The gardening thread

[Johnny Vodka]

I'd never thought of little gems as cos, but apparently they are ..

I have little gems, but they're all blown about by the wind so they haven't set into that little gem shape. Suits me better to cut and come again anyway.

 

[gentlegreen]

The morning after my NFT birthing trauma and it's looking promising - a few limp plants transferred to the bubbler indoors but my problem now is too few planting positions ! I'm so tempted to add a second channel in parallel. (Unless I move my greenhouses and go vertical ...)

A bit of research says I have decent flow rate at 1.5 litres/min - my Australian mentor in the tropics found his successful system was only managing 0.7.
There's isolated research suggesting anything up to 4 can be advantageous - but one pioneer said 2.
My sump tank is currently sitting on my council food waste bin which isn't ideal so I will use spare timber and make a taller trestle and see what extra capacity I might have with the tank as high as I can get it. The pump itself claims 10 litres / minute.
If nothing else I will end up with the pump doing less work. (??)

The thought of splitting the water feed between two channels makes me nervous - I could always spend another fiver for a second pump ...

My failure sensor will need tweaking to cope with the extra flow in any case.

This surely has to be the future for people wanting to grow food in a tight space - you don't even need a garden.

 

[gentlegreen]

I've tweaked my NFT failure alarm to the max to make sure it can cope with the increased flow once I raise the tank and pump.
If fact it is happily coping with two pumps at the moment (6 litres a minute - so those big pumps could run three parallel troughs ...) while I ease the plants into their new situation - also shade and misting is being deployed again.
Plastic repurposing FTW

My abandoned watercress which I was only really using as a source for seeds - which are being reluctant to germinate and there is no watercress in Aldi at the moment.
But today I noticed some promising activity so I have done what is now an easy option to see what happens.
I don't actually want to expose my NFT system to almost certain algae fouling, so I will have to deploy some foil later ...


P

 

[gentlegreen]

A key reason I'm growing cleomes is they produce some of the same terpenes as that well known dioecious, phototperiodic annual of our aquaintance, but these really smell illegal even as young plants - they even have trichomes

 

[gentlegreen]

Somehow I have enough runner beans to fill my 5 metre row.
I probably ought to have sown the French beans with a view to drying them ...
I'm going to get sick of them - I will have to locate my bean slicer ...
Doubtless I will become popular with my neighbours

I sowed peas and carrots for completeness and interest - but hopefully they will be good grazing fodder - along with the 4 metres of tomatoes (nine Gardener's Delight.
And I'm about to plant my pointy peppers ...
As an experiment I burned some food in the garden this evening - with salad ready to hand I can see myself having to develop some expertise in this area ...

 

[gentlegreen]

And nasturtiums really can climb a fence with a little encouragement - the morning glories are very quick to send up the teeny little investigating shoot and doubtless will take off exponentially at some point ...
Even the hop is doing well in spite of a late planting ...

 

[campanula]

just letting my garden pals know that I am a nana again (No.2). My daughter (after a torrid labour and C-section) produced a wee boy (Sky) at 8.45am. Had a little weep and am now drinking beer in the garden. About to test the rather good camera on my new (to me) phone and see whether Plantnet can identify some of my more obscure plants.

 

[BristolEcho]

Congratulations Campanula!

 

[contadino]

Nice. A basal cutting.

 

[campanula]

So,attempting to post some flowery pics

 

[Epona]

Why can't lavender be more like rosemary ?
Even I once had a massive bush next to my front gate ...

Yeah me too but apparently that's not fashionable these days

(I'll get my coat, really sorry, couldn't resist the fact that was so well set up for the joke, I'll see mesself out...).

 

[gentlegreen]

So,attempting to post some flowery pics

Those first two are a serious shot of colour - campanula and calceolaria ? And Hesperis ? I'm certainly glad I just sowed some

 

[Calamity1971]

Yeah me too but apparently that's not fashionable these days

(I'll get my coat, really sorry, couldn't resist the fact that was so well set up for the joke, I'll see mesself out now...).

I had exactly the same thought earlier.

 

[Calamity1971]

So,attempting to post some flowery pics

Orange berried one. Is that pyracantha?

 

[campanula]

Yep, gentlegreen, the lemon coloured one is an annual calceolaria, while the orange one is a perennial calceolaria, Calamity1971 )...plus hesperis and blue bedder echium. I basically have a bee garden. The pink one is a tiny-flowered fuchsia microphylla (I swiped a cutting from Fuller's Mill). I do like bright colours, so have a lot of tagetes, dahlias and salvias waiting to put on a later show.

 

[Calamity1971]

Yep, gentlegreen, calceolaria (the orange one, Calamity1971 ), hesperis and blue bedder echium. I basically have a bee garden. The pink one is a minuscule fuchsia microphylla (I swiped a cutting from Fuller's Mill). I do like bright colours, so have a lot of tagetes, dahlias and salvias waiting to put on a later show.I

I collected a load of maidens rocket seed last year. Had no luck with them, think I sowed them too late.

