BS: How does your garden grow?

Subject: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 26 Jul 23 - 11:29 AM

I have mentioned before that our lawn is full of Heal All (Prunella Vulgaris) It is a lovely little low growing plant but a no-no for lawn lovers. Which, luckily, I am not :-) Under the Leylandii - not planted by us I must say - the red valerian grows like wildfire. Up to now I have the makings of a herbalists :-D In the bed between us and next door I have spotted yarrow, meadow phlox and toadflax. The sea holly that I dug up a couple of years back is making a comeback and the poppies that we never planted keep popping up in all sorts of odd places!

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Jul 23 - 11:39 AM

The largest part of my yard is toast, but I water around the base of the house to keep the foundation in place, so there is "lawn" (grass and weeds) there. There are a couple of native groundcovers (horseherb and frogfruit) growing as much as I can encourage it, to gradually crowd out the turf.

My vegetable garden is struggling with the heat and there are more grasshoppers this year. I water deeply and infrequently (so for the veggies, a deep watering about once a week, and buckets of gray water from dish washing poured over them for a quick rescue if they're wilting too badly during the day).

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Jul 23 - 12:11 PM

Chinese lanterns and ivy have taken over. At least it's not kudzu.

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Jul 23 - 04:17 PM

My ex was over today and cooperatively helped by picking the various tiny cherry tomatoes that I have ignored for a few days. He didn't take any home with him because he still has some from the last time he helped pick the cherry tomatoes. I ended up with an extra plant this year, and while cherry tomatoes will set fruit when it's too hot for everything else, they get to be tedious after a while.

It's time to start new squash from seed; the current ones had a pretty good run, but they've been under assault by squash beetles for a while now and are looking really tattered and yellow. We have a long growing season so I should get another crop in September and October. Eggplant and okra are just getting started and there are a few small poblano peppers; they'll really take off in the fall. It seems ironic that hot peppers are happier in the cooler weather. :)

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Jul 23 - 05:36 PM

My garden is growing wild this year. A combination of a horrible April and several (temporary) bouts of ill-health* have nobbled me. All my flowery bits look every bit as nice as usual, and my grass is lush and tamed, but I've more or less ditched the concept of veg this year. I'm fine with that, the wildlife loves the scruffiness and I'll be back next year!

*Two doses of cellulitis and, much worse, a really bad two-month bout of sciatica. All's well now!

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 26 Jul 23 - 07:06 PM

There is no longer anyone at home able to go round looking at the garden but from what I do see from windows, I think Alan is doing a good job. He only does 1 and occasionally 2 hours a week and I'm sure that some parts have to be left to go wild particularly in the field but he is at least managing to keep the front part and the path at the side of the house tidy. I'd imagine that to someone coming in from the gate, the garden looks quite good.

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: Senoufou
Date: 27 Jul 23 - 02:48 AM

While sitting on my bench out the front, I've managed to get up occasionally and pull out some weeds. But mowing both lawns is a bit too much for me. A couple of days ago,my husband arrived home from his work at 5.30pm and suddenly declared he'd mow both lawns before having his shower! He then decided to do some weeding behind the greenhouse as well. I was so pleased. He didn't seem too tired, and he likes to see our garden looking tidy as much as I do.
Steve, I hope you're feeling better now. Sorry you've been poorly quite a bit this year.

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 Jul 23 - 01:55 PM

I've just harvested some cauliflowers and shallots from a couple of little boxes at the back. It was fun but I don't think I'll bother next year. The local farm shop is easier and cheaper :-)

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 27 Jul 23 - 03:29 PM

We are in danger of being snowed under with fruit again this year.

Strawberries, black currants, raspberries, gooseberries, blackberries, apples, plums, sloes and blueberries all seem to do well but pears and damsons do not. Something to do with the acidity or the altitude?

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: Howard Jones
Date: 28 Jul 23 - 08:44 AM

Everything in my garden is growing like wildfire, except the stuff I've actually planted.

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 28 Jul 23 - 10:02 AM

Herself complains along those lines, Howard, but rejoices when the
itinerant seed of something she likes decides to plant itself where it'll flourish. One of the favourite sayings on Gardeners' Question Time was "a weed is a wild flower in the wrong place" (in our case, said place is the alleged lawn).

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Jul 23 - 01:25 PM

The basil came back all volunteer this year, after planting a packet of seeds in a large bin last year. Same with garlic, oregano, and some of the sweet potatoes. Everything else was planted intentionally. The weedy grass and nutgrass (or nut sedge) and spiderwort are all happy in the garden and get trimmed back every couple of weeks.

