Gardening

[magnkarl]

On 23/05/2023 at 19:59, 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

 

Put a thick layer of cardboard over it and leave it for a year. It'll be dead come autumn and you'll have amazing soil there as nettles are very high in minerals and organic matter.

[magnkarl]

This year's big issue seems to be that the local birds are desperate for diggable ground, and my no-dig garden beds with wood chip\straw mulch seems to be the favourite. I don't particularly mind birds, and especially blackbirds as they're wonderful help too (they eat bugs!), but due to the dry weather they can't seem to find food anywhere else.The issue for me is that they mix the woodchip into the compost, which creates nitrogen depletion for the plants at least for the next year. I must revise my strategy close to the plants and rather use well rotted woodchip here. I've also got extensive deer\grazing damage on my fruit trees that aren't fenced in. The drought is really affecting the behaviour of wildlife.

In any case, from looking at my own garden compared to the neighbour's garden I'm really quite chuffed. Not digging the soil over is clearly helping the fungi and soil networks maintain moisture levels, my plants handle a lot more heat and dry weather than my neighbours and I only water every now and then with the little rainwater I can collect.

So far we've had home-grown vegetables for every meal since april 21st. The biggest producer is various lettuce which I take the laves off the sides of only leading the growing tip about once every two weeks, the first new potatoes are due to be harvested this week and the tomatos are looking good. I've scrounged a pallet greenhouse from the local recycling centre (who would throw that away?) in which I've planted 4 different kinds of melon in big cement mixing buckets and tied up with string. As a homage to Ukraine they're 3 Ukrainian sweet melon varieties, two watermelon and two sugar melons.

Mulch, mulch, mulch.

Tally so far for the season:

Kidney beans - 6 kilos

Lettuce - 8.8 kilos

Strawberries - 2.2 kilos

Honeyberry - 0.8 kilos

Spinach - 1.8 kilos

Mizuna - 0.8 kilos

Sugar snap peas - 0.6 kilos

Garlic - 12 kilos (harvested last week - a whopper of a year)

Spring onions - 2.1 kilos

Squash\zucchini - 0.3 kilos

Beetroot - 0.2 kilos

Chard - 1.8 kilos (by far the easiest and quickest saladcrop)

Radishes - 0.8 kilos

Carrots - 0.3 kilos

The garden is producing at levels I could never hope for before I started no dig. Some issues remain where the ground was badly depleted before we took over - the celery that I've stupidly put there is showing signs of yellowing and shall require some fertiliser of some kind (likely chicken manure).

 

Edited June 12, 2023 by magnkarl

[VILLAMARV]

Sounds idyllic to be fair MK. Groundworks for me mostly this year. Apart from the odd bit of gardening for family friends and the less mobile people in my life I've got an allotment space to create (for my use) at a friends house, another to set up at MrsVM's friend's by their barn and at my little 4 bed patch I've been sharing for the past few years with my mum, I've been moving the path this year, so the raspberries are more accessible, the path is now in the bit with the least sunshine and all the rotten timbers on the old raised beds are being replaced but the beds redesigned. I've got to move a very well established pink champagne rhubarb plant as it's in the way. But around the carnage got a few red onions on the go and brassicas and lettuce along with a few spring onions in tubs.

I bought a chervil plant last year to add to my herb garden in tubs collection and it self seeded everywhere, which I think is great. Also some self seeded coriander from last year has appeared all by itself.

All my red russian kale went to seed in all this hot weather but I think I'm going to let it flower and keep the seeds as this summer I'm not really growing a lot. And I might have some space newly built by the time it cools down. Done well the past few years doing a late planting of kale and even a late autumn planting to over-wintert them for a crop in the spring. The mild start to winter the last few years has meant there were still harvestable leaves at the start of december last year. outdoors too, not in a greenhouse.

[Demitri_C]

Grass has gone all brown/yellow like last year due to rain drought we are having. I think it hasnt rained near me in 5 weeks.

