How does your garden grow?

[Trev62]

I tried to reply earlier but there seems to be something wrong with the DTL website - it has been overly slow on some occasions (both my computer at home and the one at work) Anyhoo ...

I have been having the same issues but thought it was our internet which is very hit and miss here

saw a squirrel near them yesterday so suspect that was the culprit.

Never known squirrels to nick gooseberries, I know people have issues with squirrels but I love seeing and watching them. Fascinating and amusing creatures.

Back to the garden, the beans are in full flow and I picked another large bowl full of red currants today along with a small bowl of white currants and finally whatever black currants the birds had left, frustrating as they are my favourite out of them all.

[Spreckly]

My garden this summer has looked fairly good. Lot of colour from nasturtiums and antirrhinums, the latter a birthday present. Very disappointed in the multi coloured lupins, which have all been purple, just sown some Russell lupin seeds so hopeful for next year. I have used several red geraniums, which have brightened things up.

I have four hanging baskets, containing red geraniums, nepeta, more nasturtiums and mini bells, plus lobelia. These were all bought locally. My lobelia seeds and various other seeds including nemesia failed to germinate this year.

Strawberries and rasps a dead loss. I am hoping to be able to get the rasp canes pulled up. Runner beans failed to germinate also. My wallflowers failed to grow, let alone flower. They remain four inches high, but add greenery to my geranium planters, so I leave them be.

My winter flowering jasmine cuttings have failed after several attempts, but rosemary cuttings are doing well, and the honeysuckle fruits I sowed earlier in the year have yielded one very healthy plant.

A lady from our garden club (I am now no longer a member, it turned into more of a village chat than an interest in Mother Earth), has started using Ted's veggie plot. So far she has planted courgettes, so I am hoping that she makes good use of it. Her work is doing me a tremendous favour, and I am happy just to have it used.

Due now to hip problems, digging is out, but I can pull weeds up, and keep the place reasonably tidy. My two younger sons cut my lawns for me, with the expensive new lawnmower, after my trusty Honda finally became too sick to mend. I had had it for thirty five years, not bad going.

[Mo]

Maybe some courgettes will come your way.
I've given up sowing runner beans as someone at our dance club sells plants on our charity B&B. Mine are flowering well.

[Mo]

Soft fruit picking continues - damply. Not many rasp, that part of the garden has been under water the past few winters so not really surprised. I'm getting a few to nibble but none to freeze. If i can fight my way to the end of the garden I might find some wild ones.

[Trev62]

Apart from the odd couple of black raspberries and a few of the normal red ours are not producing yet. Problem this year as they are so dense as we did not have the time to manage them properly we will be cut to ribbons fighting through the thicket of stems to harvest them, looks like a good pulling up session at the end of the year!

[Spreckly]

Last year my rasps were futile, and this year there were no flowers at all, possibly due to the canes becoming choked up in places with buttercups, which had twined round the stems. So this morning I took long handled shears and cut rasps and buttercups right down.

I had put cardboard between the rows, but it didn't seem to have improved anything.

Now that I am back online I can look up plant related details. I have taken off all the dead nasturtium heads as per You Tube instructions. I shall be saving my geraniums, all new this year, the ones we had for years did not survive the winter, and I am also begging my son's partner's cast off geraniums. She bins hers every back end, what a waste .

You Tube has a useful video on how to winter the above plants, and I am on the look out for a few cardboard boxes to put them in once they are over.

Yes, Mo, the odd courgette would be acceptable. Ted always grew them, and I made chutney with our own, apples and onions each year.

My bramble which I planted two years since is full of flowers, so I am hoping for a good yield. Also, courtesy of the non gardeners next door, I have a lot of brambles growing in the hedge, and even some in my front garden which are in flower.

[Mo]

I remember my grandma grew geraniums, think she kept them under the bed in winter.

[Mo]

My pears have hardly any fruit this year, usually the Packhams is overloaded (most of them have a 'pear drop' taste that takes the skin off my teeth though a few ripen nice and juicy, but they are good for crumbles). And the Conference too (all ripen at once so most of them are also stewed and frozen).
There are a few but not many at all.

[Spreckly]

My pears have no fruit for the second year in a row, and despite blossom, my apple trees look grim with curled leaves.

[lancashire lass]

My pears have no fruit for the second year in a row, and despite blossom, my apple trees look grim with curled leaves.

My pears have hardly any fruit this year. And the Conference too. There are a few but not many at all.

The weather has a lot to do with whether you get fruit or not on trees - they have such a short window when the blossom is out in spring but if it is very windy or raining (bees don't fly when it is raining), or cold (the usual pollinators are on the sparse side. Also, very cold spring-like weather can affect the pollen / pollination process as they lose their efficacy at lower temperatures)

they have such a short window when the blossom is out in spring

To extend the blossom period is to have trees that flower at slightly different times of spring (such as early flowering, middle and late flowering) Obviously a lot depends on ensuring you have pollinating partners (not all fruit trees will pollinate each other)

Then think about last year's season - was it warm or cold, wet or dry? That record breaking heatwave may have long passed but trees are slow growing so it could have had an effect on this year's crops. A combination of lack of water (as the temperatures rise, trees take up more water out of the ground ... but not enough to keep up with what is being lost through the leaves ) and raised temperature (all life, whether it be animal or plant, use enzymes in many biochemical processes - these are biological molecules which can weaken in high temperatures, and be completely destroyed at 60oC), could have a knock-on effect of storing nutrients / sugars over winter for the spring growth the following year. Any crop which produces fruit (trees, plants, vegetables like tomatoes and squashes) need a lot of energy (sugars) - often you get a tree that goes biennial (that is, produces fruit one year and nothing the year after) which is usually the result of a bumper heavy harvest in the first year but not enough energy reserves left afterwards for the following year's crop (that is why it is advised to thin out the growing fruit at this time of year to stop the boom and bust seasons) Maybe it is something similar but in this case, maybe the weather (or is that climate change?) is to blame.

PS Spreckly - curled leaves may well be due to an influx of pests such as aphids (I have Woolly aphids which are difficult to get rid of but the process is similar)

[Mo]

My pears have no fruit for the second year in a row, and despite blossom, my apple trees look grim with curled leaves.

My pears have hardly any fruit this year. And the Conference too. There are a few but not many at all.

The weather has a lot to do with whether you get fruit or not on trees - they have such a short window when the blossom is out in spring but if it is very windy or raining (bees don't fly when it is raining), or cold (the usual pollinators are on the sparse side.

Yes I assumed it was weather related. Last year several of the Conference were very thin. I remember reading that Conference are partially self fertile and will give a thin seedless fruit without a different pollinator. The packhams were fine last year but sparse this year.

[Mo]

Once again I'm late thinning the plums because the soft fruit needed picking. I thought the Victoria wasn't too overcrowded - until i started on it.

[Spreckly]

I have repotted my honeysuckle, grown from a seed today. Then taken half a dozen honeysuckle cuttings, dipped half in rooting powder and the rest in water,as per instructions on You Tube.

Started saving borrage and nasturtium seeds for next year.

[Spreckly]

My hanging baskets are looking as if they are starting to go over. Photos have been taken of them, they have given me such joy.

I sewed my third attempt of dwarf runner beans, and they are growing well.

Tomatoes still flowering, but no fruit yet.

A clematis Jackmanii whic I cut back heavily last year is absolutely stunning.

[Mo]

I've had a couple of pickings of runner beans. Went out yesterday to pick some blackcurrants for the bring & buy at our dance club (i have enough in the freezer for more than one year), but the blackbirds have been enjoying them.