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Heaven: 2021 The Plot Thickens: The Gardening Thread

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  • To my house. Where they have eaten all our peaches, had a try at our watermelons, and scarfed whatever tomatoes, bell peppers, and other goodies made it through our dry summer. Amazingly enough, they seem to have left the bitter melon alone.
  • Someone just gave me an absolute shed load of runner beans. Now I need to find something to do with them...

    I am not personally a fan of pickled things, but Delia's runner bean chutney is always highly recommended ime.
  • We only have one dessert apple and I’m not even sure what it is. We aren’t in the SE of England but our community orchard has local varieties for Cambridgeshire https://trumpingtonorchard.org/our-trees/ some of their list are very niche but perhaps there is a community orchard near your uni which might have suggestions? Alternatively, our local botanic gardens does apple tasting in the autumn so perhaps a local garden/garden centre might have similar.
    I’ve noticed the council has recently been planting apple trees on our council estate which is such a good idea and I’ve no idea why fruit trees aren’t more commonly used in residential areas.

    That's a good idea re the garden centre. There is actually a garden centre next to the uni so I wonder if a tasting event could be set up with the Sustainability Society even if they don't have a public one.

    I've seen cherry plum trees planted in residential areas quite a bit but I'm pretty sure they're not good to eat raw, like those sour wild cherries. I guess fruit that isn't picked is seen as causing problems in terms of mess.
  • NenyaNenya All Saints Host, Ecclesiantics & MW Host
    Someone just gave me an absolute shed load of runner beans. Now I need to find something to do with them...

    Oh dear, I AM sorry you've suffered in this way... :lol: It reminds me of National Sneak Some Zucchini on Your Neighbor's Porch Day.

    I like runner beans but everyone I know lets them get too big before picking. When my dad grew them we used to pick them when they were just about finger length - tender and flavoursome as a vegetable and also eaten on their own, just with cheese sauce... mmmm...

    I never cook courgettes/Zucchini and keep being offered them at the moment.
  • Nenya wrote: »
    Someone just gave me an absolute shed load of runner beans. Now I need to find something to do with them...

    Oh dear, I AM sorry you've suffered in this way... :lol: It reminds me of National Sneak Some Zucchini on Your Neighbor's Porch Day.

    I like runner beans but everyone I know lets them get too big before picking. When my dad grew them we used to pick them when they were just about finger length - tender and flavoursome as a vegetable and also eaten on their own, just with cheese sauce... mmmm...

    I never cook courgettes/Zucchini and keep being offered them at the moment.

    Courgette/zucchini is good grated and added to bolognese sauce, chilli, curries etc - you can't detect them, they just melt into the sauce. Also good in courgette/zucchini cake rather like carrot cake, but I prefer to peel them first and avoid the green flecks in the cake. You can't taste anything different but I find green flecks offputting in cake!
  • I also sneak grated courgette in sauces as younger son won’t eat them. Grated courgette fritters are delicious and I sometimes make them in the waffle iron, much to my son’s horror. I like courgette raw in salads, especially if I get yellow ones (I grow both yellow and green).
  • We should have held back far more courgettes for chutney, it is very more-ish!
  • Pomona wrote: »
    I've seen cherry plum trees planted in residential areas quite a bit but I'm pretty sure they're not good to eat raw, like those sour wild cherries. I guess fruit that isn't picked is seen as causing problems in terms of mess.

    From my youth - the only ones I know of round here are next to a busy road, so I'm not sampling those - cherry plums are fine to eat raw, just rather bland.
  • It was 92F yesterday and I watered the patio plants early and again in the evening. I have ferns on my screened-in porch that I water once a week and they do fine. I forgot them yesterday and nearly lost them. I am not sure the maidenhair is going to pull back to life but thankfully the others look okay after a good soak and rest inside today. I feel so bad that I just forgot them as I usually water the porch plants every Saturday.
  • The snails had the peas and the beans and the courgette, but I have a glut of small stubby cucumbers which they have grazed, a little, on the skin, but left me with at least a dozen, all ready to harvest at once, but too marked to give away.
    I am not a pickly sort of person. They won't freeze. It's past salad season. Help.
  • You can freeze them with a little water in ice cube trays, then pop them into your glass of water maybe with a sprig of mint. I do like them cut up with onions and a bit of vinegar and salt, not really pickles but sort of.
  • Local wildlife rehab center, zoo, or other place with turtles. Yum yum (the cucumbers, not the turtles)
  • I have made cucumber pickles -- peel and seed, then cut into inch-long bits and cover with your favorite pickling liquid. Treat as you would any picklek vegetable.
  • What was it with snails at the peas this year? Our didn’t even make the pod stage
  • I did get two handfuls which got in a salad.
    Why can't they eat willowherb (imported by friend for pleasure of his mother), creeping jenny - my fault, vinca -my ex neighbour's fault?
    Or why can't the seeds merchants breed whatever the weeds have into the food plants?
  • Pomona wrote: »

    I've seen cherry plum trees planted in residential areas quite a bit but I'm pretty sure they're not good to eat raw, like those sour wild cherries. I guess fruit that isn't picked is seen as causing problems in terms of mess.

