How Does Your Garden Grow?

Onoff · May 8, 2024

Seadog said:
A rather nice self-set White Campion.

Apparently the seed pods contain Saponins, so can be used as a soap substitute.

View attachment 448418

I wonder if you could make your own agricultural soap? Mix with neem oil in a litre spray bottle of water. Keeps pests away.

Ross365 · May 8, 2024

DANDELIONS! In the past, I pretty much totally blitzed dandelions at the first sight. But people tell me that, especially early in the year, they are part of the limited food source for bees.

Can anyone offer me advice on striking a balance between not having the lawns covered in dandelions - but trying to be kind to the bees? I'm turning a in to a bit of a tree-hugger in my old age

Seadog · May 8, 2024

Ross365 said:
DANDELIONS! In the past, I pretty much totally blitzed dandelions at the first sight. But people tell me that, especially early in the year, they are part of the limited food source for bees.

Can anyone offer me advice on striking a balance between not having the lawns covered in dandelions - but trying to be kind to the bees? I'm turning a in to a bit of a tree-hugger in my old age

Ignore the lawn

addjunkie · May 8, 2024

Ross365 said:
DANDELIONS! In the past, I pretty much totally blitzed dandelions at the first sight. But people tell me that, especially early in the year, they are part of the limited food source for bees.

Can anyone offer me advice on striking a balance between not having the lawns covered in dandelions - but trying to be kind to the bees? I'm turning a in to a bit of a tree-hugger in my old age

wild flower garden, or only mow part of your garden

gaz1 · May 8, 2024

Ross365 said:
DANDELIONS! In the past, I pretty much totally blitzed dandelions at the first sight. But people tell me that, especially early in the year, they are part of the limited food source for bees.

Can anyone offer me advice on striking a balance between not having the lawns covered in dandelions - but trying to be kind to the bees? I'm turning a in to a bit of a tree-hugger in my old age

im blitz with the things so ive dug every bed over and pulled as many as i can get rid of im on the second lot now but ive got to pull every head off them and get rid while i have the chance

the back garden has become full of them in the mean time and i havent had chance to get to that one yet

and im not paying 10.00 a month for that garden bin id rather burn the things in a wood gassifier as its the only way to stop the damn things smoking away like the leaves do if you try to burn them

Onoff · May 8, 2024

Last year I tried No Mow May. Never again. Still need to get some lawn areas back to, well mowable lawn. I'm having to scythe it (think Poldark...or more mouldy old fart

) then lawn rake so as to give the critters a chance to make their exit with getting chopped to pieces.

Tbh I live in the middle of nowhere on half an acre. About 50% is wild anyway so there's plenty of habitat and wildflower patches.

My main concern is isolating populations of wildlife.

Onoff · May 8, 2024

Ross365 said:
Can anyone offer me advice on not having the lawns covered in dandelions

Make dandelion wine!

DAPPH · May 9, 2024

Onoff said:
My meagre attempts at gardening, a clutch of runner beans or whatever the collective term is (a tin?).

On the left 17 Tongue Of Fire saved from last year's crop and 3 new seeds.

In the middle 3 Greek Gigantes, soup beans and 15 Stringless Emergo.

Then on the right, 12 Czar saved from last year and 3 new ones from this years packet.

https://flic.kr/p/2pPHyj9

The "lolly sticks" cut from old 5L plastic containers.

Must make another seed tray.

I'm as tight as I have no idea about gardening.

Really need a shed / tool store:

https://flic.kr/p/2pPHyoH

Bloody cowslips everywhere, it'll be bloody pyramid orchids next!

Rectangular 25 litre plastic containers cut length wise make brilliant seed trays 2 for one .... so long as you drill a few 3 mm drain holes in the bottom . , you can also use the high sides as a shoulder to cover over with cling film thus making a mini greenhouse of each tray .. far cheaper than buying them as prices have gone Covid stupid .

Olha has seen everyone of her 30 capsicum 15-20 mm tall seedlings gobbled up over night by miniature slugs . Slug pellets don't work on these BTDS.

So last night I used a small de topped cylinder that holds a 15 ltr bucket of mixed peat & home made compost to make a steamer container to run off our ancient Bosch steamer two hours of steamig through a specially made welded inb lowdown nozzle and the whole container was too hot to touch . With luck all creepie crawlies & any eggs or seeds will have been sterilized . This lunch time Olha transplanted ( fingers crossed it works ) the newest un touched capsicum seedling into bottomless seed tubes pack with the sterilized medium . Handling seedling s by their stems is likely to kill the seedling.
Normally you only use the second set of leave edges ( true leaf ) to handle seedlings when pricking them out and transplanting them .
I'm off out to the glasshouse in a few minutes with a UV torch and a normal torch to check for baby slugs scoffing my seedlings.

DAPPH · May 9, 2024

Onoff said:
Make dandelion wine!

Or If you don't like dandelion wine slice the dandelions just below the surface and pour half a teaspoon of salt on each cut off remaining root. It will kill off the root , I try and cut the lawn as son as I notice unopened flower heads appearing and drop the shredded plants into a lidded tub of water so they quickly 7 effectively rot to make a rich liquid manure to pour in to my composters ,

DAPPH · May 9, 2024

Onoff said:
I wonder if you could make your own agricultural soap? Mix with neem oil in a litre spray bottle of water. Keeps pests away.

