The gardening thread

[clicker]

The roses are wonderful.

This is 'That's Jazz'. Blooms as big as your palm, loads of them and that proper old rose perfume.


The brilliant white Madame Alfred Carriere. Could be Albert. Prolific, disease free and the blooms just laugh in the face of wind and rain.

My current favourite 'Jolly Roger'. Heaps of blooms that begin vivid, deep orange, last forever and fade into every colour of the sunset. A right thorny git though.

So perfectly named 'Swan Lake'. Pointe shoes in petal form.

The irises deserve a mention.

 

[RubyToogood]

It's similar to my labeling principle - you find out what they are eventually.

My speciality is not labelling any of the squashes, many of which (eg courgette varieties) are indistinguishable until they actually fruit

This year I've really excelled myself and sowed some nicotiana into the same pots I'd just sowed squashes in, rather than the empty pots waiting next to them

I've just done some very fiddly pricking out.

 

[RubyToogood]

Note to self: labelling is like doing a tension square in knitting. Nobody wants to do it but you regret it if you don't.

 

[Signal 11]

I label the pots with the size and a serial number, then record what's in them in a database.

Just been repotting chili plants today:

 

[Cloo]

The roses be rosing this week

 

[two sheds]

I sometimes write the names of the seeds I've sown on a sheet of paper but then forget which seed tray is which

 

[newme]

Note to self: labelling is like doing a tension square in knitting. Nobody wants to do it but you regret it if you don't.

This explains why all my labelling goes wrong. I can't knit for shit. Patching something is one thing that's actually making stuff. SO sleep walked one night and apparently decided to dismantle an entire years worth of a giant blanket she was making. Cost enough anyway for special wool or whatever it was but all the time put in it lost was horrendous

 

[newme]

I sometimes write the names of the seeds I've sown on a sheet of paper but then forget which seed tray is which

Mine were in the ground, all written down by 1ft squares. My labelled as onions are all radishes. I've no clue about most of the rest now lol.

Edit have found what I think are peppers, what should be the chives looks like grass again though.

 

[TopCat]

I label the pots with the size and a serial number, then record what's in them in a database.

Just been repotting chili plants today:

View attachment 425054

In a database? Fucking hell.

 

[TopCat]

My speciality is not labelling any of the squashes, many of which (eg courgette varieties) are indistinguishable until they actually fruit

This year I've really excelled myself and sowed some nicotiana into the same pots I'd just sowed squashes in, rather than the empty pots waiting next to them

I've just done some very fiddly pricking out.

I gave sunflowers to neighbouring children that all turned out to be courgettes.

A chilli plant to a colleague that was bell pepper and took over the whole window.

I potted up loads of stuff today. I’m hopeful.

 

[two sheds]

I decided I wasn't going to save any seeds this year so I've got dozens of smallish night scented stock which is nice, loads of small tomato plants that will be lucky if they give a tomato each, and probably a hundred tiny foxglove seedlings in a tray that are all clumped together so I've been separating them out but they're now in somewhat smaller clumps of about five each hopefully I'll be able to separate them individually.

 

[mrsfran]

I planted out courgettes and sweetcorn at the allotment this weekend, feels good to get something in the ground. Santino has been working hard on a wildlife pond, which is going to be lovely. Roses behaving beautifully too.

 

[Little Piranha]

I gave sunflowers to neighbouring children that all turned out to be courgettes.

A chilli plant to a colleague that was bell pepper and took over the whole window.

I potted up loads of stuff today. I’m hopeful.

My first year gardening a friend gave me a bean seedling. I planted it carefully with a frame to climb up and I just couldn't understand what I was doing wrong or how this plant could possibly be a climber. Anyway, it was broccoli.

 

[Funky_monks]

My speciality is not labelling any of the squashes, many of which (eg courgette varieties) are indistinguishable until they actually fruit

This year I've really excelled myself and sowed some nicotiana into the same pots I'd just sowed squashes in, rather than the empty pots waiting next to them

I've just done some very fiddly pricking out.

I've not labelled any of my corcorbits this year, they are all going in the same bed anyway..... Is it a pumpkin? A courgette? A cucumber?

Only time will tell.....

 

[newme]

I planted out courgettes and sweetcorn at the allotment this weekend, feels good to get something in the ground. Santino has been working hard on a wildlife pond, which is going to be lovely. Roses behaving beautifully too.

How far apart for sweetcorn? I was told 45cm Square and that's like 6ftx x 1.ft for 4 which seems ridiculous.

 

[Funky_monks]

How far apart for sweetcorn? I was told 45cm Square and that's like 6ftx x 1.ft for 4 which seems ridiculous.