Hose pipe ban imminent 

[magnkarl]

27 minutes ago, VILLAMARV said:

Sounds idyllic to be fair MK. Groundworks for me mostly this year. Apart from the odd bit of gardening for family friends and the less mobile people in my life I've got an allotment space to create (for my use) at a friends house, another to set up at MrsVM's friend's by their barn and at my little 4 bed patch I've been sharing for the past few years with my mum, I've been moving the path this year, so the raspberries are more accessible, the path is now in the bit with the least sunshine and all the rotten timbers on the old raised beds are being replaced but the beds redesigned. I've got to move a very well established pink champagne rhubarb plant as it's in the way. But around the carnage got a few red onions on the go and brassicas and lettuce along with a few spring onions in tubs.

I bought a chervil plant last year to add to my herb garden in tubs collection and it self seeded everywhere, which I think is great. Also some self seeded coriander from last year has appeared all by itself.

All my red russian kale went to seed in all this hot weather but I think I'm going to let it flower and keep the seeds as this summer I'm not really growing a lot. And I might have some space newly built by the time it cools down. Done well the past few years doing a late planting of kale and even a late autumn planting to over-wintert them for a crop in the spring. The mild start to winter the last few years has meant there were still harvestable leaves at the start of december last year. outdoors too, not in a greenhouse.

Yeah, our kale plants down here are always producing even into the winter. I've got 5 types planted over summer - two curly kales, one red and one green, cavolo nero, thousand head, and a headed kale for fermenting. I've also got the siberian variety self seeding everywhere which makes for decent leaves when they're young but quickly take over everywhere.

If you've got rotten timbers they're well worth adding to the bottom of any raised bed, they become a moisture reservoir. The theory around 'hugelkultur' where you essentially grow on top of old debris like trunks is interesting, a friend of mine does this and has amazing results - albeit it looks a bit more untidy than the usual garden.

[VILLAMARV]

10 minutes ago, magnkarl said:

Yeah, our kale plants down here are always producing even into the winter. I've got 5 types planted over summer - two curly kales, one red and one green, cavolo nero, thousand head, and a headed kale for fermenting. I've also got the siberian variety self seeding everywhere which makes for decent leaves when they're young but quickly take over everywhere.

If you've got rotten timbers they're well worth adding to the bottom of any raised bed, they become a moisture reservoir. The theory around 'hugelkultur' where you essentially grow on top of old debris like trunks is interesting, a friend of mine does this and has amazing results - albeit it looks a bit more untidy than the usual garden.

I'm all for the rustic look and the laissez-faire attitude to digging

I think the old timber was tannelised so I'm getting shot of it and trying to source a cheap natural alternative. I assume the 'orrible chemicals are still present. There are a few sawmills around here so I'm planning on finding some off cuts of rough timber. The price of building materials has gone mental.

But thanks for that I have a few very old very rotten chopping block type slices of trunk that I've been leaving for the beetles and such next to the compost heap. I'll think about burying them when the time comes.

Tell me more about fermenting kale..

 

[magnkarl]

2 hours ago, VILLAMARV said:

I'm all for the rustic look and the laissez-faire attitude to digging

I think the old timber was tannelised so I'm getting shot of it and trying to source a cheap natural alternative. I assume the 'orrible chemicals are still present. There are a few sawmills around here so I'm planning on finding some off cuts of rough timber. The price of building materials has gone mental.

But thanks for that I have a few very old very rotten chopping block type slices of trunk that I've been leaving for the beetles and such next to the compost heap. I'll think about burying them when the time comes.

Tell me more about fermenting kale..

 

Take a cabbage, cut it into strips, put it in a fermenting jar with some salt and pour over the juices you get when cutting it. Add an air lock and bob's your uncle. You can add flavourings if you'd like too, for kimchi add lots of chili and spices, for sauerkraut all you essentially need is salt and cabbage. 

