How Does Your Garden Grow?

[DAPPH]

Very possibly - I haven't been sure about how often they need to be watered, and was also trying to avoid watering them too much. I haven't been giving them food quite as often - just once a week (because I didn't read the packet properly) and I forgot for a few weeks. The plants are getting very warm in the afternoons as they sit in a greenhouse on the back of the house, and the sun comes around there from just after lunch and stays there until early evening. Unfortunately that's also the time I'm out, so quite often I'd get back around 5pm to find them quite badly wilted, so would give them some more water.

The greenhouse they're in is a lean-to on the back of the house. The glass roof panels were replaced by sheets of opaque glazing sheet a few years back, so there's some shade but unfortunately the roof opening isn't there any more. I want to put it back to glass when I can, but because the structure isn't square (it was installed on a concrete base that slopes away from the house slightly) I also want to strip all the glass out, square it up, and then re-glaze it. Because that's a big job, and requires all the junk to be emptied out, it won't be happening soon. Plants 24" apart? No chance. And if I transfer some to the other greenhouse, I'll probably forget to water them. But that also needs clearing out - it's been used as a junk store for ages and it's taking time to sort it. Lots of plastic things in there just drop to pieces when I touch them, and there's a wild sweet pea growing around the inside.

I'll try to remember all these things for next year, if I grow some more. Thanks for the notes.

I'd be ******** without my automatic time clocked water misting irrigation set up . I wasted lots of dosh trying to find things that worked & were reliable after eight or nine false starts I finally settled with Hoselock connectors to taps , Hoselock timers and Antelc variable spray micro misting heads & all the half & 1/4 inch neoprene tubing and all the connectors f& crimps from " Wetwise.co.uk " , I'd have saved three or four hundred quid or more if I' d found somebody with the knowledge in the first place & got their advice , but that's what makes experience an expensive commodity one way or another .

 

[Onoff]

What ails my runners?

These are some of the trenched ones? Some have green nodules on, I think there's an infestation in the nodules. Whatever "hatches" and leaves these damaged areas behind.

At the mo it's a minority but anxious to nip it in the bud.

 

[RobCox]

Dunno, but ours were a total letdown this year. Might have been the heat (still not rained properly here) or maybe I crammed too many round the sticks - they got frosted after I put them out and I shoved more beans in the soil as insurance.
Courgettes have been ok, not as good as previous years, again the heat.
Some tomato plants we got given by our neighbour who grew them from seed have thrived on my special treatment - neglect!

 

[Anguz]

All the tomatoe plants i set this year and looked after died...
The runt that i rejected planting in the greenhouse, and dumped has more toms that the rest put together

 

[DAPPH]

What ails my runners?

These are some of the trenched ones? Some have green nodules on, I think there's an infestation in the nodules. Whatever "hatches" and leaves these damaged areas behind.

At the mo it's a minority but anxious to nip it in the bud.

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Looks a bit like white fly attack where they have laid eggs . Use Resolva bug spray and leave them alone for three or so days then ( read the instructions carefully ) they are eatable and the rest of the crop should be OK .

Got my first 18 Mange Tout's off my sown from a packet of kitchen use dried marrowfat peas , sown as a last resort after slugs , snails & baby birds ate all my earlier sown ones Could be a real good crop as well .

 

[Onoff]

For my spotty beans I'm thinking give everything a spray with neem oil solution, maybe peppermint oil first but I've some neem coming as I've read it's good for green shield bugs. Years back I bought a no name, generic sprayer like below from I think Screwfix. Used a few times with degreaser in for the car etc. Next time I went to use it it wouldnt hold pressure. The seam on the base had split along about an inch. Is plastic "welding" with a soldering iron tip an option?

 

[DAPPH]

We used to use heated nitrogen gas through a fine jet small welding torch and strips or rods of the same plastic as a filler . The gas not only gave the heat it also gave an inert shield to weld the plastics that had split .

I doubt you would get a safe penetration or the right temp from a solder iron ca 260 oC or so . Those sort of seams are usually ultrasonically welded . For a quick attempt ensure the inside is bone dry . pour some good old fashioned Evo -Stic or a bottle of Copydex in and slowly roll it about the split then let it dry ,. Economically it might not be viable as you can get neww sprayers for almost the same cost as a tin of Evo-stic or bottle of Copydex .


Degreasers and lots of other neat spirit /volatile oil chemical kill such sprayers . A fence sprayer by Cuprinol might be better for such chemicals that are sprayed on undiluted ( though do read the information sheet about this )

A single handed adjustable sprayer from a pound shop or home bargains type places can be had for a couple of quid & holds about a litre .
There are also some very cheap pump up adjustable spray inserts that you can put in the top of 1 or 2 litre pop bottles .

