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The gardening thread

With the new bubbler in its new location, I have the option to deploy a little electrickery.
This is a 50 watt security light with the diffuser off.

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NFT hydro emptied.
20 litres of carefully prepared international standard nutes mixed-up.
Half a capful of phosphoric acid got the PH down to 5.5-ish.

I will let it cycle for a bit, then measure it and hope for the magic.
Thence to enlarging of the system over the next few days and get some more plants in while it isn't stupidly hot ... they're fairly big in any case so better prepared than last time.

Funnily enough indoors in a bubbler the plants grow fairly well in slightly less awful PH ... even outdoors they were OK for a bit then stalled ... I'm guessing phosphorus is the culprit in stopping root growth ...

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I had a blitz on the sadly neglected porch nasturtium project.
The plants I had intended to be by now cascading down around the hanging baskets are steadfastly remaining stocky and due to dry conditions the earliest sown plants had gone madly to seed so I hacked all those off and have given them a shot of high nitrogen ...
I will pick some suitable shoots from the back garden and see if new plants would do a better job ...

So I started putting in drip nozzles to try to prevent a recurrence
The difference between front and back garden couldn't be more stark.
With mains pressure, even with only a quarter turn on the tap, the porch nasturtiums and baskets were soon flooded so I put on the smallest nozzles and will have to fit some sort of flow restriction.
I'm fitting bigger drippers on the big plants and where appropriate, more than one to try to balance the system ..

It would be brilliant to have it run from a tank so I could feed that way as in the back garden, but my pumps are not up to lifting the water more than a metre in height ...
And I'm not at the moment up for having a tank high on the wall in the hallway ...


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A hanging basket with Mesum Mesimb Mosumb Livingstone Daisies. :)

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Amazing :)
I'm definitely nicking those for future years :)
I saw some of these in the park recently ...
Given my propensity to under-water they definitely look promising ...

How tolerant are yours ?

Mesembryanthemum cooperi,

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The front garden sunflowers are making an effort - nearly 6 feet - they had a moderately generous start to their life.
The ones in 15 litre containers I sowed at the same time are flowering now at about 5 feet.
I am going to see what I can do with the hoped-for direct-sown row of giants in the back garden tomorrow - thin them out, carefully replant some in gaps and give away the rest :)

In spite of what they say, I am going to sow those purple-podded French beans and see what happens when I get them to climb the stalks ...
Which reminds me I'd better give them all a good feed :)

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Yesterday I tested the drippers in the front garden.

Turned on the mains tap 1/4 turn and returned to see a jet of water shooting into the street - with the top of the emitter missing - they can be turned or even removed for cleaning and it may have been aligned with the removal notch...

So I already knew I needed to tame the flow to the porch emitters - so I've ordered some control valves ... in my future garden this will all be done from a tank with a strong pump and a pressure regulator - and with fertiliser dosing ...
While ordering the control valves, I mused on those Phostrogen and MiracleGrow adverts featuring venturi devices for fertilsing with a hosepipe ...

And of course you can buy this shit on the Internets - doubtless with a 3D printer I could find a pattern for a venturi doser and waste many hours playing with it ...
... it can wait ...

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I greeted the Amazon driver at the gate at 1PM and the three taps were installed by 1.30 :)
I'm sadly particularly at the mercy of next door's washing machine and excessive bathing as my supply is still via a lead pipe that taps into their supply ...
Since I'm sort of experimenting with flow sensors I suppose I could monitor my irrigation water usage ... :hmm:
So far my experiments haven't seen the hose jumping off the tap at the bck of the house and flooding the room ... :thumbs:

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If I have anything to offer others from my gardening experience, it's this.
Buy yourself an aquarium air pump and stones ...

Sure there are people out there who can just stick a cutting in the ground and have it root, and I've rooted a couple in compost this year - but this lets people like me get consistent results and fast - see also LED lighting ..

And once you see how things grow with bubbles, before long you'll find you have 9 metres of NFT in your back garden :)

I've got nutes made up so I will start potting them up, but I will grow a few of them on as an experiment ...

Shoved in there about 12 days ago and forgotten until I saw the roots from across the room ...


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Pulled up the onions a bit early, but they were starting to flower. Broad beans all chopped down and mulching. Starting to harvest the early spuds a meal at a time. Courgettes.... Well I don't predict any shortages this year.


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Resistafly carrots near, flyaway behind. Flyaway looking much better. Intercropping lollo rosso lettuce, which is going fairly well. Mange tout have been poor this year. Failed with these a few years in a row, while they used to be a banker.

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Getting this many blueberries and tays every 3 days. Rhubarb keeps Ms Idaho happy. Raising lettuces as medium seedlings at home then in filling at the allotment has been a 2022 success story.
 
