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This week in your Kitchen Garden.

Real Seeds have pretty much all this year's seed up on the website to order now by the way.

I've spent far too much :oops: Went a bit overboard on the courgettes and winter squash in particular since they did so well this year. Only ordered one variety of carrot though (Muscade) but those are something you do need to use fairly fresh seed for, so I'd be up for swapping some of that with some seed for a different variety if anyone's interested.

Heritage seed library catalogue comes out next month too...
 
iona said:
My tomatoes were still flowering (though it's too cold to set fruit) last time I checked! Still some fruit on the vines, I've been picking them as soon as they start to colour and letting them ripen indoors but I'll pick the rest this week and make chutney with the green ones.

The one surviving french bean in the polytunnel is still flowering and producing new pods too. Fucking rats took out all the dwarf french beans and the tall ones I was leaving to pod as dried beans - came in one morning and the bastards had gone full texas chainsaw massacre on the lot :mad: Still got runner beans in the lower polytunnel which I was leaving to dry too, probably ought to pull those now though and let them finish drying inside before the cunts trash those as well.

I was still picking broad beans at the start of the month!
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The only thing that's still knocking out fruit are my Alpine strawberries. Picked some on Xmas day last year!
 
Not done anything with the garden this winter because blergh but while the rhubarb seems to not have come back (not sure why I keep planting it, it clearly doesn't like our garden and dies every time) the strawberry plants have taken over every bed and in a display of optimism have started flowering all over the place. Parsley and chives are looking pretty good too. 1000074703.jpg1000074704.jpg
 
I've got basil and curly leaf parsley going on the windowsill so far.
Also have some Thai basil cuttings in water to see if they grow roots, but not a lot happening so far.
 
Winter's been very hard on my garden generally.
Everything's still basically waterlogged !

I'm going to try growing a rhubarb crown in a very large pot raised off the ground as I have trouble with rabbits snacking on everything ...
 
Two lots of first early spuds - the second variety are still chitting - to be gown in pots, actually - the first lot are already planted out.

Getting a rebuilt garden shed for tools later this week.

Job for later today or tomorrow will be another picking up sticks blown off by the wind [ done quite a lot already but the last couple of days have added to the problem ]
 
Epona said:
I've got basil and curly leaf parsley going on the windowsill so far.
Also have some Thai basil cuttings in water to see if they grow roots, but not a lot happening so far.
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3 of the Thai basil cuttings are starting to sprout some decent looking roots! Not bad considering I got them from a supermarket pack of cut Thai basil last week :D
 
friendofdorothy said:
Wow! Impressed.
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Have to go to Waitrose over in Stratford for packs of the stuff when I fancy cooking Thai food, thought I'd try to get my money's worth - 3 cuttings are ready to be potted tomorrow and the 4th is starting to grow roots now.
Have also acquired a tomato seedling (Liliput variety) which is supposed to be suitable for growing in a pot indoors, I've not had much luck doing toms from seed indoors before so we'll see how this one goes.
 
Bollocks, I just noticed my big basil plant has a massive aphid infestation (how do the fuckers even get in here ffs?)
It's getting too big anyway so plan is to prune it back massively, been planning to make a batch of pesto for a while so might as well do it now (washing any bugs off first ofc :D )

Don't want them spreading to my other plants although they do seem to be particularly attracted to basil.
 
Epona said:
Bollocks, I just noticed my big basil plant has a massive aphid infestation (how do the fuckers even get in here ffs?)
It's getting too big anyway so plan is to prune it back massively, been planning to make a batch of pesto for a while so might as well do it now (washing any bugs off first ofc :D )

Don't want them spreading to my other plants although they do seem to be particularly attracted to basil.
Click to expand...
I used to put them outside and the ladybirds would take care of it. Don't know if that would work now.
 
RubyToogood said:
I used to put them outside and the ladybirds would take care of it. Don't know if that would work now.
Click to expand...

I've not got an outdoors or even windowsills outside unfortunately.
They're on my little Thai Basil cuttings too!
Tomato plant seems aphid free for now as they really seem to like the basil.
 
Actually fuck it, I think the best way to deal with it might be to take a couple of cuttings and make sure they are aphid free, deal with the ones on the Thai basil cuttings (easier as they are still small plants, can rinse/pick off aphids easily), and wash and pesto the rest of the plant.
I noticed some black marks on some of the lower leaves yesterday when I watered it but was feeling too ill to give it a good inspection, today it's visibly infested, it was OK a couple of days ago.
 
Onions and radishes have sprouted, hopefully as that's what the chart says I planted. So much more to do it'd ridiculous, tho I set a hugely ambitious amount to plant so half working is enough lol
 
StoneRoad said:
Two lots of first early spuds - the second variety are still chitting - to be gown in pots, actually - the first lot are already planted out.

Getting a rebuilt garden shed for tools later this week.

