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The gardening thread

Sunflowers are causing me real issues ... I'm no longer sure if I really want 14 foot sunflowers, but I thought I ought to try ...
So I sowed four indoors in April and they're doing nicely enough - two in the front garden, two in 15 litre buckets ...

But apparently you need to sow them direct and thin out the runts to get giants - minimal root disturbance.

So I sowed nearly 12 feet of them towards the end of May - maybe 40 seeds and they all came up, but some got eaten by something - but I have more than enough for plants at a sensible spacing if I relocate some ...

But at the same time I sowed the last 7 seeds indoors - and they look like far more likely candidates for big plants ...

... and then there's the "don't try to grow beans up them" business ...


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I once tried to deal with a calabrone nest in the trunk of a tree by bunging up the hole with a stone. Turns out there was another hole on the other side of the tree, out of which came an almost cartoon-like swarm of angry fuckers. I ran indoors and could hear them pounding on the windows. A few came down the chimney, but basically we were holed up indoors until the next morning.

After that it was straight down the agricultural shop for some industrial-strength wasp killer that came in a can with a 3m range on it.
 
I think I've successfully prevented the adult foxes getting in, but the new crop can get through 6 inch trellis - so more garotte wire will be deployed today.
Total carnage 1/4 row of Autumn King carrots - plus the leading shoot off one of my hops - though to be honest I'm not sure if I wanted it competing with the morning glories and it will hopefully send up some smaller shoots ...

And Tesco seem to have run out of compost so I will have to make another foray elsewhere ...
 
This morning I engineered a trestle worthy of Brunel - old 3x3 fenceposts were simply what I had available - all to support maybe 25 kilos of water.
With the added 25cm of height, my £5 pump is now delivering 3 litres per minute - or cycling the entire tank every 8 minutes - double what it managed before and as much as I need. :thumbs:
It's lucky I did it this way around because I would never have anticipated needing to insert my failure sensor.
With the bigger emergency pump fired up at the new elevation, my failure sensor almost overflows.


The plants are beginning to perk up - so it's more or less a case of getting on with other stuff until the 15 plants start delivering.
PH is a little high at 6.3 on my uncalibrated meter, and TDS about 900 somethings and if it's the same somethings as people who know what they're doing are measuring, that's at the high end for lettuce but half what kale and pak choi can take - but it's always going to be a compromise ...

I won't be worrying much about PH until I run out of these hard water nutes and start making my own from dry ...but the TDS will be a good relative measurement of system performance...

Bristol Water aren't too helpful as a calibration point - but at least i can see the effect of adding nutes...

Aldi's salad bags have only trace watercress at the moment so no ready-made cuttings :p



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My neighbours took too long to get their greenhouse sorted so my spare tomato plants are fit only for planting REALLY deep - but I can give them some pointy pepper plants ... they have two apparently quite challenging young boys and I can hear mum trying to get them to enjoy a bit of gardening ... and they've sown tomatoes very late ... dad is all surfing and varsity rugby and lycra cycling so they're always bouncing on trampolines and kicking balls over fences ...
But I accidentally snapped one of my tomato plants a while back and couldn't resist potting it up and it has rooted and I will root my side shoots from now on - so they'll have something ...

I hope I can convince them - as well as my own family - and maybe even someone on Urban that everyone should invest in a length of drainpipe and a £5 pond pump - salad is so insanely expensive - I won't buy it even though I'm not strapped for cash ...
 
gentlegreen said:
Always a dilemma when you have to house the plant for the rest of the year ...
Click to expand...

Might buy one anyway, as only £2 & never even tasted whitecurrants before. Will probably cut more out of my lawn next year, not that there's much more I can take out if I want drying space.

Also looks like I might have quinces forming this year, after the bush being in 2 years.
 
Calamity1971 said:
Most timber is pressure treated. So good for 10-15 years. I've just had some put up and I'm debating whether to paint as a nice back drop for shrubs I'm looking at buying.
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Okay cool that's good to know. I'm sure he would have been on it but I don't want it to go bad after we asked for it quite a few times. I know it's his responsibility etc. Thanks!
 
F'ing midgies ... despite a decent repellent, I feel itchy / skin crawling ...

The weather here has faired up enough that i was able to get some of the grass cut, and tidied up the compost heap zone.
Unfortunately, the amount of midgies has precluded doing the rest of the grass today.

Instead, I've done some greenhouse work.
And that also means I will need to remove another mouse, before it eats everything.

There are plans for tomorrow ...
 
gentlegreen said:
My neighbours took too long to get their greenhouse sorted so my spare tomato plants are fit only for planting REALLY deep - but I can give them some pointy pepper plants ... they have two apparently quite challenging young boys and I can hear mum trying to get them to enjoy a bit of gardening ... and they've sown tomatoes very late ... dad is all surfing and varsity rugby and lycra cycling so they're always bouncing on trampolines and kicking balls over fences ...
But I accidentally snapped one of my tomato plants a while back and couldn't resist potting it up and it has rooted and I will root my side shoots from now on - so they'll have something ...

I hope I can convince them - as well as my own family - and maybe even someone on Urban that everyone should invest in a length of drainpipe and a £5 pond pump - salad is so insanely expensive - I won't buy it even though I'm not strapped for cash ...
Click to expand...