Do make sure to add some weight on top of the cabbage so it's fully submerged. Keep at room temp and taste test every day after about 5 days, it'll get more and more fermented each day. When you like the flavour put it in the cellar or fridge and it'll stop fermenting.

[magnkarl]

I've got some serious pyralid damage on some of my tomatos where I used homebase well rotted cow manure compost. It's such a shame that there aren't rules against pyralid use, when even organic fertilisers contain them we've got a massive issue. 

Lazy conventional farmers are seriously working hard at killing everything, kill everything not grass in a field > feed to cows > sell cow dung as 'organic' compost. Disgusting. I'm going to dig the plants up and get homebase to refund me for both the time and all the compost, and they better have a way to stop selling this #"¤"#.

[magnkarl]

So, after a very overcast July there's been a mixed bag of results in the garden this year.

Brassicas (kale, collard, broccoli) and beets (roots and leaf) are having the best year I can remember. The potatoes are doing fantastically with just leaving them on the ground and covering with mulch (old half-rotted woodchips). My outside tomatoes are covered in fruit, but doesn't want to seem to ripen. We need some consistent sunshine badly. 

My onions seem to be struggling with the same and I need some consistent good weather for them to swell properly. We've pickled more beets than I can ever remember, so everyone in the family knows what they'll be getting for Christmas  

What's done incredibly is my reintroduced wildflower meadows. There's just a constant stream of butterflies, bees and other pollinators, bugs of all sorts and a massive amount of birds swooping around the place. We've had a nightjar hunting over my little patch of wildflowers several nights in a row. What an incredible creature. It just takes so little for nature to reclaim ruined landscapes, and I'm hoping that what I've done on the council's ground can be replicated elsewhere.

 

[blandy]

Reasonable crop of Broad beans, French beans, borlotti beans etc. excellent and delicious crop of spuds. Toms, got loads now starting to ripen nicely. Carrot tops, planted to get seed for next year, thrived. Chillis as per the toms.

tiny patch of wildflowers and the buddleia bushes attracted loads of insects, but far fewer butterflies than last year.

Clematis got some kind of disease and looks half dead, even after removing all the black parts plus stems.

Nightjars. Wow!

[chrisp65]

Unrelenting shite for us this year.

Not a single day of rain locally through May and June, with the issues that caused. Not a single day without rain between start of July and August 4th.

Genuinely having discussions about handing the allotment back. We both work and so allotmentering has to be done evenings when I’m not working away, or the weekend. I’ve done a lot of working away, and every weekend for weeks has been close on storm conditions around here. 

The rent is due end of August. From when we had the allotment the annual fee has been £20, then two years ago it ‘jumped’ to £30, last year it was £60, end of this August it will be £120 because the council are bust and scrabbling around for pennies. So we have decide in the next couple of weeks, if we want to pay £120 for what has become essentially a patch of ground we weed every third weekend.

Coupled with that, I’ve built some planters out the garden that can get daily attention, which now feels more logical.

 

[magnkarl]

10 hours ago, blandy said:

Reasonable crop of Broad beans, French beans, borlotti beans etc. excellent and delicious crop of spuds. Toms, got loads now starting to ripen nicely. Carrot tops, planted to get seed for next year, thrived. Chillis as per the toms.

tiny patch of wildflowers and the buddleia bushes attracted loads of insects, but far fewer butterflies than last year.

Clematis got some kind of disease and looks half dead, even after removing all the black parts plus stems.

Nightjars. Wow!

Good to hear you’ve planted wildflowers. If you’re struggling for butterflies it’s generally a sign of missing host plants in your area or a general bad natural state. Butterflies suffer greatly from pollution.

Are the wildflowers British or one of them packets full of poppies and fancy American species?

Swallowtails like anything in the Herculanum-genus, carrot, caraway and angelica. Stinging nettle for admirals, tortoise, painted lady and comma butterflies. You can get a genus that doesn’t sting.

