue borage-y things but pentaglottis is truly rancid. Obviously YMMV and plants are pretty subjective but still :eek:
 
campanula said:
Why iona. It's a bloody menace. My eldest snuck some into the wood and it has gotten out of hand in one year. Borage, I could understand (sorta, I wouldn't) and comfrey is absolutely fine and dandy. I actually love alkanet, vipers bugloss, omphalodes...in fact all those blue borage-y things but pentaglottis is truly rancid. Obviously YMMV and plants are pretty subjective but still :eek:
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I've been battling alkanet for years. Some roots are the size of bloody parsnips. I originally thought I had comfrey. At least I could have made fertilizer with that. Or can you make it with alkanet what with it being the same family?
 
I don't think I've ever seen a seed pod on alkanet but wow they spread. I'm constantly digging them up but they still appear. Young plants look similar to foxgloves to me so I struggle with whether to get rid or not. I like foxgloves.
Next door's jungle is a sea of blue which doesn't help. It gets everywhere!
 
It's on the perimeter of the farmers field (that doesn't get ploughed) so I'm fighting a losing battle with it.
 
campanula said:
Why iona. It's a bloody menace. My eldest snuck some into the wood and it has gotten out of hand in one year. Borage, I could understand (sorta, I wouldn't) and comfrey is absolutely fine and dandy. I actually love alkanet, vipers bugloss, omphalodes...in fact all those blue borage-y things but pentaglottis is truly rancid. Obviously YMMV and plants are pretty subjective but still :eek:
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I like the colour :D The beds in the garden here are awkward to get to (have to jump up onto a wall - think I've posted pics before?) and full of rubble and don't get much sun, which is why I mostly ignore them and grow stuff in containers. Plus they're already completely overgrown with allium trifuckingquetrum and crocosmia and some kind of mint, so unless I eventually get round to clearing them nothing else really stands a chance unless it's a bastard itself.

Amusingly one of the farmers I work for was really happy about the little bit of three cornered leek they'd got growing there, so I've been pulling that up here and potting it up for them.
 
Yep, you can make a pongy tea but I admit to avoiding all these vile soaking for weeks stinkos. I grow comfrey but very well-behaved Bocking14 and just cut the leaves for the compost or, when there is enough, I chop them and use them as a mulch around the tomatoes. I have, in the past, made all sorts of whiffy potions and worm juice but these days, I just cba and get reliable results from a granular slow release fertilser or Maxicrop.
 
I've got this all over the fucking place, too. Cinquefoil, root goes right down and you have (I assume) to get it all out :mad:

1620683373029.png
 
Yep, Carex pendula is also unwelcome, but nowhere near as rampant as green alkanet. I work in a garden which has a really awful yucca 'infestation'. Herb bennet, wood avens, is my particular spready allotment cross. I allowed it to colonise a bit because orange tips like it but now, big regrets...in a gravel garden too, where it is a freaking 'mare. The most sinister weed, for me, by a country-mile, is bloody couch. For that, (and bindweed), I will not hesitate to rain down liquid death....whereas with just about every other weed, I will remove by hand, but (neighbours) couch is the terror of my perennial and fruit beds.
 
I've got bindweed AND cinquefoil AND buttercup on my allotment. One of my work gardens is riddled with creeping buttercup too but tbh I really enjoy pulling it up, soil there is proper thick Sussex clay and when it's been raining you can pull whole strings of buttercup up together with all the big roots still attached to each plant. Satisfying as fuck.
 
iona said:
I've got bindweed AND cinquefoil AND buttercup on my allotment. One of my work gardens is riddled with creeping buttercup too but tbh I really enjoy pulling it up, soil there is proper thick Sussex clay and when it's been raining you can pull whole strings of buttercup up together with all the big roots still attached to each plant. Satisfying as fuck.
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Yep, very satisfying. I said to a friend last week pulling out nettles etc and getting a really long piece is like stripping a massive bit of wallpaper in one go :D
 
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