I have a Beef Steak tomato plant which should produce a large slicing tomato. It is covered in small green tomatoes. Should I remove some so the others have room to grow? I have done this with fruit trees but never had this issue with a tomato plant before.
I love my hostas which I grow in pots. Unfortunately so do the slugs. I have always had a problem with shredded leaves. This year however I have found a solution which has worked.
Our local farm shop does takeaway coffee, and they bag up the used grounds, and put them on the counter to take for free. I piled up the grounds on the pots, and voila, almost no shredding. The bonus is wafts of coffee aroma when you water them, if you like that sort of thing.
After three months they are beginning to lose their effectiveness, so I will be back to the farm shop for some top up.
Key is to put loads on, acts as an effective mulch too.
The problem with perennials (including bushes, shrubs) is that since they know they're going to get another try each year, they don't feel the need to have a particularly long bloom period. One glorious go and that's it. That's why so many gardeners fill in with annuals, which know they need to bloom as long as possible.
Though you might consider crepe myrtle if it grows where you are, as something that has a good long bloom period. It's just starting here. Or else go for something that has visually interesting leaves/bark, like smokebush. Alternately, stick a vine or three among your bushes--something (like blue morning glory) that will climb up the others and have pretty flowers. Though you'll have to research your choice to make sure you don't get something that completely buries them, or that just doesn't look well together (says she, thinking of the maypop passionflower that is taking over the juniper).
The peas are blossoming! I've never been so excited about a plant. Also I managed to sow my carrots on top of the spinach, so those 2 rows are looking interesting. Fortunately we're doing this to teach the little one, so now he knows not to do that, I guess.
I spray painted a large kettle type bar-be-que we have not used for years. I removed the top and turned the bottom into a planter. I am now spray painting the grill screen and wiring on beads to stand on end, and provide a back drop for the white daisies I planted and I have added two white ceramic rabbits I had stored in the closet. This is my first go at garden art and so far I am happy with the results. The other good part and must admit I did not plan it, is that the rain bird water spray that keeps our ground cover moist just also happens to spray wide enough to water the bar-be-que.
I spray painted a large kettle type bar-be-que we have not used for years. I removed the top and turned the bottom into a planter. I am now spray painting the grill screen and wiring on beads to stand on end, and provide a back drop for the white daisies I planted and I have added two white ceramic rabbits I had stored in the closet. This is my first go at garden art and so far I am happy with the results. The other good part and must admit I did not plan it, is that the rain bird water spray that keeps our ground cover moist just also happens to spray wide enough to water the bar-be-que.
I love my hostas which I grow in pots. Unfortunately so do the slugs. I have always had a problem with shredded leaves. This year however I have found a solution which has worked.
Our local farm shop does takeaway coffee, and they bag up the used grounds, and put them on the counter to take for free. I piled up the grounds on the pots, and voila, almost no shredding. The bonus is wafts of coffee aroma when you water them, if you like that sort of thing.
After three months they are beginning to lose their effectiveness, so I will be back to the farm shop for some top up.
Key is to put loads on, acts as an effective mulch too.
What you need is a friendly hedgehog! But thanks for the handy hint - I dug my hosta up as I have a flagged walled yard and so hedgehogs can't get in to help me out. I despaired in the end but your hint may persuade me to try again.
I have picked some of my light pink unripe tomatoes as it is over 100F here and is reported to stay the same for the next week. I read when it is that hot to pick the tomatoes and let them finish ripening inside. I will see how it works.
The pansies in my tubs are over and I'm after advice for autumn colour. Do I need to replenish the compost? It was new this year. Can I bury bulbs ready for spring?
I returned from my 8 day fire evacuation to find all of my tomato plants dried and dead, but covered with red ripe tomatoes so I spent the morning making and freezing tomato soup. The mint also looks dead, but perhaps it may return. The chives look fine, as does my potted geranium which I just had time to set in a bucket of water. Some sweet sheriff deputy came around and checked everyone's front door and watered front yard plants.
I have had an erection in the garden and caused a fence in the neighbourhood! At long last I have a fence at the bottom of the garden and, one more job allowing, I can get on with a plant buying binge and get the wildlife planting going!
A reader, not poster, but, the way we Australians mark seasons (I understand parts or all of Europe is different), today, 01/09, is the first day of spring and "Wattle Day" nationally as the wattle is in full bloom currently. Probably my favourite native plant with its flowers of gold. Thought you may like to see.
So the pansies in the tubs have been a picture all summer but are now over and being consigned to the green compost bin. I like the idea of putting spring bulbs in the tubs now (iris and crocus); can I plant the bulbs quite deeply and then put something on top that will give some autumn colour? Do Shipmates have any ideas? I may take a mooch round the little local garden shop later. Would I need to replace the compost? It was new this year.