They do like to be in a square. I think I aim to have one plant every 6"

 

[mrsfran]

How far apart for sweetcorn? I was told 45cm Square and that's like 6ftx x 1.ft for 4 which seems ridiculous.

Yeah, roughly 50cm apart but in a square, not in a row.

 

[mrsfran]

So my beds are 2m X 4m and fit 18.

 

[newme]

So my beds are 2m X 4m and fit 18.

Mines 3ftx12ft and its a low covered poly lol maybe 4ft tall in the centre? This is why I wasn't planting sweetcorn or almost everything I got given, I don't have the height for it or space. When I spent ages making 2 of these and another 6x3ft it was for the seeds I bought to plant in it. Not some random stuff someone else picked, I don't like courgettes but now have 4 plants, obviously given with good intent but frankly I don't want the bloody things.

 

[two sheds]

When I cover stuff in my raised beds with poly they die from lack of water because I forget when I don't cover them the slugs or the dog get them.

 

[newme]

When I cover stuff in my raised beds with poly they die from lack of water because I forget when I don't cover them the slugs or the dog get them.

. Seems very humid and hot as anything in there, do wonder if I am cooking some of them. Yeh anything getting into them wasn't happening, had caterpillars last year after leaving it open for a bit and that destroyed most of the entire bed, bloody things.

Still looking at solar watering kits tho, if I get the water butt connected I have a spare bin to use for more storage and could then just have it sort itself out even if we are away. If that ever happens lol.

 

[two sheds]

There must be an easy way of diverting rain to below the poly sheets. I've tried sort of automated watering but the hose gets blocked or doesn't work for some other reason.

 

[newme]

There must be an easy way of diverting rain to below the poly sheets. I've tried sort of automated watering but the hose gets blocked or doesn't work for some other reason.

That's what I thought, runs the lines through, connect both butt's and gravity feed could work but idk how to spread out the water properly or not have it flow continually. Solar kit seemed to have some advantages as they sorted it already. Need to do way more research, and connect the water butt lol.

 

[two sheds]

I took a hose from the overspill connection of a butt in the hope that it would water the greenhouse when i rained and the butt was full but it doesn't seem to

 

[iona]

When I cover stuff in my raised beds with poly they die from lack of water because I forget when I don't cover them the slugs or the dog get them.

Use mesh instead, if it's more about keeping the dog out than keeping the plants warm?

 

[two sheds]

That's a really good idea thank you. I do have some garden netting which I might try. It's getting a bit late now but it's a bit annoying because I built the raised bed up this spring and added loads more compost.

Unfortunately the dog's not all that bright, and I can see him coming into the house dragging the netting behind him like he drags long pieces of bramble that attach themselves to him.

 

[StoneRoad]

This should really be in the pissed off thread ...

Bought a rose "Golden Wedding" for the eponymous 50th of some very good friends.

Put the pot into a sheltered area and now the leaves are being shredded by some beetle or other ... at night.
Today the plan is to repot it into a much larger pot as it isn't raining, blowing a gale and I actually have "some" time available after a fortnight of dashing about the country.

 

[two sheds]

My magnolia was being shredded by slugs so I've been out just before I go to bed and picked the little fuckers off and now have four beer traps around it to divert them. None on there the last two nights

 

[teuchter]

Containers. All of my gardening is in containers because I don't have any ground to plant in, just a couple of small roof terraces.

Over time there's a kind of turnover of soil, maybe from when I dig out a dead plant or when I get a new one with some soil in the pot and dig a hole to put it in. Or when I completely empty & renew a container or whatever. Anyway, I tend to have a bucket or two of soil maybe mixed up with weeds I've pulled up or things I've pruned off.

In a proper garden this would all just get chucked on a compost heap but I keep it because it's not easy to dispose of, and also because getting new soil in is expensive and a hassle.

Sometimes I make use of it to top up containers but I'm never sure if this is a bad idea. It often sits in the buckets over winter and gets waterlogged until the first day of spring I start trying to get things back into order.

Hence this post today.

What should I actually be doing with this stuff? In the past I've read advice to sterilise it by sticking it in the oven. One time I did actually do that but it was some soil where I'd discovered the roots of something were all rotten and covered in some kind of mould.

If I use this winter's waterlogged waste bucket soil to top up my containers in general am I risking bad things?

Still deciding what to do with this leftover soil.

Lots of green shoots have come up in it (its still just sitting in some old pots) which suggests it's not some kind of death zone.

However this white-ish stuff is all over the surface of the soil. What is it, and is it Bad?



Also something bad has happened to the leaves of one of the larger weed type plants that has grown in it.

 

[StoneRoad]

the white stuff maybe a fungus or similar. but my main suspicion would be mineral efflorescence. Some of my earthenware pots get this from mineral-rich water leaching out through the side.