I think losing my tomato crop to early rain really took wind out of my sails last year.

I’ll miss growing them, god knows when I’ll do it again, but damn are home grown ones just better in every way
 
Tomatoes actually don't cost all that much and make a very cheap sandwich filler. I quite enjoy tomato sandwiches.

Tomatoes are also so versatile. As well as forming part of a salad they are also part of a full English breakfast. And sliced up they go very well with steak or pork chops.

I live in a top floor flat so sadly no garden and I work long hours so insufficient spare time to look after an allotment.

But when I retire it will be something I might look into. Would like a greenhouse where I could grow tomatoes, and home grown peas, broccoli, and onions are also delicious.
 
srb7677 said:
Tomatoes actually don't cost all that much and make a very cheap sandwich filler. I quite enjoy tomato sandwiches.

Tomatoes are also so versatile. As well as forming part of a salad they are also part of a full English breakfast. And sliced up they go very well with steak or pork chops.

I live in a top floor flat so sadly no garden and I work long hours so insufficient spare time to look after an allotment.

But when I retire it will be something I might look into. Would like a greenhouse where I could grow tomatoes, and home grown peas, broccoli, and onions are also delicious.
Click to expand...
I grow tomatoes inside my flat, just need a variety that's ok with the lower light levels (they might struggle if you only have tiny north-facing windows). Happy to post some seeds if you want - usually it'd be far too late to sow them this year, but I have heard of someone getting two generations of plants into one year with this variety so could be worth a try...
 
There was a science techie at work with a north-facing office window and most years he strung a network of wires over it and forced cucurbits to grow on it - using up the rest of what little light there was ...Thankfully the two people he shared the office with didn't seem to mind :D
He also had chillis of course.

Our dean's office had a ficus benjamina that thrived fifteen feet from a similarly non-sunny window and probably got most of its light from the inefficient and relatively distant 5 foot fluorescent fixtures... so perhaps that accounted for some of his success ...

Before a hurricane forced the removal of much of the plate glass roof housing the fume cupboard plant, (those panes that were left after a lot of it flew off and impaled itself in the ground three floors below) they apparently grew spectacular tomatoes up there.
 
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Signallers, back in the day of quiet rural railways, would often grow tomatoes in their boxes ...

Station staff, on the other hand, would often maintain some spectacular flower beds - which would help win the coveted "Best Kept Station" competitions. It helped if there was a cattle dock [for free manure] in the station sidings.
Sometimes, some land would be purloined / re-purposed into allotments.

That attention to appearance still happens, especially on some of the Heritage Railways ...


oad - pastoral Minffordd par StoneRoad2013, on ipernity

Minffordd garden [that is the right spelling, don't ask] on the station down platform is some 450ft long and varies between 10ft and 16ft wide, with the only palm trees on the railway.
 
I deffo need more drainpipe ...

Since I have a load of lettuce seedlings sprouting, I may even try some in the ground with my peas and carrots to compare growth rates ...
The dilemma will be how to harvest without spoiling the ornamental effect ...


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Damn the Internet.
I was just offered a cheapo dwarf Cavendish and I ended up ordering these instead :-

(musa ensete - Abyssinian banana and dwarf orange canna)

sadly out of stock of brightly coloured hibiscuses ...

red-banana750x750_1.jpg


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At least it turns out to have made sense growing quite a few ricinuses - I seem to be having a tropical patio alongside my quasi-allotment.
Next stop tiki bar :facepalm: :D
The sycamore in my cordyline tub may have to go :(
My Angelicas arrived today and I'm optimistic I might get them to flower this year - and the Bishops of Llandaff look ready to go for it :)

angelicangellicas.jpgllandaffs.jpg
 
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And I started on my back garden irrigation.
I have enough pipe to do the runner beans and the squash patch - there's quite a pronounced slope - so the water has to go up to the runner beans before coming down to the squashes and I will rig it so I can bypass either depending on which is more deserving of my "grey" water.
(actually it's brown after I've finished with it :D)

EDIT:-

I've realised if I make another couple of trestles I can easily raise the plastic dustbin and water butt higher than the beans ...

I also had to reorder stuff I mislaid so I will have enough 4.5mm stuff to do the pea / carrot / lettuce bed - plus the peppers and tomatoes ...
Hopefully I will be able to take it with me in a box marked "jardin" ...

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Bloody hell the root growth on my hydro salad seedlings is phenomenal considering how beaten-up the plants are.
The spinach decided to make a flower :p
I've sown some more and I will treat it more gently next time in transition from seedling to outdoors..

A second 68mm downspout would cost £7 for 2.5 metres and I have pump capacity and wasted space ... :hmm:
I already have more plants than growing positions - especially pak choi ...

And the next batch of seedlings are up within a couple of days ...

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Does anyone else do wildflower patches? This is my first year doing it and I don't seem to be having massive success, but it's hard to tell for sure. Removed some common garden weeds from the patches today, leaving a few seedlings of interest to see how they grow, and maybe there are more still to come. Not sure I have the right soil for this. If it doesn't work out, will do more of a controlled, micro-environment (like in a tyre) next year.
 
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