How Does Your Garden Grow?

[DAPPH]

Not sure about chopped off flowers but we leave as many wild flowers as we can and also have "hotels" for solitary bees. Yesterday we watched small black bees investigating, this morning there are neat plugs of cut leaf in several. In other ones they are plugged with mud.
Nothing with a flower is a weed (subject to not being overrun).

Apparently a weed is just a flower in the wrong place .

 

[DAPPH]

Cheers. It's not so much the space, just that they've all (all four of them) turned up at the same time and there's only so much lettuce I can eat. I planted a couple of rows of them, and of onions, but it's just swamped with potatoes that shouldn't be there. I'll have to clear it properly next time.

Just do the cutting & de budding exercise already mentioned every few days and simply compost want you don't want.

 

[MattF]

Apparently a weed is just a flower in the wrong place .

That's pretty much the definition of a weed. No plant is a weed, until someone decides they don't want it where it is. A rose bush, for example, can be classed a weed if the person doesn't desire it there.

 

[droopsnoot]

To kill dandelions , cut the root just below the leaves and pour on 1/4 teaspoon of ordinary salt directly on the white cut root .
If you don't salt the root they will heal the wound & in most cases within 48 hours start to put out new leaves buds from the nearest to the surface growth nodes & carry on growing into a new plant .

I did have a go at that, I must admit the ones I cut out of the front lawn yesterday I didn't do the salt bit, just the cutting. Will the salt affect the grass?

 

[DAPPH]

I did have a go at that, I must admit the ones I cut out of the front lawn yesterday I didn't do the salt bit, just the cutting. Will the salt affect the grass?

If your careful and only use that small amount of salt precisely placed on the newly cut root , all you'll notice is a dark mark about the size of a two pence piece for a week or so till the grass encroaches over the area , the cutters on the mower to 30 mm or 40 mm higher and you'll barely even know it's there Plus having the grass a bit longer in hot weather to help stop it drying out & dying off as quick as a skin head lawn does.

 

[redlig]

Apparently a weed is just a flower in the wrong place .

Apparently a weed is just a flower in the wrong place .

It might not give the exhibitors at the Chelsea Garden Show any worries but this ,what ever it is, is a self seeded 'weed' that we thought was attractive enough to just leave to its own devices.

 

[Onoff]

Seemingly now clear of blackfly. Not sure if it's because of my efforts with manually getting rid, the accompanying dusting with peppermint spray oil or that I now have spiders and ladybirds living on the plants. Probably a combination. No beans yet but a good few flowers.

 

[aesmith]

We want bean pictures. Are you getting any from the climbing beans yet?

 

[Onoff]

We want bean pictures. Are you getting any from the climbing beans yet?

None from the above runners on the A frame or from the runners in pots.

Only beans so far are from the dwarf ones.

 

[DAPPH]

Seemingly now clear of blackfly. Not sure if it's because of my efforts with manually getting rid, the accompanying dusting with peppermint spray oil or that I now have spiders and ladybirds living on the plants. Probably a combination. No beans yet but a good few flowers.
View attachment 356142

None from the above runners on the A frame or from the runners in pots.

Only beans so far are from the dwarf ones.

To night give the flowers a very fine water hose spray to wet & set the flowers there won't have been much nectar or pollen produced in these hot conditions , most honey bees other bee tyeps & various insects will be at the nest / hive bringing in water & fanning the nests to keep the beeswax from melting & killing the hive or cooking any eggs

 

[Onoff]

To night give the flowers a very fine water hose spray to wet & set the flowers there won't have been much nectar or pollen produced in these hot conditions , most honey bees other bee tyeps & various insects will be at the nest / hive bringing in water & fanning the nests to keep the beeswax from melting & killing the hive or cooking any eggs

It's just started raining here.

 

[Onoff]

We want bean pictures.

And bean pictures you shall have! Only just noticed them tbh I never knew how they formed until now.

 

[aesmith]

Last couple of days our F Beans hit critical mass, cropping faster than we are eating them. She's put a few packs out in the honesty box where we sell the eggs, we'll see if there are any takers.

 

[Onoff]

Last couple of days our F Beans hit critical mass, cropping faster than we are eating them. She's put a few packs out in the honesty box where we sell the eggs, we'll see if there are any takers.

This rain I reckon will bring mine on. Hopefully a bumper crop. If I can't give the excess away it'll be bean wine, bean relish...

 

[DAPPH]

Last couple of days our F Beans hit critical mass, cropping faster than we are eating them. She's put a few packs out in the honesty box where we sell the eggs, we'll see if there are any takers.

Blanche heat seal & freeze them in family meal quantities . You can also do dilly pickle french climbing & bush beans ....... nice with a salad , in a sandwich or a couple with cheese & a cool beer . You can always harvest and de- pod them, laying the beans out to dry then when well died store in a screw top jar to use in soups etc. If you don't keep picking the plant senses that it have fulfilled it's duty to reproduce and will change modes and stop further flowering and put it's energies into ripening the beans in the pods .
It's a bit like dead heading flowers to ensure you have a long flowering season . This applies to most of the legume family veg too .

 

[aesmith]

Blanching sounds too much faff. Frozen without blanching, they tasted disgusting.

 

[T5 TDI]

When we have got too many beans and tomatoes Mrs T makes a bean salad. It's made using fine beans cut into inch pieces, cherry tomatoes cut in half, small feta cheese squares and olives in a bowl with some sweet chilli sauce mixed in. If you have a dish of this on the table at a BBQ, it will vanish quickly because it looks and tastes great.

 

[Onoff]

Help me out here...I've got 50 of the things and I've stared at them but how does the bean form?

A flower appears, I think the bean forms "behind" that and pushes the flower "out" as I've got little beans with the remnants of flowers hanging off the pointy end, attached by the merest thread.

 

[DAPPH]

Blanching sounds too much faff. Frozen without blanching, they tasted disgusting.

Help me out here...I've got 50 of the things and I've stared at them but how does the bean form?

A flower appears, I think the bean forms "behind" that and pushes the flower "out" as I've got little beans with the remnants of flowers hanging off the pointy end, attached by the merest thread.

19 seconds in boiling water in a sieve , then out , drain a few seconds then into iced water , swirled about 10 sec or so till cool , drained 20 sec . Portioned vac packed & heat sealed then frozen it's easy to do 5 lb in about 15 min to give 25 packs .

 

[Onoff]

What have I learnt? Control the blackfly earlier for a start.

I don't seem to have many flowers "low down" tbh. Were they destroyed early on before I properly got on top of the blackfly?



The layered trench though seems to be holding moisture well, see how dark the soil is in comparison:



These are about the biggest runners in the trench at the mo. I've plenty it seems in the upper layers of the foilaige:



The potted runners...well, not even worth taking an in focus photo: