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The gardening thread

I planted the nasturtiums in the compost compartments of my porch hydro salad contraption.
If I come across some masonry paint, I may dab a bit on.
I'm not sure about the unit itself..
Three plants per side - the outward four are the consistently red and orange ones from the park, the inner ones are some new seeds for bit of excitement.
Hopefully I will be able to train some of them around the front of the porch - and hopefully I will have watercress hanging down on top of that ...

I hasten to add the box is properly secured to the house wall and I will be fitting lashing points for the short ladder I will need to tend it. once the salad gets started - in the first instance on the brackets in the bathroom window - one key reason for having the hydro troughs in 600mm sections...

there are two spaghetti watering lines up there with feeds down to the hanging baskets and I have also teed-off a 13mm pipe along the house wall to the left - and once I source a couple more right angle couplers, I will have enough to water the row of temporary planters that will be slotted in at various times.

The brugmansias are now planted in the ground which will hopefully see them get to a good size - and the lower window box is planted up with oeillets d'inde - or "French marigolds" ... slug pellets will be deployed and I have an emergency batch in case that fails ... they already got slightly chewed in the mini greenhouse.


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campanula said:
Ah, OK, Aladdin, geraniums are commonly known as cranesbills. Whatever, wishing you the joy of it.
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I had to correct someone on Youtube the other day ...

I told them to wait for either beaks or cheeses ... I suspect the latter but the leaves don't look like the mallows I would be cycling past around now on the way to work ...
That's a dry bank in Vienne / Aquitaine ...

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gentlegreen said:
Arse.

I specially raised extra tomato plants for my neighbours and they've put up their substantial mini-greenhouse on the NORTH fence - with the neighbour's wistaria obscuring the small triangle left at the top - expectant growbags at the bottom.

It looks like a bit of a repeat of a previous family in that small house and garden - two small boys - father is sporty so trampoline, goal mouth and balls starting to come over the fence - nothing stands a chance and I suspect the greenhouse is only an attempt to give physical protection to plants and more her idea than his.

I thought everyone knew what plants need to grow ... :(

It's so shady there I wonder if even salad is possible ...
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I spoke to my neighbour and they're going to try to move it to a sunnier bit. :)
I would hate to have six Gardener's Delight wasted ...
I'll let them have some purslane and other suitable salads and things too ...
 
I have Ants all over my Peony. These Peony are on a bench amongst a load of other plants but they’re not on anything else. Hope they’re not doing any damage.

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Just been reading about it.

While the notion that the buds would be stuck closed and unable to flower without the intervention of ants has been disproved, this is still a mutualistic relationship. The ants don't damage the peony flowers and they defend the plant from attack by harmful, sap-sucking, petal-chewing insects.
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What does the team think ?
I am desparately short of container compost and since tomatoes are shallow-rooted (though I do plan to plant them fairly deep) should I half fill my builders' tubs with rubble and only use a modest amount of soil / compost ?
They'll be right alongside my hydro setup and I won't rule out using a pump and drippers ... in any case I will be paying attention to watering ...

I'm thinking of maybe 12 inches - and with a layer of perforated polythene so the water at least sticks around for a while ......

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That would only work if you are prepared to feed the toms from the first flowers [they are hungry so-and-so's] ...
It would be helpful only in a very windy locations or possibly with a dwarfed variety.

I do add some "brick-ends" as ballast to my very big containers, but compensate with extra feed ...
In any case, I tend to re-use - as per crop rotation plans - most of my pots / compost [keeping track would be easier if I still had the wax marker].
 
StoneRoad said:
That would only work if you are prepared to feed the toms from the first flowers [they are hungry so-and-so's] ...
It would be helpful only in a very windy locations or possibly with a dwarfed variety.

I do add some "brick-ends" as ballast to my very big containers, but compensate with extra feed ...
In any case, I tend to re-use - as per crop rotation plans - most of my pots / compost [keeping track would be easier if I still had the wax marker].
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My soil is so light, it swallows everything that gets near it ...
I suppose I could just plant them in the ground and forget about the containers... :hmm:
It's what I ended up doing when the greenhouse was located there - after years of mucking about with 15 litre buckets ...
I have enough plants to put all along that red hot bit of fence ...
I could probably get them to grow behind the NFT channel - though the plan there is to have a shit-ton of greens bursting out of it ...

