Gardening

[VILLAMARV]

Quote

A gold ring that was lost in a vegetable garden 12 years ago has been found on a carrot dug up for dinner. Lin Keitch, 69, from Monkton Heathfield near Taunton, Somerset, noticed it while washing her home-grown vegetables. It had been a 40th birthday present from her husband Dave, and was lost by their daughter. The couple believe the carrot grew through the ring. Ms Keitch said it was a "chance in a million" discovery.

"Dave dug up the carrots and left them outside the back door," she said. "I cut the greens off and scrubbed them, and I thought, 'What's that? Goodness, it's my ring'."

She said even though the ring, with an amethyst stone in the centre, was covered in earth she recognised it immediately.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-45220825

Brilliant

[wazzap24]

I re-seeded my lawn during the drought. I didn't know we were in a drought when I started the process.

Anyway, it was hard work, but it was starting to look magnificent. Now a couple of brown spots have started appearing and I can't work out why.

If it dies after all the work I've put in, I'm gonna flip. 

[VILLAMARV]

Well my courgettes have taken a battering. The one actual courgette that started growing rotted and that plant not looking healthy. 2 left. some more flowers appearing. So much for the earlier hubris!

My Chard got some sort of leaf-miner outbreak so much cut back but much saved and eaten over the last week. Hopefully wont have to chuck them and start again.

Cucumbers appear to be fruiting a bit though so I'm keeping an eye on them. Tomatos have set lots of fruit. Waiting for it to ripen at the mo. some of them have grown to normal sizes so hopefully not too long to wait now. Lettuce has kept us going all summer but the first lot is dying back now. Got more seeds on the go though and a few bits to plug the gap. Rocket still abundant. I'm chucking some more lettuce seed in and I want to do some more spinach too. Salad leaves have been a staple on the dinner table all summer and if I actually get a few toms and cucumbers to join them I'll be well chuffed.

Basil and Garlic Chives also still going strong. Dill and Coriander have gone to seed and going to be re planted.

Kale got spread out and is everywhere but loving the damper cooler weather. Plenty to eat already too.

The spring planted garlic were small but delicious and the shallots were ace, well chuffed with them.

Still waiting for spuds to start dying back a bit before seeing if they're in there!

Turning my thoughts towards autumn /winter though I'm going to chuck a tub of carrots out there and see what happens and I really want to grow some butternut squash if I can. My one Purple Sprouting Broccoli that made it this far needs a few friends too I think.

[chrisp65]

got the first few sweetcorn and pumpkins in a few days ago

bought some plain flour today, so the trees are having a shake down tomorrow for some apple cake because apple cake is bloody lovely and freezes well

[A'Villan]

My Dad makes biochar for his garden. I've been meaning to join him and learn the process.

I find it hilarious, he looks like Walter White of Breaking Bad enough as it is without him cooking up a storm in a kiln.

[snowychap]

13 hours ago, VILLAMARV said:

Tomatos have set lots of fruit. Waiting for it to ripen at the mo.

You can help them along by doing a few things like removing lower leaves and leaf branches (up to the trusses that you're waiting to ripen), removing any small fruits that don't seem to be growing, stopping any new flowers developing (so cut off the main growing stem and remove any of the newest growth that may try to come afterwards) and just generally by reducing the number of fruits.

It's better to have 30 ripe tomatoes than 60 unripe ones.

Edited August 27, 2018 by snowychap
'

[snowychap]

Dishearteningly poor maincrop potato harvest.

[VILLAMARV]

49 minutes ago, snowychap said:

Dishearteningly poor maincrop potato harvest.

Never had much luck with taters me. What with my year of trying this summer and the sight of some flowers on one of the sacks at least I've got my hopes up a bit. Leaves haven't started dying back yet on mine so I'll be waiting to see until september on most things due to my late start.

[Xann]

We have a fence that looks like Swiss cheese.

Reckon a replacement will probably need two post shoes? Thought about just dropping the wood into a hole with post mix, likely it would rot quite quickly under the surface.

So a spiked post shoe set in concrete in a narrowish deep hole, or a surface mount shoe on a wider footprint but shallower concrete base?

Leaning towards the second option, on balance probably less chance of having to buy or hire extra kit?

Would have been happy with hippy woven willow, but she wants a fence, so will have to play with concrete...?

... Unless I use a thin auger to make a hole in which to hammer wider spikes? That might work?

[VILLAMARV]

I just checked all my toms just to see if any have yellowed at all yet and for the first time ever I saw one. Cherry it is, and there's another one next to it. It's only going to go red isn't it

It's hard to explain how happy that just made me

[VILLAMARV]

So one of my old compost bags of spuds has yellowing leaves now. Going to pour all that soil into a big tub and see whether I've grown any spuds or not later. Kale everywhere. Hopefully got some spuds to go with some later for tea.

