Gardening

[blandy]

39 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Hmmm, the garden centres around here all have them from about £40 upwards, £99 if you want a posh brand, so it was a no brainier for me to take a punt at £12.99

But then Victoria Sponge Cake was £4.50 a slice so perhaps I just go to the wrong places. 

Blimey!  The one I went to has a cafe bit, busy too, but I didn’t look at the prices. Another part now has curtains and chairs and stuff in it. Soft furnishings basically, as well as garden furniture and all plants n’shit. You could probably spend all day in there instead of a quick raid and back home for a pasty and a cuppa.

Anyway, I saw a tip about growing tomatoes which i need to remember. It’s when potting on or planting out the young plants, cut off the lower leave and put the plant in deeper than normal. This apparently means a second rootball will grow and lead to more crop. Given toms are about 51.5p each in the grocers, it’s got to be worth a go.  6 toms cost me £3.09, the plants cost £4.50 for 3.  Come on me babbies, grow.

[chrisp65]

31 minutes ago, blandy said:

Blimey!  The one I went to has a cafe bit, busy too, but I didn’t look at the prices. Another part now has curtains and chairs and stuff in it. Soft furnishings basically, as well as garden furniture and all plants n’shit. You could probably spend all day in there instead of a quick raid and back home for a pasty and a cuppa.

Anyway, I saw a tip about growing tomatoes which i need to remember. It’s when potting on or planting out the young plants, cut off the lower leave and put the plant in deeper than normal. This apparently means a second rootball will grow and lead to more crop. Given toms are about 51.5p each in the grocers, it’s got to be worth a go.  6 toms cost me £3.09, the plants cost £4.50 for 3.  Come on me babbies, grow.

 

Yeah you’ve slipped in to actual growing stuff and so I’m now out. I’m very much the labour, with head of house and gardens deciding what gets grown and when. I’ll just dig a hole until I’m told to stop digging.

I have noticed of late, that the back end of the house and conservatory is full trays of small plants n schizz. Apparently there is something as yet undetected eating everything and anything that is left in the greenhouse.

I was on pond cleaning duty this weekend. Trying to empty and tart up the original pond. This involved transferring some squatter frogs from old pond, to the new pond. A journey of 2 metres. But it turns out frogs like the pond they like. I’d fish them out, put them in the lovely well appointed new pond. Then from peripheral vision you’d see some movement across the lawn. Then one by one they’d all return to the almost empty **** sludgy pond I was trying to tidy up. Absolutely no understanding or appreciation of what I was trying to do.

[blandy]

1 minute ago, chrisp65 said:

But it turns out frogs like the pond they like. I’d fish them out, put them in the lovely well appointed new pond. Then from peripheral vision you’d see some movement across the lawn. Then one by one they’d all return to the almost empty **** sludgy pond I was trying to tidy up. Absolutely no understanding or appreciation of what I was trying to do.

Ungrateful mustardflickers!  I guess they’ll move across in their own good time. But they’re your friends as they eat slugses and pests n’that, don’t they?

[VILLAMARV]

56 minutes ago, blandy said:

Anyway, I saw a tip about growing tomatoes which i need to remember. It’s when potting on or planting out the young plants, cut off the lower leave and put the plant in deeper than normal. This apparently means a second rootball will grow and lead to more crop. Given toms are about 51.5p each in the grocers, it’s got to be worth a go.  6 toms cost me £3.09, the plants cost £4.50 for 3.  Come on me babbies, grow.

I do this. Bury up to 2/3's of the plant. Who knows if my yields are bigger or whatever but the theory of bigger better rootball quicker than otherwise seems like a no-brainer. But the stems root out really easily so it's the same with rooting out cuttings in a few weeks/months time. Pinch them off and bury them somewhere.

[magnkarl]

5 hours ago, blandy said:

Just nipped to the garden centre at lunchtime. Looked at loppers out of interest given your post. They were similarly priced there. I thought they’d be more. Got me some Tommy plants and some mud to put them in and some pots to put out the front where it’s sunnier . Growing them last year and the one before from seeds, I got a good crop but they didn’t ripen. I’m hoping the tiny plants and more sun will fix that this year.