It’s all about little things. I’m so glad others are doing something too.

[TheAuthority]

6 hours ago, magnkarl said:

Good to hear you’ve planted wildflowers. If you’re struggling for butterflies it’s generally a sign of missing host plants in your area or a general bad natural state. Butterflies suffer greatly from pollution.

Are the wildflowers British or one of them packets full of poppies and fancy American species?

Swallowtails like anything in the Herculanum-genus, carrot, caraway and angelica. Stinging nettle for admirals, tortoise, painted lady and comma butterflies. You can get a genus that doesn’t sting.

It’s all about little things. I’m so glad others are doing something too.

Does letting my garden get overgrown count as helping the wildflowers?!

(because I'm too frickin' busy to keep up with it)

[blandy]

8 hours ago, magnkarl said:

Good to hear you’ve planted wildflowers. If you’re struggling for butterflies it’s generally a sign of missing host plants in your area or a general bad natural state. Butterflies suffer greatly from pollution.

Are the wildflowers British or one of them packets full of poppies and fancy American species?.

It’s all about little things. I’m so glad others are doing something too.

The absence of butterflies, or near absence is, I’m sure due to a mix of the wet weather and a continuing general decline in insect numbers. It’s frightening how nature depleted the country is.

Nearly everything in the garden is planted for the critters one way or another. And yes the wildflowers were from a British seed mix.

[one_ian_taylor]

On 12/06/2023 at 10:17, magnkarl said:

This year's big issue seems to be that the local birds are desperate for diggable ground, and my no-dig garden beds with wood chip\straw mulch seems to be the favourite. I don't particularly mind birds, and especially blackbirds as they're wonderful help too (they eat bugs!), but due to the dry weather they can't seem to find food anywhere else.The issue for me is that they mix the woodchip into the compost, which creates nitrogen depletion for the plants at least for the next year. I must revise my strategy close to the plants and rather use well rotted woodchip here. I've also got extensive deer\grazing damage on my fruit trees that aren't fenced in. The drought is really affecting the behaviour of wildlife.

In any case, from looking at my own garden compared to the neighbour's garden I'm really quite chuffed. Not digging the soil over is clearly helping the fungi and soil networks maintain moisture levels, my plants handle a lot more heat and dry weather than my neighbours and I only water every now and then with the little rainwater I can collect.

So far we've had home-grown vegetables for every meal since april 21st. The biggest producer is various lettuce which I take the laves off the sides of only leading the growing tip about once every two weeks, the first new potatoes are due to be harvested this week and the tomatos are looking good. I've scrounged a pallet greenhouse from the local recycling centre (who would throw that away?) in which I've planted 4 different kinds of melon in big cement mixing buckets and tied up with string. As a homage to Ukraine they're 3 Ukrainian sweet melon varieties, two watermelon and two sugar melons.

Mulch, mulch, mulch.

Tally so far for the season:

Kidney beans - 6 kilos

Lettuce - 8.8 kilos

Strawberries - 2.2 kilos

Honeyberry - 0.8 kilos

Spinach - 1.8 kilos

Mizuna - 0.8 kilos

Sugar snap peas - 0.6 kilos

Garlic - 12 kilos (harvested last week - a whopper of a year)

Spring onions - 2.1 kilos

Squash\zucchini - 0.3 kilos

Beetroot - 0.2 kilos

Chard - 1.8 kilos (by far the easiest and quickest saladcrop)

Radishes - 0.8 kilos

Carrots - 0.3 kilos

The garden is producing at levels I could never hope for before I started no dig. Some issues remain where the ground was badly depleted before we took over - the celery that I've stupidly put there is showing signs of yellowing and shall require some fertiliser of some kind (likely chicken manure).