Yes, you can plant bulbs (maybe with a little bulb food) and put something temporary on top. What depends on temps (they offer us nothing but ornamental kale here once the pansies have gone). If the temps get too low, plant the bulbs toward the center, away from the walls, or else protect the pot. I put a single wide stack of bricks around mine one year and that was good enough to get lotus through subzero temps.
I just pulled out the peas ya'll helped me with. Thank you! They did great (although they didn't know they were supposed to climb the trellis). More importantly: Littles picked his own peas and ate them willingly! Next I have to convince him to help eat the zucchini from the 6 plants we planted (I didn't know any better). I'm thinking he can help make muffins.
4°C last night. Frost warnings rest of the week. I'm coming the remains of the lettuce for breakfast. We're covering the tomatoes for now. It's clearly fall here. Praying for lots of snow but it can hold off for 6v weeks.
Eyeing the veg-in-pots and trying to decide what plants could do with another week or two (as I am living in hope of some warmth). And which need emptying right now.
The compost bin is filling up nicely and six pots are repurposed.
Q:
Will summer sown chard , that white stemmed sturdy sort, cope with the winter Outside in pots?
Or should the pots be in a greenhouse?
Ever hopeful, I do have a small bed of chard that could have fleece wellsecured over it if need be.
I find chard doesn't like heat, but is OK in winter. Depending of course, where you are. My wife is currently eating chard, tree spinach, and good king Henry, the latter two sort of green tasting.
Beautiful warm September day here, but the door to the garden is blocked by ladders, and I feel the need to be on hand to advise on the intermittent crises of installing a new kitchen.
Spent the morning with a friend dividing clumps of agapanthus with a heavy sharp-edged spade and two gardening forks. Never again, never, never, never. Which is what I said last time and left the agapanthus to clump up for six years.
Autumn raspberries abundant this year. And I haven't a clue why, maybe lots of sun and heat. Also, a late spurt of Californian poppies, same reason? (London).
I had lots of gardening plans for the spring 2021. But we have now booked to be in Germany for the whole of June. Not a good month for the garden to be neglected. 🤔
My brother will come and water once a week but that’s not enough for tomatoes and such. 🧐
The bed is netted as well as having the winter layer of fleece and, judging by the holes pecked in the mature leaves when they reach the top of the netting, the sparrows would eat it all year.
I expect it depends on what else is available to them. I do wonder if it is the water content of the leaves that they are going for.
They have also been known to strip every single leaf from my entire sowing of beets.
It was, but not as annoying as the fox that got under the netting and dug up the soil around the newly planted chard in the spring.
It doesn't dig the plants up, it digs between them and either smothers them with loose soil or tips them over. It also digs in the flower pots - and occasionally buries eggs in them.
Wooo! I have the shedette on a new slab base - not perfect, but done to the very best of my ability and much, much more level than it was before - which means I can tidy up the back corner and start getting the back bed planted with plants instead of with crap! We've been and cleared out the local *nursery* - a real one, not just somewhere with a plant area squeezed in amongst the franchises (anyone in the Oxfordshire area, PM me and I'll recommend it to you!) - and as soon as there's some moisture in the soil I'll be away!
...and we went and kept the local nursery in business for a bit longer on the Sunday. Now I just need the weather to turn so we can get stuff in without needing too much watering...
Wooo! Back bed planted up! A few things won't arrive until spring, but hopefully I've got all the basics in now. Cotoneaster and pyracantha for the birds, sarcococca for winter smelling, lots of geraniums for ground cover, hellebores for early nectar (and brightening the dark days), a hydrangea paniculata and a mahonia for more smelliness.
I've also started clearing the allotment for the winter, having lifted my paltry potato crop, and got the garlic in (garlic, so I am told, doesn't like a rich soil, so I always plant mine where the spuds were as it's the first bit to get dug in autumn). Assuming I last that long without going postal, I've the week after next off work to get the allotment sorted for the winter - no doubt to be followed, covid restrictions allowing , by a session with Madam Hannah and her House of Pain to get my back straightened up again after all the digging...
In other news, for the first time, we have a glut of runner beansd in late October! I can only assume that the somewhat dank conditions are ideal for the flowers to set and, because they grow relatively slowly, they don't seem to get tough and stringy so easily.
Back in, I think August, I ordered an assortment of Spring bulbs. From time to time I would get an email notifying me of a delay in despatch, then a further delay, then apologies for delay, explanations of delay etc etc. Time wore on and I sourced bulbs from elsewhere and planted them.