Right.
I've decided ...
I will build a bench from my 3 inch fenceposts - deep enough to take my "2 man" tent - so I will have a retreat ...
So sometime this week I have to set my chopsaw out there somewhere ...
I needed to build trestles for my water managemment in any case and I still have to finish the frame for the new hydroponic pipes

As an alternative I have at least one beach / fishing shelter knocking around...

The initial spark of inspiration for the "pergola" was to grow stuff up - but also I have two large hanging baskets of begonias which hated facing south when I hung them up on my bean frame ...

Disappointing lot to be fair.
I already deployed the first one to sprout...
The largest of four has double cream flowers and no perceptible perfume.
 
gentlegreen said:
If I have anything to offer others from my gardening experience, it's this.
Buy yourself an aquarium air pump and stones ...

Sure there are people out there who can just stick a cutting in the ground and have it root, and I've rooted a couple in compost this year - but this lets people like me get consistent results and fast - see also LED lighting ..

And once you see how things grow with bubbles, before long you'll find you have 9 metres of NFT in your back garden :)

I've got nutes made up so I will start potting them up, but I will grow a few of them on as an experiment ...

Shoved in there about 12 days ago and forgotten until I saw the roots from across the room ...


View attachment 330318

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What's the science behind it, gentlegreen? Is the idea you are preventing the root zone from becoming hypoxic in the stagnant water? What do the stones do?
 
Wolveryeti said:
What's the science behind it, gentlegreen? Is the idea you are preventing the root zone from becoming hypoxic in the stagnant water? What do the stones do?
Click to expand...
yes that's it - though tomatoes are a poor example as they will root in water anyway and be out before things get too nasty.
I first did this with brugmansia cuttings nearly 20 years ago - and there's a particularly weird experience.
I accidentally snapped two dormant branches off on of my brugmansias this year and they rooted long before any hint of leaves ..
And spider plant offsets will happily live in shallow water for years eating bits of themselves that rot off - though it probably helps if you let it almost dry out now and again ...

Aeroponics is the next step - so many bubbles it's basically fog ...

But there are a few people out there rooting harder wood cuttings ...

(annoying loud music)

 
I took a different route home from the park yesterday ...
My first thought was "hebe" - though it did look suspiciously like my beloved amaranths - or perhaps the "callaloo" variety ...

For some reason I thought celosias were in the mint family ... :hmm:
And I was really only familiar with the cristata "cockscomb" types like what campanula posted a photo of recently ...

There is no way I can let this year pass without persevering with eating amaranth - the rate of growth is truly spectacular and I have a full shelf of salad in 3 weeks whereas I only need a few plants ...
Despite its African origin (a claim that is not without dispute), Celosia is known as a foodstuff in Indonesia and India. Moreover, in the future it might become more widely eaten, especially in the hot and malnourished regions of the equatorial zone. In that regard, it has already been hailed as the often-wished-for vegetable that "grows like a weed without demanding all the tender loving care that other vegetables seem to need" says Martin Price of Florida. He continues "Every place I have tried it, it grows with no work. We have had no disease problems and very little insect damage. It reseeds itself abundantly and new plants have come up in the immediate vicinity."

Works well in humid areas and is the most-used leafy plant in Nigeria. It grows in the wet season and grows well while other plants succumb to mold and other diseases like mildew. Though a very simple plant, Celosia does need moderate soil moisture.[citation needed]
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Caryophyllales
Amaranthaceae
Amaranthoideae

en.wikipedia.org

Celosia - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
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I finally got my sweet peas planted in the 30 litre pots I bought specially...
I originally thought I would have to cast a concrete base for the spirally things to sit in, but instead I used a crude octagonal bit of 18mm ply in the convenient recess under the pot and sandwiched it with another piece inside.
I also sleeved the bit under the surface to make it less inclined to slice into the compost ...

The biggest problem is the radials - one day when I have learned to weld, I will make some double helices for this sort of thing ... for now I will just have to find the right sort of string ...

In practice the spirally things won't be that ornamental for very long assuming (hopefully) the whole structure gets covered in sweet peas...

As with several other planters, I've made two so I can have one in the back garden - unless I decide it needs a pair for balance ...
In this case it's largely about perfume...


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Calamity1971 said:
Past couple of years I've given up. Same with poached egg plant. I used to have no problem with either of em?
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I've been amazed at what they're doing on a north-facing fence :)
They're starting to reach the top of it now and I wonder if they'll go properly nuts when they see the sun.
I have morning glories hoping to compete and the nasturtiums got a head start :)
 
gentlegreen said:
I've been amazed at what they're doing on a north-facing fence :)
They're starting to reach the top of it now and I wonder if they'll go properly nuts when they see the sun.
I have morning glories hoping to compete and the nasturtiums got a head start :)
Click to expand...
Slugs got my morning glorys this year.
I can't believe how well yours are doing considering how long your fence has been up. Envy overload :oops:.
 
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