The tomato thing yesterday cheered me right up. Hope to have toms/cucumbers/lettuce/rocket/basil/chives to eat straight out the garden. Growing a whole salad will be novel. Definitely caught the bug. Will be on it much earlier next year for sure. Bit of a gap in the salad supply, but now I get the successive planting bit

Our garden has a very old rather neglected greenhouse with half the glass on it. I got some new clips this week and I'm wondering how to cover the gaps cheap. A bit of Ply would do the job, but I wonder if old greenhouse glass is easy and cheap to come by. Pretty standard sizes I'd imagine. More of a project in my head at this point and ultimately I rent so why would I fix up someone else's greenhouse!? Well maybe to get a bit longer out of a few of these plants I've been growing outside all summer would be a good enough answer finally.

I have a courgette growing again. Leaving it alone seems to have done the trick there

Chucked a load more lettuce seed and some carrott seeds and radish seeds and some more coriander seeds in some soil a couple of weeks ago. All coming up it seems. Got a few more Purple Sprouting Broccoli on the go, When the tomatoes die back I was going to up size the tubs for the Broccoli.

I had to cut the Chard back again, less leaf miner damage than before but still a few kicking about it seems.

Anything I should be getting ready for Autumn/Winter?

Wanted to do garlic properly, I enjoyed that even though they were tiny, that should go in somewhere in Autumn I believe.

[snowychap]

8 hours ago, VILLAMARV said:

Anything I should be getting ready for Autumn/Winter?

It might be a bit late but I was going to try with some Pak Choi seeds I've got as old Monty suggested it the other week on Gardeners' World.

Garlic in next month would be good for harvesting next June/July.

You can plant Purple Sprouting Broccoli next month and it can be harvested from late Feb (depending on the temperature) until it keels over. Also looks quite nice as a bit of winter greenery unless we have the kind of snow that we had this Feb/March.

Edited September 14, 2018 by snowychap

[VILLAMARV]

cheers snowy, didn't do my spuds in the end tonight. save that fun for tomorrow. Bit wet and windy down here.

 

[peterms]

On 27/08/2018 at 10:00, snowychap said:

It's better to have 30 ripe tomatoes than 60 unripe ones.

Unripe green tomatoes are great.  Either for chutney, or frying up, or chopping small in a salad.

Don't discard them.

[VILLAMARV]

So I had a few new potatoes from an old compost bag last week. Not exactly anything to write home about yield-wise, definitely grew more leaves than tubers in that one. But then I did grow and eat some spuds, so there's that. And they were tasty.

One of my tomato plants fell over in the wind yesterday. thankfully rescued from the lawn without too much damage but my wigwam of canes split apart so had to re support it. Thankfully only lost a few leaves, especially as that is the plant with the most fruit on. A week on from my cherry toms showing signs of ripening there is finally signs of ripening fruit on the bigger moneymakers too! so YAY. Mrs VM reminded me it wasn't about success, just giving it a go. "you said you didn't mind if we didn't get anything to eat off them when you started" she reminded me. And yeah I probably meant it back then. Dammit it matters now . Mind you she also had a dream the other day where she went in the kitchen to find it full of Tomato plants coz I'd brought them all inside. Maybe she is psychic after all . 40mph winds tonight and tomorrow down here apparently so I'd better tidy up a bit and make sure the rest of my toms aren't going to get blown about too much.

Slugs are back. My enthusiasm to hunt them hasn't returned though! Been a bit slack. Decimated my lettuce seedlings and half the coriander last night it seems. I'll dig the torch out again and get on it. Radishes, Rocket and Chinese Leaves growing good though and Carrots coming up.

[VILLAMARV]

Soil though, I've read a bit online about crop rotation/soil nutrition etc and also get the whole fallow year thing (And that we're talking farming the ground rather than containers). So I'm trying to keep an eye on what soil grew what and doing the whole However, The tomato and potato soil seems to be something people advise keeping separate (or indeed just chucking on your beds/borders etc). Nematodes, Diseases and fungi, nutrient deficient and all sorts of terms rattling round my brain that all sound very convincing. Now, Container gardening advice suggests using fresh compost etc every year, but for me that would be far too expensive imo and I have a compost heap which has been making me pretty self sufficient in compost before I did loads more this year. And being as organicy as possible is also part of the point to me.

Anyway, is it just basically refreshing the nutrients in the soil? Some places even advise against adding soil from potatos on the compost heap. Why? Can't I just treat it as soil I grew 'roots' in and chuck some peas in it or something like that?