    I mostly don't eat raw fruit as I have some sort of raw fruit reaction but (yellow) cherry plums seem fine to me. I made 5 gallons of wine from a nearby 'public' tree this year and it does drop fruit on a piece of grass at the footpath entrance to a housing estate. They carpeted the grounbd and I picked up carrier bags of them. I made jam from them in the past too. That didn't happen this year as I was getting short of sugar and felt led to devote it to the wine.
  • Nenya wrote: »

    I like runner beans but everyone I know lets them get too big before picking. When my dad grew them we used to pick them when they were just about finger length - tender and flavoursome as a vegetable and also eaten on their own, just with cheese sauce... mmmm...

    I never cook courgettes/Zucchini and keep being offered them at the moment.

    They need to be watched and picked when they're they've grown to the right size, not ignored and only picked when you need the beans. As soon as they go lumpy or get more than about 20cm/8in long or wider than your thumb, pick 'em. I keep the big lumpy beans for drying and planting for next year.
  • After perusing a number of recipes, I have scrubbed, to remove any mucus, peeled where appropriate to remove snail chewing marks, sliced and put in a roasting tin with some butter, in the slow cook section of my cooker. I aim to run the water out and evaporate it, and put the remains into zip bags to freeze and make soup when needed.
  • And, hot, it can't be told from courgette.
  • Minus two portions eaten with sausage and mash, the dozenish remains fitted into one zip bag.
  • Well, we have done our autumn clean up of our allotment, much needed as my wife broke her arm in spring, which slowed us down. Now we have edged the edges of individual plots, weeded, bagged up weeds and prunings, strimmed, and removed dying plants. We still have winter crops, so hopefully we will pass the inspection!
  • Being inducted into the dark arts of dahlia tubers this autumn!

    Oh joy

    But real Deep joy if the blessed things survive winter. That especially lurid yellow will brighten some dark corners in this garden.
  • Yes, every autumn I wonder if the bloody things are worth the effort, and every summer I know they are! Though I do have a load of purple pom-poms that I will have to distribute round the neighbourhood in spring... Bloomin' things to tend to form new clumps and break up, whereas my lovely Dutch dahlia doesn't.
  • la vie en rougela vie en rouge Purgatory Host, Circus Host
    I love dahlias. I want to plant them now.

    I was planning to plant tulips today but Captain Pyjamas woke up too late from his nap. Tomorrow maybe.
  • Planted a shitload of expensive nulticolored parrot tulips and flame tulips as well. mixed in some ordinary grape hyacinth. threw oodles of garlic cloves over the top of everything--Now hoping desperately the local squirrels don't find out.
  • Wondering which saint one prays to for garden bulbs? Bound to be one.
  • NenyaNenya All Saints Host, Ecclesiantics & MW Host
    I spent a whole Saturday afternoon a couple of weeks back, planting mixed spring bulbs in our very wet, heavy clay soil. I've since been cheerfully informed by a gardening friend that if the soil was that wet the bulbs will now rot, to which I replied they have two chances as I'm not digging them up again.

    In the process of planting them I discovered the dahlia tubers I planted in the spring, in high hopes of a pretty show of them, but the slugs had other ideas and the new shoots all disappeared. I replanted the tubers in a (probably vain) hope of better things next spring.
  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    We've just had the end of our large garden planted up by a professional gardener. A mix of grasses, shrubs and herbaceous perennials. It doesn't look like much at the moment, but hopefully next summer will be a riot of gold/red/purple. There is a pergola between the two newly planted areas and we're debating what to grow up it. I have a clematis I rescued from Wilko when we lived in London, and it did OK in a pot climbing up our fence. We bought it with us, but it hasn't looked happy, so I have planted it out by the pergola to see if it does anything. Our gardener thinks it won't, but even if it curls up its toes it's had a fair few more years than it would have had if I hadn't taken pity on it. I fancy some dahlias next year too, as they'd fit in with the colour scheme and there is still a fair bit of room for stuff.
    The next thing is to decide what to do with the rest of the garden. It's very big, and very dull at the moment, with far too much decking. The previous owner had so much garden furniture, the place resembled a pub garden. We want some raised beds for herbs and veg.
  • Having moved many years ago from the East Coast to the West Coast I missed Holly bushes. I soon found Pyracantha was a good substitute that I always made my Advent wreath with along with Ivy. I was delighted to find the tiny patio in our new mobile home had both. Today I went outside to find that the gardener had trimmed our Pyracantha bush into a nice sculptured rectangle without a berry left insight I hurried to the private park we have and quickly snipped off a few pieces on a bush there before he made his way around the block. I just hope they stay fresh, but I doubt it. My neighbor told me he did the same to her olive tree. He must be a right-brain kind of guy.
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Or French. The Tuileries have rectangular trees.

    I have been chomping bits off the cotoneaster - also a good source of berries - to try and create a bit of sunny wall space for a climbing rose. The pyracantha is suffering a touch of fireblight: I tend not to interact with it much as it is very thorny.

    I miss the garden, but there is not really anything much to do, bar rake up leaves at some point.
  • jedijudyjedijudy Heaven Host
    We have a shiny, new gardening thread here!
    This thread is now closed.
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