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: keberoxu
Date: 29 Jul 23 - 12:49 PM

While the gardeners hereabouts are harvesting from their gardens,
the mosquitoes are feasting on the gardeners.

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 Jul 23 - 12:56 PM

The phlox is getting prettier and prettier

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: keberoxu
Date: 01 Aug 23 - 08:13 AM

The garden where I am staying has got
more KALE than anybody knows what to do with --
it's growing faster than we can eat it.

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Aug 23 - 09:52 AM

I pulled out the squash; there was a nice crop this year but the plants were sprawled and burned up, as happens every year. The cucumber is about to be pulled, and both of those can have new plants started from seed. I'll trim back the tomatoes and they'll put out new shoots for fall fruit.

It all needs to be done early (7am or before) to not overheat.

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 01 Aug 23 - 11:29 AM

I've just been reminded by the request for Old Dame Hollyhock above the line: Our hollyhocks, much to Herself's dischuff, delight in sowing themselves in the cracks between our patio paving stones. She's attempting to herd them upwind into the flower beds, but so far with limited success. Meanwhile, we've seen neither hide nor hair of those she hand-sowed in said beds.

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 01 Aug 23 - 02:04 PM

With the recent spell of soggyness I have not been able to mow the dandelion patch. It's getting quite meadowy!

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 01 Aug 23 - 07:35 PM

my garden is 4 windowsills with standing & hanging plants. The north facing window has 9 beautiful zygocactus & the last of the mid-year plants (shocking pink), has finished flowering. I now have to wait til the christmas cacti start. They look beautiful behind the sheer lace curtain.

My other 3 windows face the apartment block next door. In 1917 4 terrace houses were razed to make 2 four-storey blocks with a courtyard which once was full of amazing plants, alas the owner retired to a house on the the north coast where his garden grows happily!

The east facing windows contain hanging & standing green plants plus a rescue plant - some leggy red geranium pieces that survived falls from council's hanging baskets!

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: Senoufou
Date: 02 Aug 23 - 03:45 AM

My very Norfolk neighbour-across-the-road, Ruth, makes me die laughing at her malapropisms. I sometimes wonder if she does it deliberately, but nonetheless it's so funny. She calls my Alliums 'aliens', my Spirea 'diarrhoea', my Euonymus 'anonymous' and so on. (She does loads of weeding and trimming for me, and I always pay her well, but she thinks I'm far too posh for Norfolk, and she teases me constantly!)

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Aug 23 - 12:23 PM

Anything in the garden right now is being staged and performed early. I pulled out squash, next I'll take the mattock and work over the area, and on another day I'll bring in mulch and plant the seeds. More than 10-15 minutes out there is too much. I'll have to rig a bit of shade over the bed also so the sprouting seeds don't fry on the spot. Or start them in pots in the house and transplant later.

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Aug 23 - 12:24 PM

This morning the birds were impatient as I cleaned out the concrete bird baths. I used vinegar to kill algae before rinsing and filling, and every time I turned away to get something there was another bird on the lip of the vessel, thinking about taking a taste. Now the baths are clean and inviting and no one in sight. (Mudcat is crashing w/ more than 1 paragraph today.)

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: Donuel
Date: 02 Aug 23 - 04:19 PM

The difference between corn picked 2 minutes prior to boiling and any other corn is that it is a different food. It is very sweet.
The same is true of peas.

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 03 Aug 23 - 11:43 AM

> Now the baths are clean and inviting and no one in sight.

You washed away all the nice flavour, SRS; no wonder the birds turn up their beaks at it. Cats are much the same, in always preferring the taste of puddle to the chlorine which humans insist on polluting their water with.

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Aug 23 - 12:00 PM

Chlorine isn't good for anything in the yard and would end up in the garden if I used it on the birdbaths. Vinegar when diluted in water has a fertilizer effect; full strength it has a weedkiller effect. Killing algae. I could also use hydrogen peroxide out there.

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 03 Aug 23 - 01:19 PM

Herself once asked our vet why our cats preferred puddle to any water we put in their drinking bowl. It's not enough to poison humans, but They dump chlorine in piped water to stop fungal growth and suchlike in the pipes; in summer, there's enough that even I can smell it. Cats' noses are much more sensitive ....

Give it a few days for the traces of chlorine (and vinegar) to dissipate, SRS, and methinks the birds will be back.