In my experience tomatoes are all about water, lots of fertiliser, heat and good drainage. I'm doing really well just putting them anywhere where I get 6+ish hours of sun, in the ground with a good mulch over (like free wood chips from the local tree surgeon). If you've got some space, try to get a load of wood chips delivered and leave it to rot for a few years and you'll have the best soil ever. The tree surgeons have to pay to get the chips handled so it's win win.

This year I'm growing about 12 tomato types, with black cherry being the one I'm doing the most of. Along our south facing wall (we're on the end of a row of houses) I've got the tomatoes directly in the ground about 2 feet apart, last year we had about 30kgs of the stuff, and we still have pasta sauce made from them.

In short, ditch the pots if you can, dig a good size hole, fill it with soil and some chicken manure pellets, plant deep (below the first sets of leaves which you should chop off), put a rope in with the root ball which you circle around the plant as it grows and tie it up high somewhere, I use a metal wire that I've screwed into the wall with eye hooks in each end at about 6feet.

If you struggle with unripe tomatoes they can also be hung up in the curtain pole by the fruit-twig come autumn and they should ripen fine in there. We ate our last tomato this way in January.

 

Edited April 11, 2023 by magnkarl

[magnkarl]

1 hour ago, chrisp65 said:

 

Yeah you’ve slipped in to actual growing stuff and so I’m now out. I’m very much the labour, with head of house and gardens deciding what gets grown and when. I’ll just dig a hole until I’m told to stop digging.

I have noticed of late, that the back end of the house and conservatory is full trays of small plants n schizz. Apparently there is something as yet undetected eating everything and anything that is left in the greenhouse.

I was on pond cleaning duty this weekend. Trying to empty and tart up the original pond. This involved transferring some squatter frogs from old pond, to the new pond. A journey of 2 metres. But it turns out frogs like the pond they like. I’d fish them out, put them in the lovely well appointed new pond. Then from peripheral vision you’d see some movement across the lawn. Then one by one they’d all return to the almost empty **** sludgy pond I was trying to tidy up. Absolutely no understanding or appreciation of what I was trying to do.

Hehe. Toads and frogs like untidy ponds as it keeps them safe. Put some reeds in a pot in your new pond or get somewhere for them to hide and they might reconsider. They're also likely guarding their spawn in the old pond. Good on you for accommodating them tho, they're one of the animal groups that are most threatened in our country mainly due to wetlands being drained and ruined.

[chrisp65]

7 hours ago, magnkarl said:

Hehe. Toads and frogs like untidy ponds as it keeps them safe. Put some reeds in a pot in your new pond or get somewhere for them to hide and they might reconsider. They're also likely guarding their spawn in the old pond. Good on you for accommodating them tho, they're one of the animal groups that are most threatened in our country mainly due to wetlands being drained and ruined.

The new pond was dug at the start of winter but it had its own frog spawn, but weirdly it sunk to the bottom where I’d usually see it bobbing around on the top. It still turned in to loads of tadpoles though.

I guess the old pond frogs just didn’t fancy sharing space with someone else’s kids.

[Seat68]

Do you know ants? 
Ants are my nemesis, I dont know if they are yellow meadow ants, or red ants. I guess I could find out by sticking my hand in the little mounds of earth on my lawn. 

 

Edited April 17, 2023 by Seat68

[desensitized43]

People who know about such things.

Whats the best way for me to get rid of a lord of nettles without having to dig them out? I’m not lazy, I have back problems…ok I’m lazy too

 

[VILLAMARV]

was he knighted?

[VILLAMARV]

You need to get the roots out. Get someone else to dig them out!