 

Love this post. No dig is excellent. I haven't  been able to get to the allotment much over the last couple of years (babies), but still decent crops of courgettes, beans, greens, artichokes and currants. Reading your  post has made me really keen to get on it again this autumn

[magnkarl]

3 minutes ago, blandy said:

The absence of butterflies, or near absence is, I’m sure due to a mix of the wet weather and a continuing general decline in insect numbers. It’s frightening how nature depleted the country is.

Nearly everything in the garden is planted for the critters one way or another. And yes the wildflowers were from a British seed mix.

For sure, the wet July has taken a toll, especially for the migrating species (admiral, silver-y in particular), but there's a decent amount of the native species here. There didn't use to be, so the loss of habitat is 100% the biggest driver.

Your best bet is to pester your local council to leave some of their square miles of lawn uncut for some seasons, and only cut them when October\November rolls in. It really doesn't take more for the pioneer native flower species to get started.

[one_ian_taylor]

21 hours ago, magnkarl said:

So, after a very overcast July there's been a mixed bag of results in the garden this year.

Brassicas (kale, collard, broccoli) and beets (roots and leaf) are having the best year I can remember. The potatoes are doing fantastically with just leaving them on the ground and covering with mulch (old half-rotted woodchips). My outside tomatoes are covered in fruit, but doesn't want to seem to ripen. We need some consistent sunshine badly. 

My onions seem to be struggling with the same and I need some consistent good weather for them to swell properly. We've pickled more beets than I can ever remember, so everyone in the family knows what they'll be getting for Christmas  

What's done incredibly is my reintroduced wildflower meadows. There's just a constant stream of butterflies, bees and other pollinators, bugs of all sorts and a massive amount of birds swooping around the place. We've had a nightjar hunting over my little patch of wildflowers several nights in a row. What an incredible creature. It just takes so little for nature to reclaim ruined landscapes, and I'm hoping that what I've done on the council's ground can be replicated elsewhere.

 

What's  your best pickling  recipe? Had some fermented beer from a market a few years back, was incredible 

[magnkarl]

2 hours ago, TheAuthority said:

Does letting my garden get overgrown count as helping the wildflowers?!

(because I'm too frickin' busy to keep up with it)

It depends on what is growing there. If you'd like to keep your garden this way and help the local wildlife you'd need to remove all invasive species and sow a wildflower mix suitable to your area. For my areas I've gone over with the lawn mower set to really low a couple of times and then spread seed for chalk-based meadows (that's what we have here). 

The one biggest driver for bumblebees is willow of some sort, you can get dwarf varieties that go well in the corner of a garden.

[magnkarl]

5 minutes ago, one_ian_taylor said:

What's  your best pickling  recipe? Had some fermented beer from a market a few years back, was incredible 

Depends on what we have available tbh. For the beets I use a serrated knife to create nice patterns on the slices of beet and then I chuck them into glasses almost to the top, fill in some herbs\spices (usually dill, caraway, garlic, mustard seeds), cook up vinegar and sugar and then pour that over. Then I put the whole lot into the oven at 120 degrees to get sterilised and bob's your uncle. 

[blandy]

1 minute ago, magnkarl said:

For sure, the wet July has taken a toll, especially for the migrating species (admiral, silver-y in particular), but there's a decent amount of the native species here. There didn't use to be, so the loss of habitat is 100% the biggest driver.

Your best bet is to pester your local council to leave some of their square miles of lawn uncut for some seasons, and only cut them when October\November rolls in. It really doesn't take more for the pioneer native flower species to get started.

It’s different habitat here. Coastal, reasonable areas have wildflowers, though some are grazed. The species mix is different as a consequence. The council does leave some verges etc to grow for extended periods. The farmers are less nature friendly, mind - Hedgerows are thrashed, fields are monoculture deserts. Golf courses are another barren area.

Ive seen no bats this year. Usually I see them at dusk under the oak tree catching midges and moths, but this year, no midges either and not so many moths.

Anyway, gardening…mine might be a tiny jungle, but I much prefer it to the gravel or plastic grass that some of the other houses in the street have.