 

[gentlegreen]

I collected a load of maidens rocket seed last year. Had no luck with them, think I sowed them too late.

I'm not sure what I'm expecting from them sowing them this late - they've come up like cress - I may need to resow when it's actually time to sow biennials ...

I'm still waiting on angelica, dahlias and freebie dianthus from Parker and Fuchsia thalia and lavender hidcote from Swanley Village.
I hope they all arrive in time to give some sort of a show ...

I'm a bit annoyed with myself for forgetting that when I bought things late in the old days it was a largeish plant from the place that's now closed rather than teeny plugs. My lobelia cardinalis aren't doing very much. I'm not actually sure what they are - clusters of seeds ?

My biggest regret has been sowing ordinary snapdragons then learning about the fragrant pink one

 

[campanula]

Have you found any of the giant pink wallflower, gentlegreen. Not snapdragons (which I don't grow).
I am just about to do an order from a French company I often use as I have not been able to track down any in the UK. Will split with you if you want.

eta - the merchants I use are B&T World seeds, based in Perpignan...o, and now is a perfect time to sow hesperis for flowering next year

 

[gentlegreen]

Have you found any of the giant pink wallflower, gentlegreen. Not snapdragons (which I don't grow).
I am just about to do an order from a French company I often use as I have not been able to track down any in the UK. Will split with you if you want.

eta - the merchants I use are B&T World seeds, based in Perpignan...o, and now is a perfect time to sow hesperis for flowering next year

I bought my hesperis seed from "Heirloom & Perennial Ltd"

I grew "giant pink" some year back from Chiltern and they weren't anything like the ones I bought locally which punched well above their weight for ages ...
I can't remember much about them - perhaps they were propagated from cuttings ...

campanula thanks for the offer, but things are already getting out of hand here. Only yesterday I was wondering if I would be able to refuse a banana plant / canna / ginger if I spotted one locally. I'm not really supposed to be gardening, but making inroads into clearing my downstairs rooms ...

 

[gentlegreen]

I deffo need to make myself a bigger, better cloner ...
Not least because it appears those magic sponges are made of cellulose ...
I have a yoga mat I scavenged, but I was planning to use that on my bathroom floor - even though it is a bit bright.
One of the standard materials used as hydroponic planting "pucks" is neoprene and people cut them out of thicker exercise mats ...
I will see if pipe lagging can be used to make smaller pucks by cutting strips and rolling them up ...

 

[StoneRoad]

I "do" gardening when the weather is suitable, when it isn't, I do indoors things like admin or chores.
[unless the admin or whatever is very urgent it has to wait until the evening or when the midgies start attacking]

 

[clicker]

Today pink ones have opened...and a really weird, totally solid , red pom pom poppy.

 

[BCBlues]

Anyone know what this is? Found in my daughters shed. About the size of a hand.

 

[Calamity1971]

View attachment 327040

Anyone know what this is? Found in my daughters shed. About the size of a hand.

Google lens tells me a hornet's nest?

 

[gentlegreen]

Google lens tells me a hornet's nest?

Definitely vespine

 

[contadino]

Yeah. Doesn't look like a wasp nest to me, but defo something evil. If you dont know how to remove, call someone who does or the situation could easily go pear-shaped.

 

[Calamity1971]

Yeah. Doesn't look like a wasp nest to me, but defo something evil. If you dont know how to remove, call someone who does or the situation could easily go pear-shaped.

 

[StoneRoad]

Looks like a wood wasp nest.

If it ain't buzzing, or being visited, then the inhabitants are gone / dead.
Remove carefully, wearing gloves [I've been stung by a long dead wasp corpse a few years ago]

If it has inhabitants, and if it's hornets you'll need professional help.
Less so with wood / paper wasps.
All our wood wasps have been exceptionally docile, and only use a nest for a few months ...

 

[gentlegreen]

I gained two freebie lawn chairs today - my ancient cheapo deck chair was close to dumping me on the ground - it sort of inspired me to tidy up a bit and immolate some more vegetables ...
I will have to develop some skillz in that area and probably come up with some sort of outside food prep facility ..
So pergola thing on its way but apart from hanging baskets not something to grow plants over - more a garden - shelter though I still have some purple-podded French bean seeds ...
I'll see if I can acquire some sort of umbrella - I deffo need a table - it could double-up for gardening activities ...
I'm considering seeing if camping out there could be enjoyable....

Since I'm preoccupied with irrigation at the moment I've run a hose from the bath upstairs through a spare hole in the wall to a dustbin and I will see what I can do with my unused water butt .
And since I have a lot of spare irrigation pipe and 16 square feet of squashes and courgettes, I thought I should deploy my spare pump - so more drip thingies will be ordered.
I also have 5 metres of runner beans at the end of the garden but am unsure about those ...

This is all a dry run for something a lot bigger in a few years' time which will have to look after itself as much as possible so I can periodically get lost at sea in a small boat ...

 

[gentlegreen]