How does your garden grow?

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Gwenoakes
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Re: How does your garden grow?

Post by Gwenoakes »

You sound as though you have been really busy and will carry on being busy, Mo.
I put about 150 (do not ask) runner beans in the greenhouse a few weeks ago. I still have 91 plants and have given 24 to my youngest daughter, but no one else seems to want them. They are the small rounded ones and it looks like I am going to be freezing, freezing, freezing them when I have got them planted out. Still not quite sure where to put them but they are dwarf, so that should be easier, I think.
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Mo
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Re: How does your garden grow?

Post by Mo »

Have you tried an honesty box outside your gate? Don't know how the dwarf type crop, one year something ate all the runner bean plants except 1, but there was still enough to keep us going from when it started till the frost got it. None to give away or freeze that year though.

I've not really done much (compared to what needs doing). I can't do much at a time and can lose motivation. But will go and do a bit more while it's still light.
Dance caller. http://mo-dance-caller.blogspot.co.uk/p/what-i-do.html
Sunny Clucker enjoyed Folk music and song in mid-Cheshire
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Mo
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Re: How does your garden grow?

Post by Mo »

Very odd. I went down to the shed to look for the small border fork and couldn't find it. Wonder where it has got to. In one of the hooks was the large crowbar which I was looking for last week, I'm sure it wasn't there then, that would have been the first place I looked, and I put the small crowbar back just next to where I found the big one.
Dance caller. http://mo-dance-caller.blogspot.co.uk/p/what-i-do.html
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lancashire lass
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Re: How does your garden grow?

Post by lancashire lass »

Mo wrote:Very odd. I went down to the shed to look for the small border fork and couldn't find it. Wonder where it has got to. In one of the hooks was the large crowbar which I was looking for last week, I'm sure it wasn't there then, that would have been the first place I looked, and I put the small crowbar back just next to where I found the big one.


ooooooooh, sounds like you have a poltergeist ... I have one of those too - for the life of me, I cannot find the rest of the Busy Lizzie seeds that I was intending to sow a week after the first batch and they are nowhere to be seen. Convinced I had bought some Love in a Mist seed in January, I was puzzled I couldn't find them with the rest of the new seed so assumed I hadn't bought them after all, and what do you know - I found them ...
Freeranger
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Re: How does your garden grow?

Post by Freeranger »

I'm a bit like that too. Often I think of a more sensible place to put things, move them to their new home, and repeatedly go back to where they used to be but with no memory of the stage in between.
Other Half, however, never puts anything back in the same place twice, and every job has to be started with a 'treasure hunt' to find the requisite tools and implements.
I'm sure we have pretty much two of everything to account for the one on view and 'the other one', you know... the one with the black/wooden handle and the wide/narrow blade.......
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Spreckly
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Re: How does your garden grow?

Post by Spreckly »

We lost a small hand fork for the best part of the summer a few years ago, finally found in a very dense flower bed.

I have sown my wallflower seeds today. The packet said in a prepared bed, but as we are still having the odd frost, I sowed them in a seed tray, and put them outside. Hope they survive!
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Mo
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Re: How does your garden grow?

Post by Mo »

Wayhey!! )c( )c( )c(
I've been strimmed. The gardener couldn't come in Autumn as he'd hurt his back, so it's been a year. I was fighting my way down to the shed between the brambles and nettles. And in the last month the grass, cowparsley, nettles etc in the orchard have grown waist high. After a series of emails he offered me half a day yesterday or today. I said 'both please' not expecting to get it. But he did the orchard yesterday just the paths (and under the trees) leaving some of the wildflowers to seed, and I dressed this morning to the sound of him doing the back.
A real change of scenery. I wandered round the garden and saw flowers I hadn't known were there.

I have an acre and most is a wilderness - there are still parts that I need to don protective clothing and get sorted.

Then this afternoon, after I'd been wondering what to do with all the brambles that still need cutting I read on facebook that the council are restarting Green Bin collections next week.
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Sunny Clucker enjoyed Folk music and song in mid-Cheshire
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Mo
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Re: How does your garden grow?

Post by Mo »

Oh dear, it's more than a month since I updated this. In that time I've been picking soft fruit, and some cherries though most of those had been pecked. The black cherries never get a chance to ripen but I can sometimes pick some Stella, it's a matter of timing it. Too early and they won't ripen indoors. Too late and they are all taken or spoilt. It annoys me that they don't even eat them all, I find them on in the grass. This year I brought some in and nibbled them as they ripened, but not a big crop and I had to cut away parts that went brown.
I've put some raspberries and loganberries in the freezer though most never got that far. Had to venture to co-op to restock with ice-cream to go with them.
Picked more than a gallon of redcurrants while waiting for the blackcurrants to ripen, then decided that I'd let the birds have what was left in the hope they'd leave the gooseberries and blackcurrants alone. I'd been thinning the gooseberries for stewing and freezing, not a huge crop and the birds were taking the ones I'd left to get ripe for eating raw, but I got a few ripe ones.
Have put lots of blackcurrants in the freezer. Discovered that it is better to sit outside to strig them. If I leave it till evening indoors I can't see the little stalks. I've offered the rest PYO to our local foodbank, if anyone wants to pick them before the birds do.
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Sunny Clucker enjoyed Folk music and song in mid-Cheshire
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Mo
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Re: How does your garden grow?

Post by Mo »

With all the soft fruit picking I've not been round the orchard much, though I did a bit of thinning of the Victoria plums earlier. Not a huge crop so they didn't need too much.
Well I walked round yesterday. As I feared there don't seem to be any plums on the Czar. That tree is nearest the hedge so maybe the bullfinches took all the buds. My friend who used to run a fruit farm says he shoots them.
All the plums and apples seem to be swelling fast. I wonder if it is going to be an early season. My greengages are a good size, they usually don't ripen till late August (so most of them come while I'm away at a Folk Festival - which is not on this year). Some of the plums needed removing because before they spoil the rest, so I'll have to keep an eye.