Read up on uses for horse chestnut soap

DAPPH · May 9, 2024

Ross365 said:
DANDELIONS! In the past, I pretty much totally blitzed dandelions at the first sight. But people tell me that, especially early in the year, they are part of the limited food source for bees.

Can anyone offer me advice on striking a balance between not having the lawns covered in dandelions - but trying to be kind to the bees? I'm turning a in to a bit of a tree-hugger in my old age

When dandelions are in flower there are plenty of other wild plants in flower ( Used to keep 100 hives of bees in summer & overwintered 50 in winter )

droopsnoot · May 9, 2024

I tend to pull the heads off dandelions when the flowers open, then leave them lying around. I think that still allows the bees to have what they want (and someone suggested there's some extra for them in the broken stem) but they don't get as far as the point where they spread seeds. I'm not sure whether this is really true. I also have a lot of yellow poppies, which unfortunately makes it easy to miss one.

Greeves246 · May 9, 2024

As my grandfather said to me many moons ago, “ one year’s seed, seven years weed”.

Onoff · May 9, 2024

DAPPH said:
Rectangular 25 litre plastic containers cut length wise make brilliant seed trays 2 for one .... so long as you drill a few 3 mm drain holes in the bottom . , you can also use the high sides as a shoulder to cover over with cling film thus making a mini greenhouse of each tray .. far cheaper than buying them as prices have gone Covid stupid .

I've accumulated a few of these of late that had water treatment chemicals in. They should rinse out OK. The plan WAS to make storage crates but maybe I'll sacrifice a couple.

DAPPH · May 11, 2024

Success was had , going out after midnight with the UV & an Led torch & reading glasses on . I found several mini black slugs about 2.5mm long & one snail the side of my ring fingers nail crawling across the tops of the plastic seed tube edges totally leaving the white slug & snail pellets alone . BTD's!
I have a dilutable liquid slug & snail killer ( not recommended for veg ) made up two gallons to the correct strength and watered all seed tubes well with it. I've also used a chopped down popular steel cylind ,welded an adaptor spigot in the base to take our Bosch steam Generator gun nozzle and have managed to sterilize a 12 litre bucket of well mixed home made compost and peat . Rolled out the contents when it had cooled and found all manner of stone dead bugs slugs , snails and boiled pest eggs including the dreaded wire worms. Hanve now done a total of four barrels of the sterilized medium /

So from now on we will only be seed sowing in sterilized medium with an added inoculant of yeasts & bacteria , brewed up in a lidded poly bucket to kick start the natural bio decomposition within the growth medium .

The inoculant is made by dumpling in a lidded bin three days worth of uncooked kitchen veg , fruit scraps and any bits of bread , a half bucket of lawn mowing's and 8 litres of cold water then stir in half a pint of yoghurt and stir it every day for five days . Strain off the elixir through a few clean unused Jay cloths or similar and use a cup if the liquid per watering can of water to wet up the sterile growth medium . The Yoghurt trick is often used to get a septic tank back to decomposition mode if the family has been put on antibiotics and their fecal output has killed the tank bacteria off . Four ounces of well cooled dissolves sugar will also kick start many beneficial plant useable yeasts of in the elixir

Onoff · May 11, 2024

DAPPH said:
The Yoghurt trick is often used to get a septic tank back to decomposition mode if the family has been put on antibiotics and their fecal output has killed the tank bacteria off .

...or a dead cat, rabbit etc

Sergei Slovenija · May 11, 2024

DAPPH said:
Success was had , going out after midnight with the UV & an Led torch & reading glasses on . I found several mini black slugs about 2.5mm long & one snail the side of my ring fingers nail crawling across the tops of the plastic seed tube edges totally leaving the white slug & snail pellets alone . BTD's!
I have a dilutable liquid slug & snail killer ( not recommended for veg ) made up two gallons to the correct strength and watered all seed tubes well with it. I've also used a chopped down popular steel cylind ,welded an adaptor spigot in the base to take our Bosch steam Generator gun nozzle and have managed to sterilize a 12 litre bucket of well mixed home made compost and peat . Rolled out the contents when it had cooled and found all manner of stone dead bugs slugs , snails and boiled pest eggs including the dreaded wire worms. Hanve now done a total of four barrels of the sterilized medium /

So from now on we will only be seed sowing in sterilized medium with an added inoculant of yeasts & bacteria , brewed up in a lidded poly bucket to kick start the natural bio decomposition within the growth medium .

The inoculant is made by dumpling in a lidded bin three days worth of uncooked kitchen veg , fruit scraps and any bits of bread , a half bucket of lawn mowing's and 8 litres of cold water then stir in half a pint of yoghurt and stir it every day for five days . Strain off the elixir through a few clean unused Jay cloths or similar and use a cup if the liquid per watering can of water to wet up the sterile growth medium . The Yoghurt trick is often used to get a septic tank back to decomposition mode if the family has been put on antibiotics and their fecal output has killed the tank bacteria off . Four ounces of well cooled dissolves sugar will also kick start many beneficial plant useable yeasts of in the elixir

It is also worth adding mycorrhizal symbionts.

Onoff · May 11, 2024

Potted my beans in a bag of unopened compost bought from Lidl last year. Got tiny little green plants growing that aren't beans!

Could be from the manky water I used I guess:

https://flic.kr/p/2pQwQep

God mode restorations · May 12, 2024

My garden survived the winter and it's now all coming back to life. Its been hard graft nurturing everything but all is good. We did our own hanging baskets this year to.