August Update: What are you growing in 2006? Tips for fruit/veggies/flowers

Strepsy

sophiesmum wrote:

Does anyone know if you can grow cherry toms in a hanging basket?
thanks
sophiesmum

Yes if you get the tumbling type they do great in hanging baskets. I have one in my garden hung on a shepherd's crook thing. It's been really productive.

PONDSAVER_2

I have just beenpickingthe last lot of tomatoes and noticed there are more flowers on there ???? what do i do now? there are still a few greens toms on there.

Ken68

Have now cleared the greenhouse, green toms went in a drawer , the rest to eat later.
Usually wait until a frost for lifting parsnips, use a post hole spade to get 'em out.
Last of the taters dried and bagged. Runners going to seed, always leave the tops so birds don't fly into the netting, anyway makes a fence.
Rhubarb tops cleared. Onions in nets , hanging in the potting shed.Doyenne de Comice pears about ready.
Pruned the plums last month, perhaps should have done it earlier.
Put the house fly paper round the apple tree trunk.
Made a note for next May for codling moth trap.
Eating summer leeks and winter leeks in. Only had one summer cabbage, won't grow those anymore.
Still carrots in the ground (Norfolk Giant), plus the baby ones in the freezer.
Still cutting grass.Tidied up blackberries, tied in new growth cut out the old. Next week will get the compost bins turned out, give the birds a treat, ready for digging in, the compost not the birds.
Won't weed until then.
Thinking of salad crops for cold greenhouse, they accept low light, tho need to fleece.
Water tanks full.

sophiesmum_2

wow:T :T you have been really busy in the garden.
Hope i can get going okay next year, i have basic gardening knowledge but not branched into fruit and veg until now. Could anyone recommend any good books to help with getting to grips with the hows and whens ready for next year?
Also is there anything I could be doing now to prepare the ground etc.
thanks
sophiesmum:D

freyaluck

hello
all
after some advice really, this year planted toms, cape gooseberry, rhubarb (died) and strawberrys. Still got green toms, will ripen them with banan skin and make some chutney me thinks. Still waiting for the capes to ripen(hoe they do).
I have got hols a rotavator for this week only, so am going to rotavate a nice large veg patch at the top of the garden, I know it's very late, but is their anything I can plant now?
I will be mulching in as well once I find someone who can deliver manure or find something else suitable
is their any thing else I need to do to the soil ready for next year, I am an compleate and utter novice and being organic.
sorry rambling a bit here.

Frey

Ken68

A Rotavator will chop up weeds, not so important with annual weeds but things like dandelion you going to finish up with more dandelions. Best to dig out perennial weeds first then rotovate. Better still dig the land over, bit at a time, leave in huge lumps for the winter frost and rain and snow to get at it. It will then crumble level when you rake it in the spring.Better still use one of these 3 tined cultivators, or a swan necked hoe.
Dr Hessayon's books in Asda about a fiver, are easy to read.
If preparing new ground, best not to incorporate muck or compost, it will get in the way of clearing.
In established veg gardens well rotted compost or horse muck dug in as you go or chucked on top.
Rhubarb leaves die orf now and if the root is still alive, place a large pot over them to give fresh roots earlier.Not sure when you do this perhaps before Christmas.
Lots of things can go in now, Raspberries, thornless blackberries gooseberry, not bananas.
Veg wise , turnips, leeks and spring cabbage,and broad beans for overwintering.
New growth on tomatoes in the greenhouse won't come to anything, so clear.
Desiree are my favourite tater and have never grown Pink Fir, being salad type do you think perhaps in a pot.?

margarita555

There is a very useful site about potatoes on:-

https://www.the gardenhelper.com/potato.html

We grew some in a black plastic dustbin last year but with the very hot Summer and me not being well, I only managed to feed them with phostrogen every couple of weeks when it should have been daily so we had a disappointing crop of very small potatoes. They also tasted very earthy - is this what real old fashioned potatoes used to taste like before they were grown en masse for supermarkets and hygienically washed and bagged in plastic bags?? I can't remember... senility must be setting in?