Edited September 20, 2018 by VILLAMARV
finished the part sentence :)

[Rugeley Villa]

Don’t know why people go to the trouble of all this growing your own  veg, malarkey. Ain’t it easier to just go and buy fruit and veg from your local supermarket? 

Edited September 20, 2018 by Rugeley Villa

[snowychap]

52 minutes ago, VILLAMARV said:

Soil though, I've read a bit online about crop rotation/soil nutrition etc and also get the whole fallow year thing (And that we're talking farming the ground rather than containers). So I'm trying to keep an eye on what soil grew what and doing the whole However, The tomato and potato soil seems to be something people advise keeping separate (or indeed just chucking on your beds/borders etc). Nematodes, Diseases and fungi, nutrient deficient and all sorts of terms rattling round my brain that all sound very convincing. Now, Container gardening advice suggests using fresh compost etc every year, but for me that would be far too expensive imo and I have a compost heap which has been making me pretty self sufficient in compost before I did loads more this year. And being as organicy as possible is also part of the point to me.

Anyway, is it just basically refreshing the nutrients in the soil? Some places even advise against adding soil from potatos on the compost heap. Why? Can't I just treat it as soil I grew 'roots' in and chuck some peas in it or something like that?

I think the issue with potato (and tomato) compost is that blight, if present, can still be there after composting unless you've done a really proper job, i.e. getting it hot enough that all pathogens are killed in the process. If you're not going to use any of that compost for nightshade plants (pots, toms mainly but there are some common other ones, I think) then you'll be fine but you also might get some 'volunteer' plants and those could be an issue for the same reasons as potentially carrying blight.

I've got the stuff that I had in the potato bags sat in a couple of Ikea bags waiting to be used as mulch on my beds and borders (it'll help fill things out with a couple of bags of manure).

If you've got a good compost heap going (and if you can enlarge it somewhat) then I'd recycle your spent compost (save for the toms/pots stuff) on there.

You'll have difficulty growing stuff from seed in compost that has already been used and there may be disease, viruses, &c. that would adversely affect the seeds/new plants. It's not just about refreshing the nutrients though there are unlikely to be many left.

Fresh compost every year wouldn't have to be newly bought bags of compost, it could just be freshly composted stuff from your heap, i.e. chuck on all the stuff that is spent from this year (with lots of green and brown material, too, obviously), buy new compost for next year then use the stuff from your heap for each subsequent year being replaced by the spent stuff with a little bit of topping up and extra gree/brown material, too.

It's easier said than done, though. I've had a compost bin at the bottom of my garden for yonks and have never had much luck (it does the composting but it's either too wet or two dry and often just seems like a giant ant hill).

[snowychap]

25 minutes ago, Rugeley Villa said:

Don’t know why people go to the trouble of all this growing your own  veg, malarkey.

Shorter travel time, often better taste, value, looks nice.

I'm very suprised you never tried growing cucumbers, tbh. You could have picked them when they were still nobbly.

[VILLAMARV]

4 minutes ago, Rugeley Villa said:

Don’t know why people go to the trouble of all this growing your own  veg, malarkey. Ain’t it easier to just go and buy fruit and veg from your local supermarket? 

I was totally like this until a couple of years ago Ruge. Not that it will be the most exiting read on VT ever but I decided I'd post in here to see how a novice got on with his bright spark basically, despite not knowing wtf I'm doing bar watching a few you tube vids, reading a few blogs and asking the lovely green-fingered folk here for any tips and advice. What started out last year with us basically throwing a few lettuce seeds my mum had bought us once and we'd never used in some old tubs in the garden to see what happened has now lead me to have no space outside my back door and crammed every bit of concrete full of tubs and containers basically.

For me, where I rent, I cant go digging the garden up and turning it into an allotment. I also have no desire to sign up for an allotment as I cant imagine wanting to go out 2/3miles away in the rain and potter about all that much. But if I can pour some soil into a container and then there's basically no weeding, no digging and all the hard work has kinda been bypassed tbh. Lazy as **** basically . But making a cup of tea, and then pottering about outside the back door while I have a fag, well even I can do that and tbh, apart from the actual planting and the picking up of stuff that blew over in the wind that's literally all my gardening entails. Although I'll have to put the cuppa down if I'm weilding my watering can

As for the why though, taste is honestly the main thing for us. Things genuinely taste better fresh from the ground/freshly picked.

Price is another although to be honest, with me, it depends on what's growing. (i.e what with my 1 courgette growing off 3 plants that's not going to cut it is it ) But leaves, all leaves, loads cheaper to grow than to buy (and really really easy)