 

[Cobbler]

Years ago, my father had one of those pressure sprayers, he was on holiday when I wanted to reproof my tent. I thought ahh, garden sprayer, tent proofer, dad on holiday great! Now my father was quite fussy & would never let me use it for this, so tent proofed & sprayer put back & nothing said. A few weeks later & I heard the humph humph of dad pumping it up, suddenly there was an enormous bang & bits of plastic spread all round the garden. Obviously something in the proofer had degraded the plastic, needless to say I said nothing

 

[Onoff]

Neem oil spray...

Gave to my daughter to make up the potion figuring she's at least half witch from SWMBO. Well she was gagging at the smell, it really is quite offensive and then some! Went for the natural neem spray concoction. 2L of it applied by spray to the 50 bean plants. I was surprised how far it went.

 

[Kram]

Just bought a small Morello cherry tree root ball/stick from the range.

Could use advice how best to plant it. We have a quite shallow layer of shiet top soil followed by hard clay, so the plan is to use the hole borer to make a decent deep hole and replace the clay under it with decent soil, so it has a better chance at survival..

 

[DAPPH]

Years ago, my father had one of those pressure sprayers, he was on holiday when I wanted to reproof my tent. I thought ahh, garden sprayer, tent proofer, dad on holiday great! Now my father was quite fussy & would never let me use it for this, so tent proofed & sprayer put back & nothing said. A few weeks later & I heard the humph humph of dad pumping it up, suddenly there was an enormous bang & bits of plastic spread all round the garden. Obviously something in the proofer had degraded the plastic, needless to say I said nothing

Chicken !

 

[DAPPH]

Just bought a small Morello cherry tree root ball/stick from the range.

Could use advice how best to plant it. We have a quite shallow layer of shiet top soil followed by hard clay, so the plan is to use the hole borer to make a decent deep hole and replace the clay under it with decent soil, so it has a better chance at survival..

Dad used to do that on Lincolnshire's finest blue clay , he called the four foot deep four foot round holes filled with 7 yr old composted cow shed manure mixed with sand his " pit pots "
Surprisingly clay soils contain all the nutrient needed for growing of crops, it's the drying out thus making the nutrients inaccessible that causes the problems . The deeper you can get the stable moisture & humus the better you grow crops .

Once the fruit trees produced each year after they got an autumn dressing of another six inches of compost and in spring to help the tree on a few gallons of home made liquid manure dosed with brown sugar to feed the microbes in th liquid feed .

Cherry trees , like plum trees tend to be surface root feeders so think of a 15 foot radius to feed round each tree . Do that and you'll have amazing crops if they escape the frosts and birds .

 

[Ross365]

Just bought a small Morello cherry tree root ball/stick from the range.

Could use advice how best to plant it. We have a quite shallow layer of shiet top soil followed by hard clay, so the plan is to use the hole borer to make a decent deep hole and replace the clay under it with decent soil, so it has a better chance at survival..

Same sort of problem here; dries like concrete in summer and is always soggy through the winter. I don't have direct experience of cherry trees, but your idea sounds pretty good to me. Possibly, a few Growmore pellets mixed in with the soil to help it on its way?

 

[Onoff]

Cherry trees

Poxy things! Mine's coming your way, in pieces when I take it down!

 

[DAPPH]

I've pot grown a black cherry stone from a last years cherry , it's about seven inches tall . Over wintered it in the glass house with a load of other saplings .
The punnet of cherries it came out of were delicious . If I get it into a 30 litre tub this year and grow it to three foot tall it should survive on the fringe of the woodland at the bottom of the garden where the lechate from my seven composting bins drains on to . There are plenty of other cherry trees in the locality but I doubt many will be black cherries.

 

[JimmyS]

Weve got a couple of cherry trees growing here and we're on clay soil. Ones on colt rootstock and the other is on grisella I think it's called. They've both done pretty well on heavy clay.

 

[Onoff]

I've a huge cherry tree on clay here. Really healthy, trunk must be 18" dia. Massive crop of fruit most years but the birds get 99%. Only issue is its really too close to the house, the roots spread and have lifted the patio slabs etc.

 

[Onoff]

Late to the party as ever, it's the start of May and I've done nothing on the veg patch front!

Just ordered my runner bean seeds, some lettuce and beetroot too.

The sleeper sided veg patch is in a sorry state. The box section frame I erected over it (visions of a net), has partially collapsed where the printed PETG connectors gave up the ghost in last years heat. Where I reinforced the corners with gussets, they're OK.

The weirdest thing though, dead centre of where the bean trench was I've developed a hump, a damn great mound risen up from nowhere and covered in nettles! Pics later.

 

[Morris]

Ant nest?

 

[droopsnoot]

I've got onions coming up in the vegetable patch, I bought some sets at the end of last season for hardly any money at Wilkos, and planted them around November / December as it said on the packet. They all seem to have come up, but the packet says leave them until the leaves die off so I will do.

I also have some more potatoes coming up, despite me thinking that I'd made a better job of clearing the patch this time. And a lot of random weeds that are starting to take over. Tomatoes are still inside the house, I'm hoping it'll start to stay warm enough overnight to put them out in the lean-to greenhouse as there isn't much room left now.