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: Senoufou
Date: 05 Aug 23 - 03:25 AM

I have a very naughty pigeon that visits our birdbath. After he's had a drink, he does a poo in the water, so I have to go out there, empty the birdbath, scrub it out and refill it. Grrr!
Our next-door neighbour Ashley came round last evening with a huge bag of lovely runner beans for us, which his wife has cultivated in their back garden. Delicious!

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 05 Aug 23 - 04:02 AM

If you have a soupçon of boiled water left in your kettle after making a cup of tea, let it cool and give that to the cat. It no longer contains chlorine. Works for Polly the cat in our house.

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Aug 23 - 10:40 AM

The birds return as soon as whoever is filling the birdbath moves away, usually. Letting water with chlorine in it sit there for birds invites problems for the birds. The amount already in tap water is more than enough.

I fill a pitcher with water from the filter on the fridge, and it sits out for a while until I pour it into the kettle. That also lets the chlorine off gas.

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 06 Aug 23 - 07:55 PM

Strawberries now finished, but raspberries still coming. Masses of lovely sweet peas!
French beans and courgettes doing well, runner beans not far behind.
Hanging baskets and big tubs looking good.
Husband does all the gardening here, as well as keeping son’s and daughter’s gardens under control and watered enough!
And, not in the garden, but out and about, looks like there will be a great blackberry harvest this year!

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 07 Aug 23 - 04:47 AM

Our blackcurrants are so plentiful this year that, despite Herself giving punnets (or whatever) away to everybody in sight, she has given up and left the currants on the plants; so I can pick myself a handy snack when I'm mowing the weed patch. Meanwhile, she forgot to pull the rhubarb this season until the flavour had largely drained away.

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: keberoxu
Date: 15 Jul 24 - 07:19 PM

In my region, for some reason,
the hydrangeas are blooming profusely,
loads of those clusters of blossoms.
All white where I'm staying,
some people have other colors as well.

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 19 Jul 24 - 04:22 AM

I have let the valerian and anything else under the hedge grow wild this year and it looks lovely. Good for the insects too. We planted a few Asian irises in the spring and they have come up beautifully.

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: Charmion
Date: 19 Jul 24 - 09:32 AM

I have a new yew hedge on the north side of my patio, planted about five weeks ago. I had expected a tedious routine of daily watering, but this summer’s downright biblical rains have taken over nicely. I see new growth on all the baby bushes, so I think I can assume they’re happy.

The yew hedge is my latest effort to thwart the local cottontail rabbits, an abundantly fecund crew that have eaten to the dirt every plant I have put in that area since the patio was built five years ago. My next objective is to identify a rabbit-proof flowering perennial to replace the tulips and hyacinths that get beheaded every spring. More daffs, probably; they usually go untouched.

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: keberoxu
Date: 25 Jul 24 - 09:59 AM

The hydrangeas continue to blossom,
although the older blooms are now turning green.

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: leeneia
Date: 25 Jul 24 - 06:39 PM

We got the first tomatoes of 2024 two days ago - Sweet Million and Red Gold cherry tomatoes. For some reason squirrels pay little attention to cherry tomatoes but ruin all the bigger varieties.

We are trying a old variety called Brandywine because it is grayish purple when ripe, not red. We're hoping to fool the squirrels into thinking they are not ripe yet.

In the front garden (the strip of land between the sidewalk and the street) we have quite a few small, pretty zinnias. They can be pink, white or purple, and the flowers are about two inches across. Best of all, they are volunteers. The only care they need is to have the first flower bud nipped off so the plant turns bushy. Oh, and deadhead. I wish I could remember the variety name, but it's been several years now.

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 Jul 24 - 02:47 PM

We now have some Hartweg's Beardtongue! I think it blew in from Hogwart's :-)

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: keberoxu
Date: 02 Aug 24 - 02:22 PM

Ii guess the question for everyone is,
how does your garden grow in this heat?
I'm north of Connecticut, in Massachusett's Berkshire County,
and we are under a heat advisory here, until tomorrow night.

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: keberoxu
Date: 05 Aug 24 - 11:41 AM

The farmers around here are not happy with weather conditions.
The frequent cloudbursts do not drop enough rain
to counteract the high heat, humidity notwithstanding.

But it's better than being in the southeastern US coast,
where Hurricane Debby is bringing entirely too much moisture,
be it rain or storm surge.

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 Aug 24 - 11:53 AM

In the process of getting rid of a wasps nest from what used to be a bird box. Think I have caught it soon enough as not many are buzzing round it. Tomorrow will tell

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 Aug 24 - 09:51 AM

The wasps nest is now an ex-wasps nest.