Job for later today or tomorrow will be another picking up sticks blown off by the wind [ done quite a lot already but the last couple of days have added to the problem ]
Click to expand...
All the chitted first earlies are in their pots, the first set already need earthing up ... plus the six baking sized spuds [unknown variety]. I gave up and covered most of the pots with a translucent tarpaulin, two reasons i) when I planted them out, some nights were pretty close to freezing and ii) keep some of the rain off them.

Next job will be tomorrow as everything will be sopping wet after the current downpour stops, this will be to re-tie the raspberries and clear the access to the main greenhouse, after cutting the long grass currently blocking the route over there. Only then will I get the tomato [etc] plants certain people are whinging about.

e2a - apart from trimming the grass areas I need to tidy up around the compost heap as my housemates seem unable to follow certain rules about what & how to add stuff to the heap - I've got a load of plastic out of it already. I also need to clear the surrounding area of dumped stuff, some of which should be on the heap, and other stuff should not ...
 
I nuked the basil plant from orbit, it was covered in the things, cut all the useable bits off and put them in a bowl of cold water to keep them fresh overnight and clean aphids/aphid gunk off them so I can make pesto tomorrow.
I salvaged 2 of the Thai basil cuttings, removed the worst affected leaves, washed aphids off what remained, and potted them (they may not survive the harsh treatment mind!)
Repotted my tomato plant into its big pot and removed the couple of aphids that I could see by hand, must get a magnifier tomorrow as my sight isn't what it was! Hopefully have dealt with the issue though, and we'll see over the next few days what has survived.

(Then I was seized by "I've started so I'll finish" and ended up cleaning the kitchen window and windowsill, forgot I was ill for a bit there, but a bit of stretching seems to have sorted out the sciatica that's been bothering me for a couple of days due to spending a large portion of the weekend bedridden!)
 
iona said:
Epona dunk the lot upside-down in some water with a bit of washing up liquid mixed in, it kills aphids
Click to expand...

Yeah I only have the "platinum" supercharged washing up liquid at the moment, and thought that might not go so well for the plants :D
 
Epona said:
Yeah I only have the "platinum" supercharged washing up liquid at the moment, and thought that might t it to be an issue when it was that diluted...
Click to expand...
Isn't that stuff just the same chemicals but stronger, so you'd dilute it more? Hope you manage to get rid of the fuckers one way or another, anyway.
 
iona said:
Isn't that stuff just the same chemicals but stronger, so you'd dilute it more? Hope you manage to get rid of the fuckers one way or another, anyway.
Click to expand...
It bothers me more I think because they are indoor plants - I assume eggs must have come in on a cutting.
If I had an outdoors I'd probably be gleefully sourcing native ladybirds to deal with it but that isn't an ideal solution for my kitchen (for me or the ladybirds!)

I'll try the dunk thing if they come back. I did rinse everything including my tomato plant - the poor thing didn't seem very happy about that at first (and I repotted it into its big forever pot at the same time), but it's perked up since and is just doing its welcome the dawn spreading out of the leaves thing looking healthy and growing at a rate of knots.

I'm less bothered about the basil, it was getting big and woody, I'd not pruned it back last week as I intended due to being unwell.
 
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That reminds me I need to do an aphid check ...
and see what the garden centre has in terms of tom & cucurbit plants.

also plant some bean seeds [hoping last frosts have been and gone] up here in the "far" north - a few years ago I got caught out by late frosts. Lost most of the apple crop and almost all the beans.
 
I'm sure that was a very tasty cos but we'll never know for sure.
I worry about hurting the birds when I put down blue death and manual methods required a consistency incompatible with my brain. I found nematodes disappointing in the past.
Why can't they eat the stupid fake garlic that has taken over the shady bed instead?
1000075475.jpg

And it looks like I was premature in writing off the rhubarb. Maybe this year will be the year I didn't kill the rhubarb
1000075478.jpg
 
Well I managed to kill my Thai basil cuttings when I repotted them, I think I overwatered cos the roots rotted :oops:
I think I did the same to my tomato too as a couple of the lower leaves went brown round the edges and curled up.
I'm really not very good at this :hmm:

I've acquired a chilli plant (a mild one - Hot Banana) to see whether that can escape my plant-killing skills :eek:
I'd like a hotter chilli variety too, I'm buying/acquiring tomato and chilli plants/seedlings this year as I've failed from seed the last couple (I think it just doesn't get bright and warm enough in my kitchen early on enough in the year).
 
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Epona said:
Well I managed to kill my Thai basil cuttings when I repotted them, I think I overwatered cos the roots rotted :oops:
I think I did the same to my tomato too as a couple of the lower leaves went brown round the edges and curled up.
I'm really not very good at this :hmm:

I've acquired a chilli plant (a mild one - Hot Banana) to see whether that can escape my plant-killing skills :eek:
I'd like a hotter chilli variety too, I'm buying/acquiring tomato and chilli plants/seedlings this year as I've failed from seed the last couple (I think it just doesn't get bright and warm enough in my kitchen early on enough in the year).
Click to expand...
Have we had the "try growing some ginger" conversation? It makes a lovely indoor plant and you get a potful of ginger. Just stick a bit of supermarket root in some compost. Now would be a good time to start.
 
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