The nettles are all springing back after strimming, and the brambles are huge. Another job. If I cut them I'll have to reclaim my green bin; my daughter has kidnapped it as she is pulling ragwort from the field outside my garden gate.
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Gwenoakes
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Re: How does your garden grow?

Post by Gwenoakes »

Have you tried putting salt on the Ragwort, Mo? Much quicker than pulling up, just do not let horses near them if you are salting them.
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Spreckly
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Re: How does your garden grow?

Post by Spreckly »

Your garden sounds lovely Mo, an acre is massive. My neighbours at the bungalow have a beautiful garden, which is just under a third of an acre, totally immaculate. I prefer something a little less "managed" - I have no choice anyway!

I only have rasps, strawberries, apples and pears now. We tried plums and cherries in the past with no success. I am eating rasps and strawberries for tea each night. They are not doing very well, but better than I expected. My tomatoes are setting, but there are still a lot of flowers on the plants.

I have lots of things in pots, dahlias, just starting to flower, geraniums, patio roses, pale blue lobelia, lavender, rosemary, plus mint, parsley (sown this year), all sorts in fact, faithfully watered. Apare from lavender and rosemary they all overwintered in the unheated greenhouse, and I am so pleased that they have survived.

Ted always grew pale blue lobelia, and at the beginning of the season I was unable to get any from anywhere. It was available by post at an inflated price. However, to my joy I discovered one pot in the greenhouse with a straggly plant and a couple of flowers. It is thriving really well, and the seeds I bought online have yielded a couple of very frail looking plants, which I hope to be able to overwinter.
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Mo
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Re: How does your garden grow?

Post by Mo »

Spreckly wrote:...totally immaculate. I prefer something a little less "managed" - I have no choice anyway!
{rofwl} me too.

Spreckly wrote:I only have rasps, strawberries, apples and pears now. We tried plums and cherries in the past with no success. I am eating rasps and strawberries for tea each night.
My rasps are finished. And no success with strawberries

Spreckly wrote:I have lots of things in pots, dahlias, just starting to flower, geraniums, patio roses, pale blue lobelia, lavender, rosemary, plus mint, parsley (sown this year), all sorts in fact, faithfully watered. Apare from lavender and rosemary they all overwintered in the unheated greenhouse, and I am so pleased that they have survived.

Ted always grew pale blue lobelia, and at the beginning of the season I was unable to get any from anywhere. It was available by post at an inflated price. However, to my joy I discovered one pot in the greenhouse with a straggly plant and a couple of flowers. It is thriving really well, and the seeds I bought online have yielded a couple of very frail looking plants, which I hope to be able to overwinter.
That all sounds good.
Dance caller. http://mo-dance-caller.blogspot.co.uk/p/what-i-do.html
Sunny Clucker enjoyed Folk music and song in mid-Cheshire
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Spreckly
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Re: How does your garden grow?

Post by Spreckly »

Not sure if this is the right thread, but this morning progress has been made in my front garden. We had a parking area for the caravan at one side of the drive, and a parking area for my little car at the other. One of my sons moved all the gravel from both areas, lifted the pavers where the van was, and broke up deep slabs of concrete where the caravan wheels stood.

The mess yike* yike*

However, the gardener has made the caravan area good and ready to turf, and a local farmer brought his Manitou with a huge bucket attached to scrape off the surface which was under the gravel at the other side. Hopefully topsoil will be delivered and raked over this week, and by next week all the turf will be laid. It will only remain for me to pay the bill yike* yike* But it is a job which needs doing to return the front lawns to their former state.
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Mo
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Re: How does your garden grow?

Post by Mo »

Spreckly wrote:Not sure if this is the right thread,

It is. I didn't want a thread just about my garden, since hearing about someone else's sparks comments about your own.
Spreckly wrote: It will only remain for me to pay the bill yike* yike*
Gulp. It will be good when it's done.

My grass is growing again after being strimmed. And I need to get out with thick gloves on the attack the nettles. They do pull out (mostly).
I've started this seasons stewed apple - some of the Bramley windfalls are a good size, so chopped out the bad bits, added a little sugar (don't need sugar when they ripen properly). 1 portion eaten and some in the fridge to go with a stick of rhubarb (which is having another flush). The tree fruit seems to be coming on early this year - or maybe I've lost count of time - is it Friday? Easter? Christmas?
Dance caller. http://mo-dance-caller.blogspot.co.uk/p/what-i-do.html
Sunny Clucker enjoyed Folk music and song in mid-Cheshire
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Spreckly
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Re: How does your garden grow?

Post by Spreckly »

The fingers on my right hand are tingling from nettle stings gained when pulling weeds up this morning. I decided to spend an hour or so pulling weeds, but got too near the nettles. We have the farmer's field at the bottom of the garden, his nettles are prolific, and despite being asked nicely some weeks since, he has not cut them back. He could not miss them, as these last few days, he has been cutting and baling hay.

The gardener is coming at some point to tidy the vegetable plot where the weeds are, so that more of the wild flower seed can be sown.

I have been cutting unwelcome grass back with garden shears, the strimmer is just too heavy for me to handle. Hopefully it will all help me to keep fit )t' .

I tried to find pale blue lobelia on the net during lockdown, but could only get seed. I then discovered some flowering in a pot in the greenhouse, which was a lovely surprise. Now I have found a little patch growing at the bottom of the garden!
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