I am still waiting for bulbs to arrive - I also have a lot I potted up "temporarily" when we did some reorganising in August, and need to plant them all at the same time so that I don't dig the first plantings up when putting in the latecomers
Normally planting late wouldn't be too much of a problem as we don't have much by way of frosts here - but there's no guarantee that the weather will be 'normal' this autumn. Nothing else is.
We have had several night-time frosts here already, which is normal. So I was glad to have got my bulbs in (and have netted the pots against the pesky red squirrels which are cute but not good for bulbs). I have given up ordering plants and bulbs as they tend, even in normal times, to be sent at the right time for planting in the place of origin, not the destination!
On Saturday we cleaned out the pond, so that the weed I couldn't get rid of any other way, is gone, and the clean water can have the falling leaves to make it nutritious for the frogs i spring!
I've heard different things about wildflower seeds - one that you should scatter them in September, the other that you should scatter them in spring. So I have two areas of the garden, one with seeds already, one waiting till March or so. It'll be interesting to see which does better.
I need to get and plant bulbs... I know it's really late...
Well, not only has my new shed arrived, the local builder and his lad are putting in a base for it as I speak. It's all jolly exciting!
Busy week for me - I have a week off planned for getting the allotment straight for winter, and I've just seen the weather forecast... throwing it down tomorrow and Thursday! Better get a lot of digging done today! Luckily I also have an appointment booked with Madam Hannah and her House of Pain at the end of the week to sort my back out after that lot.
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Our local farm shop does takeaway coffee, and they bag up the used grounds, and put them on the counter to take for free. I piled up the grounds on the pots, and voila, almost no shredding. The bonus is wafts of coffee aroma when you water them, if you like that sort of thing.
After three months they are beginning to lose their effectiveness, so I will be back to the farm shop for some top up.
Key is to put loads on, acts as an effective mulch too.
Though you might consider crepe myrtle if it grows where you are, as something that has a good long bloom period. It's just starting here. Or else go for something that has visually interesting leaves/bark, like smokebush. Alternately, stick a vine or three among your bushes--something (like blue morning glory) that will climb up the others and have pretty flowers. Though you'll have to research your choice to make sure you don't get something that completely buries them, or that just doesn't look well together (says she, thinking of the maypop passionflower that is taking over the juniper).
Sounds great!
Probably my favourite native plant with its flowers of gold. Thought you may like to see.
The compost bin is filling up nicely and six pots are repurposed.
Q:
Will summer sown chard , that white stemmed sturdy sort, cope with the winter Outside in pots?
Or should the pots be in a greenhouse?
Ever hopeful, I do have a small bed of chard that could have fleece wellsecured over it if need be.
Can one ever have too much chard? No!
Tree spinach is something that we are actively considering, as in.... I know where to get some from.
Good King Henry has yet to find a home here....
My brother will come and water once a week but that’s not enough for tomatoes and such. 🧐
In other news my winter greens are growing well.
Do they eat it?
And
Bomb proof is indeed how I would describe chard!
Remarkable
I expect it depends on what else is available to them. I do wonder if it is the water content of the leaves that they are going for.
They have also been known to strip every single leaf from my entire sowing of beets.
It doesn't dig the plants up, it digs between them and either smothers them with loose soil or tips them over. It also digs in the flower pots - and occasionally buries eggs in them.
Currently having a celebratory beer...
@Sandemaniac well deserved!
It was not my intention to do any gardening here, but it seems that I have some sort of addiction to it.
I've also started clearing the allotment for the winter, having lifted my paltry potato crop, and got the garlic in (garlic, so I am told, doesn't like a rich soil, so I always plant mine where the spuds were as it's the first bit to get dug in autumn). Assuming I last that long without going postal, I've the week after next off work to get the allotment sorted for the winter - no doubt to be followed, covid restrictions allowing , by a session with Madam Hannah and her House of Pain to get my back straightened up again after all the digging...
In other news, for the first time, we have a glut of runner beansd in late October! I can only assume that the somewhat dank conditions are ideal for the flowers to set and, because they grow relatively slowly, they don't seem to get tough and stringy so easily.
Then yesterday another email to say order sent!
Normally planting late wouldn't be too much of a problem as we don't have much by way of frosts here - but there's no guarantee that the weather will be 'normal' this autumn. Nothing else is.
On Saturday we cleaned out the pond, so that the weed I couldn't get rid of any other way, is gone, and the clean water can have the falling leaves to make it nutritious for the frogs i spring!
I need to get and plant bulbs... I know it's really late...
Busy week for me - I have a week off planned for getting the allotment straight for winter, and I've just seen the weather forecast... throwing it down tomorrow and Thursday! Better get a lot of digging done today! Luckily I also have an appointment booked with Madam Hannah and her House of Pain at the end of the week to sort my back out after that lot.