Weedkiller would probably work but I'm not a weedkiller type of gardener. I'll use a mix of salt/distilled vinegar and a touch of fairy liquid occasionally between paving slabs. The Vinegar is to kill the plant when it sucks it up like water, the salt stops things growing in the soil  and the fairy makes it easier for the plants to absorb the vinegar apparently. Depends what you want to do with the area afterwards though. And I've never used it on nettles.

Build a fire on top of them?

[Follyfoot]

1 hour ago, desensitized43 said:

People who know about such things.

Whats the best way for me to get rid of a lord of nettles without having to dig them out? I’m not lazy, I have back problems…ok I’m lazy too

 

Wife

Shovel 

 

[Mr_Dogg]

2 hours ago, VILLAMARV said:

You need to get the roots out. Get someone else to dig them out!

Weedkiller would probably work but I'm not a weedkiller type of gardener. I'll use a mix of salt/distilled vinegar and a touch of fairy liquid occasionally between paving slabs. The Vinegar is to kill the plant when it sucks it up like water, the salt stops things growing in the soil  and the fairy makes it easier for the plants to absorb the vinegar apparently. Depends what you want to do with the area afterwards though. And I've never used it on nettles.

Build a fire on top of them?

Sounds like you're using your own homemade weedkiller!

Edited May 23, 2023 by Mr_Dogg

[VILLAMARV]

1 minute ago, Mr_Dogg said:

Sounds like you're using your own homemade weedkiller!

yeah. Bit less carcinogenic than the roundup. But you got me.

[desensitized43]

Thanks all. I'm fine with using some kind of weed killer. I'd agent orange the whole thing if I could, I just want rid of them as easily as possible.

[VILLAMARV]

29 minutes ago, desensitized43 said:

Thanks all. I'm fine with using some kind of weed killer. I'd agent orange the whole thing if I could, I just want rid of them as easily as possible.

In that case find one that says it will kill nettle roots and spray when they are young/still growing/havent flowered yet about 15/20cm high appears to be the consensus here - if they are already fully grown you might consider chopping them off at the root and waiting until new growth appears before spraying. That should mean you don't have to keep going back and spraying and re-spraying.

A friend of mine got annoyed with constantly weeding a bit of his garden covered with decorative stones/chippings and went out and bought a load of weedkiller and was happy with it all for a few weeks but was surprised to see things re-growing.

I have had a few gardening jobs over the years and the patchyness of how effective spraying weedkiller was is the main reason I don't use them as the weed free results don't always last in my experience.

Good luck with it though. They can be really invasive, it's well worth getting rid.

Edited May 24, 2023 by VILLAMARV
an e

[Mr_Dogg]

28 minutes ago, desensitized43 said:

Thanks all. I'm fine with using some kind of weed killer. I'd agent orange the whole thing if I could, I just want rid of them as easily as possible.

They are very good for wildlife, but I understand they can grow like mad sometimes in the wrong place.

[VILLAMARV]

I know we'll all be pulling a few (Ken) up this year and keeping them in the wild bit or just openly committing genocide against their kind, but the dandelion seed really is an amazing thing. It's been snowing upwards over here, by which I mean there are hundreds of them floating upwards from their little balls of potential lawn destruction. Floating about, floating in the windows. they are hovering in the air all around the place and it's such an ingenious design even if 3 of them did somehow make their way onto my tea towel on the 3rd floor here

[Tegis]

10 minutes ago, VILLAMARV said:

dandelion

[mjmooney]

1 hour ago, VILLAMARV said:

I know we'll all be pulling a few (Ken) up this year and keeping them in the wild bit or just openly committing genocide against their kind, but the dandelion seed really is an amazing thing. It's been snowing upwards over here, by which I mean there are hundreds of them floating upwards from their little balls of potential lawn destruction. Floating about, floating in the windows. they are hovering in the air all around the place and it's such an ingenious design even if 3 of them did somehow make their way onto my tea towel on the 3rd floor here

We've just been for a walk at local reservoir beauty spot, and the dandelion seeds are like nothing I've ever seen before. Great snowdrifts of them, lying several centimetres deep, all over the place.