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: leeneia
Date: 08 Aug 24 - 12:14 AM

We seem to be in a meteorlogical Camelot this year. Yes, we had some hot weather, but while others are suffering floods, drought, fires and tornados, we are enjoying nice days and beautiful flowers. The trees are green and lush, and the lightning bugs had a good year.

The tomatoes are still coming.

Charmion, you have my sympathy over the rabbits.

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 08 Aug 24 - 05:44 AM

Just mown the weed patches. Curiously, there was only one daisy and two dandelions: what seem to have been encouraged instead by the weather looks a bit like dandelions, but they've got longer and stiffer stems, and the leaves are entirely wrong.

Oh, and after a brief drought, the recent rains have revived the rhubarb. It's raising its leaves to the heavens in thanks.

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: keberoxu
Date: 10 Aug 24 - 06:10 PM

The farmers ought to be pleased hereabouts
after the storm system that passed through,
remnants of what was Hurricane Debby;
we had two days and nights
of steady soaking rain, the kind the crops need most.

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: keberoxu
Date: 05 Sep 24 - 03:14 PM

Refresh for autumn gardening.
Or something else in the antipodes.

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Sep 24 - 03:26 PM

We have a typically long growing season and have had several days of good soaking rains so there will be some fall crops going in. The garden was rather neglected this year but in some ways it is a perpetual motion process - once you plant some things they stick around or come back every year. Herbs (oregano, thyme, basil, rosemary, lemon balm, mint. . . ) and things like garlic, garlic chives, can spread. An acorn squash volunteered from the compost and was a lovely huge pile of greenery for quite a while.

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: keberoxu
Date: 12 Sep 24 - 04:23 PM

refresh

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 13 Sep 24 - 01:50 AM

We have had frequent rain all this year and have not needed to water the garden on more than a couple of occasions, which has been a big relief as we have planted hundreds of trees in the last year.

This has made a difference to the fruit though. Both our damson trees died, the cherry tree produced a huge crop as did the raspberries. All the other fruit has been considerably reduced and our rhubarb looks to be on its last legs (about 20 years old now).

The onions and peas both have done well.

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 13 Sep 24 - 06:27 AM

Hoping to give the dandelion patch its last mowing of the year this weekend :-)

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: leeneia
Date: 20 Sep 24 - 12:19 AM

My garden is far from perfect, but along the street are small zinnias that have volunteered for several years now. We see fritillaries, swallowtails, small white butterflies, bumblebees and abundant skippers in them. They don't seem fazed by pedestrians and dogs walking by.

They started with a seed package from the big gardening store, but I don't remember the name. Look for multicolored zinnias with flowers about 1 3/4 (5 cm) across. In the fall I collect dry seeds and scatter them about to encourage the next year's growth.

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: Thompson
Date: 21 Sep 24 - 10:58 PM

I harvested the spuds last week - shamefully small but delicious; small because I haven't been watering. I'll know again.
In one of the potato bags I was using, I came across a couple of irises, at least I think they were iris roots - the kind that look like knobbly fingers with hairs growing on the bottom - and some scorzonera I'd forgotten I'd planted.
I hastily replanted them - the putative irises in a pot, the scorzonera in a raised bed made from pallet collars as the Scandinavians do it.
The garden is slowly being reclaimed from some years of neglect, but, heavens, it's a big job!

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 22 Sep 24 - 07:15 PM

Beans, beans and more beans! Runners, that is. Still got one box of last year’s left in the freezer, but rapidly adding more as well as eating plenty of them!

Subject: RE: BS: How does your garden grow?
From: Thompson
Date: 10 Oct 24 - 04:38 AM

It's coming up to the time of year to collect seeds from crab apples if you'd like to grow trees.
Find your favoured tree - I have my eye on a friend's, which has bright red apples from around August, and those apples are absitively delicious.
Open some apples till you find nice-looking seeds, fat and brown. Take out the seeds (with clean hands) and put them on a clean damp tissue sprinkled with powdered cinnamon. Mould hates cinnamon.
Fold the tissue over and put it in a clean plastic sandwich bag, and put it in the fridge for a few weeks. Maybe put it in a jar so it doesn't get jars and things put on top of it by mistake by Certain Parties who also use that fridge.
Last year I forgot about the seeds till spring, when they had nice long sprouts. I put these in a sandy compost mix (about 2/3 compost and 1/3 horticultural sand - don't use builder's sand, it's salty and kills plants) and three of the 15 or so sprouting seeds I had grew on into little trees, which are now around 40cm tall. With luck they'll produce crab apples four years from now.
There's something so life-affirming about growing a tree from seed.