I suppose I could lower the NFT ...

I'm growing indeterminates - Gardener's Delight ..


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OK

Gdels are probably fairly scrawny plants so I'll plant them 18 inches apart and get creative sticking the remainders in odd corners.
 
gentlegreen said:
OK

Gdels are probably fairly scrawny plants so I'll plant them 18 inches apart and get creative sticking the remainders in odd corners.
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I've been given some GDels, ACriags and a couple of others [nine in total, so far].

Plan at present, is to use one of two "mini" greenhouses [the other is getting a strawberry tower] and big pots in the main greenhouse. I also have some small [two not three plant] growbags. Potential problem with the minis are a lack of height to grow toms as "cordons" so bush it is. Also, my growbag trays are three plant sized ...
More planning required !


e2a - have several buds on the oriental poppies, but it is too ****ing windy, the stems are quite brittle, imo.
and also pleased to see flower buds on some of the roses, but not the one that got rabbitted - that's about to go into the small greenhouse for some shady tlc, after a tidy-up of over-wintered stuff.
 
I planted out a container of French marigolds yesterday and predictably the metaldehyde pellets had claimed quite a few victims by the morning - which got finished off between the bricks of death.
I was extra ill-disposed towards molluscs because I had a naughty slice of bread for supper, left it out, and found a slug trail across it in the early hours and one of those disgusting moist yellowy-grey slugs climbing up the kettle ... That particular one just got wrapped up in kitchen roll and chucked out the window onto the green waste pile below - but I was taking no prisoners in the garden.
I have so much emotionally invested in my gardens this year, the first two lily beetles got murdered before they could hook up and breed ...
 
Black spot and sawfly still trying their best to kill one of the rose bush/tree. I think it was in poor condition when we got here, but we didn't know much about it. Don't think it's flowering as well this year.

Our yellow rose thing is doing well though. I'm quite proud of it as it has loads of buds and up until last year we only got a couple off of it. There is a bit of black spot over that side but not as much. Will take some pics once it's in bloom.

Ive looked up controlling black spot and the only methods I can find are to manually remove the leaves which seems like a lost cause and to use some fungicide but I don't particularly want to kill other animals unintentionally.

Other plants we have put in are doing okayish.
 
I want to buy a kind of metal restraining collar to pin a climbing vine to our wooden fence. Searching but no luck so far. Anyone know if such a thing exists or has a name?
 
Wolveryeti said:
I want to buy a kind of metal restraining collar to pin a climbing vine to our wooden fence. Searching but no luck so far. Anyone know if such a thing exists or has a name?
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Wouldn't you want to use tensioned wire ?
Or is this for aesthetics on a fat old decorative vine ?
 
Wolveryeti said:
That sounds like too much faff. What I'm after is purely a strip of curved plate with a hole for a screw either side of the plant stem to screw it to our fence
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I suppose it depends how much fatter you expect it to get.
You might want to use rubber buckles.
I'm rough and ready, so I restrain my brugmansias with garden wire and inner tube...
 
What a difference a day makes ...
My tired old brugs definitely wanted to get planted in the ground.
It was an anxious half hour manhandling them out of the big planters - amazingly no vine weevil that I could spot - but lots of dead compost - and they're taking off noticeably now - and sprouting new branches from old wood I should get flowers nice and early :)


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A fungicide won't kill anything other than fungal spores, BristolEcho ...the main argument against their use is basically one of cost and effort. In truth, blackspot will not kill a rose, just makes them look a bit unsightly. You could compromise with an early season fungicide spray (which I do to counter rust on Madame Gregoire Staechelin) and another in autumn. 2 sprays a season will definitely prevent the defoliation associated with advanced blackspot (or powdery mildew, cercospora or rust). I ignore aphids - they go away of their own accord. While I will use both fungicides and herbicides, under certain conditions, I draw the line at pesticides which contain malathion, imidacloprid or even pyrethrin, as most pesticides are woefully non-specific, and will certainly damage beneficial insects such as ladybird larvae and bees. I am giving up on box because I have zero appetite to kill off ALL caterpillars with a BT spray. Some compromises are worth making though (and I have never really been any sort of organic gardener, tbf)
 
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