Help MBE grow his dinner 2012

annie123

Impressive wall of tomatoes BME, it's longer than my garden is wide! I will post pics of mine when I've finished sticking everything in.

Can't seem to stop the raspberries engulfing the rhododendron, as fast as I pull them out new ones seem to pop up through it. I have made a note on the calendar to severely thin raspberries at the end of the year.

Chicken wire or holly on tubs and chicken wire on planted beds has stopped the cats :j now they're going on the lawn :mad: hubby went down to clean one up after shouting at it from the window but it didn't budge, spotted another 2 whilst there and on the way back stepped in another that he hadn't seen. The air was a little blue shall we say, think all the neighbours know what he did.
My neighbour downstairs has offered to come in and clean it up but 1. I don't want someone else in my garden and 2. seems very petty thing for me to agree to 3. hubby is going to see if he can find a water pistol that works from the 1st floor.

Garlic does seem to work as a deterrent to slugs and snails
I had all but 2 of my lupins munched in one night, of those 2 left, 1 had slug pellets and the other garlic cloves cut up.
I know planting garlic around the edges of beds or tubs works, but thought I try it like this.
Next test is lettuce, will sow some seeds tonight as the ones I put out last week have all been munched.

Last night I finally planted out my 2 comfrey plants that the slugs/snails didn't eat and also decided that for a tiny garden I have too many potatoes growing this year.
I wanted to try lots of different verities this year and 7 tubs and 3 lots in the ground is too much space taken up........note to self also on the calender to grow only what I usually do plus 2 other type.

lolly5648

I have always started beans and sugar snap peas indoors which worked well except for this year. I have never put seeds directly into the ground, not sure why but probably because I can't tell the difference between germinating seeds and new weeds!

Is it too late for me to sow the seeds outside in a prepared bed and hope for the best or should I buy plugs from the supermarket?

s_glover

Lolly, you should still be fine planting bean and sugarsnap pea seeds outside. I usually start the beans off inside and plant out around now, but I've always just plnated the sugarsnap seeds straight into the ground / pot and they have been fine.

aliasojo

Well half my plants are dying and that's with putting a length of Enviromesh over them to try to shade them a bit.

Temps were hitting 31 degrees here and the area where my plants are is a proper little suntrap so they've got no chance. It's like a furnace out there at times, I can't even sit out it's too hot.

The raised beds aren't movable now so it's not like I can shift them out the way of the direct sun.

Guess I'm buying my toms at Tesco again this summer.

mrbadexample

aliasojo wrote: »

Well half my plants are dying and that's with putting a length of Enviromesh over them to try to shade them a bit.

Temps were hitting 31 degrees here and the area where my plants are is a proper little suntrap so they've got no chance. It's like a furnace out there at times, I can't even sit out it's too hot.

The raised beds aren't movable now so it's not like I can shift them out the way of the direct sun.

Guess I'm buying my toms at Tesco again this summer.

I don't understand! Is it just the heat killing them? I've had temperatures hotter than that in the greenhouse, and everything's been fine. The worst I've suffered is a wee bit of scorching of some of my parsnip seedlings outside, but not enough to kill them.

aliasojo

mrbadexample wrote: »

I don't understand! Is it just the heat killing them? I've had temperatures hotter than that in the greenhouse, and everything's been fine. The worst I've suffered is a wee bit of scorching of some of my parsnip seedlings outside, but not enough to kill them.

There isn't any other common denominator.

I have toms in raised beds in multi purpose compost.

I have toms in Levington's Tomorite growbags.

I have toms in plastic buckets with a mix of whatever compost was left.

My suspicion is that because I started sowing seeds way too early, and because the weather was cold for so long, they were indoors in a cold porch for longer than they should have been and had pretty much grown up in this kind of temp.

Although I hardened them off to go outside for a tad more than a week, it wasn't in this kind of weather.

I've been doing some reading on the net and I think the plants are just too immature to handle the heat and the 12 hours of direct sun a day they have been getting.

The leaves are scorched and are shriveling up now.

Ironically, the tom plant I had in 'sick bay' (left out of things because it looked a bit pathetic) seems to be looking better, and it's been left in a shady spot.

I've been careful with the watering and have checked the soil a good couple of inches down, not just gone by the top. The soil itself is so hot I can't even keep my finger in there.

mrbadexample

Oh dear. Are they in black buckets? That might not help - you could cook the roots I guess. Wrap them all in tinfoil to deflect the heat.

aliasojo

Everything is black except for one growbag that has green 'Halos'. They seem slightly less pathetic looking.

All the raised beds and buckets are black plastic. Absorbs the heat like no-ones business. (Stupid saying that, isn't it.)

I've tried to rig up more shading this afternoon but I don't think shading does enough to cool the soil. Apparently tomorrow is to be even hotter for longer.

It never even occurred to me that too much sun would be a problem. I've been reading more and more and I think I should stop now, seems like the death knell has sounded. Sigh.

*goes off in a truly dramatic way*

:rotfl:

mrbadexample

aliasojo wrote: »

It never even occurred to me that too much sun would be a problem. I've been reading more and more and I think I should stop now, seems like the death knell has sounded. Sigh.

*goes off in a truly dramatic way*

:rotfl:

You've got me worried now. I've been frantically checking mine for signs of stress, but seems ok so far.

I've run out of space though. I've got nowhere to put the achocha or the 6 celery plugs I've got. Seriously, I've got nowhere. Might be time to dig up a wee bit more lawn. Just a little bit.

aliasojo

mrbadexample wrote: »

You've got me worried now. I've been frantically checking mine for signs of stress, but seems ok so far.

I'm sure yours will be fine, they've been used to a bit of heat and sun before going out.

Btw, the way you're going, you'll have a small bed at the side to grow 'lawn' and the rest of the garden will be given over to veg! :rotfl: