The all new 2019 growing your own thread!

[Deleted User]

Strange things going on here. Last year cabbage white butterflies ruined my rocket so read about tip of covering with old net curtain to keep them off. So this year i covered my trough with some. Everything growing well but spinach and lettuce look yellow. Something wrong there. Guess they haven’t had enough light? Will they be safe to eat?what should i have used instead of the curtains?

unrecordings

My opinion on the blight, if you've got it you've got it, when it gets in my greenhouses, due to them being leaky rather that in good nick (spores come in with the rain I think) then I just cut back anything infected - being very careful not to touch healthy plants. Outside is worse for blight here, so I just have to grin & bear it.

White butterflies - seen a lot less this year. Yellow (dead/dying) leaves might be lack of water as net curtains might (just guessing here) not allow rain through as effectively as proper horticultural netting. If the leaves are yellowing then they'll be lacking any nutritional value (unless it's some kind of yellow variety ???)

Need to get out there before the heat...

Primrose

Flo. The lettuce will be perfectly safe to eat. Could you try using garden fleece instead of a net curtain? It might let more light in?

Baggin. Bad luck with the blight. Make sure you sterilise any tools like trowels and gardening gloves when moving between greenhouses as blight spores can easily be transmitted this way.

Jazee

Just having a break from a pottering in the garden day. It's so hot.

So far I've harvested strawberries, gooseberries and raspberries, made frames for the cucumbers to grow along in the greenhouse, tidied said greenhouse and cut the grass in the back garden.

Interestingly the strawberries in pots in the greenhouse are doing better than the ones in the outside planters.

Suffolk_lass

I think I have some blight in my raised bed of potatoes. I noticed one looked a bit droopy this week and went out to remove it last evening (after the heat was dropping) and there were about 6 looking as though the tops were dying like they do if you leave them in until Autumn. I pulled four and dug out a trug of unaffected potatoes - the usual story, some tiny, others baking potato sized but all OK. I have not had this before so have just been off to research and as is the way of many things internet, I found a recommendation for an organic pre-emptive spray for the winter, only to explore how you make it and find it was withdrawn as a fungicide in 2015 under UK and EU rules.

The advice I found was that you can cut the tops off the plants (then disinfect your secateurs after each cut with a disinfected cloth) and either dig the tubers out immediately and leave them unwashed to use asap or leave them in the ground for three weeks before digging them out to store. I think the latter advice only applies if there is no immediate evidence of the fungal infection spreading from the stalks to the tubers themselves.

So I have a trug-full of potatoes and will need to adapt my meal-planning accordingly.

baggins11 - be very careful to monitor yourself after a bang like that - my back and shoulder injury was a result of a neighbour's fence falling on me. I was insistent that I was fine and walked away, but have suffered from neck and shoulder pain for several years now for which that is the only feasible explanation. If you have a stiff neck or any concussion symptoms (visual, dizziness, nausea, disorientation, headaches) - please go to A&E and get checked

Jazee

Morning, I spent two hours yesterday weeding and then cutting more grass. Today will be more weeding and maybe some planting of seeds.

unrecordings

Teen party next door last night so I'm absolutely shattered, (their) kids are busy tidying the stuff that landed in our garden, mother only just surfaced, father nowhere to be seen... going back to bed once my meds have settled

Jazee

Just watering done. That will be it now as I'm keeping an eye on DH who has had an accident in case he passes out with concussion.

euronorris

My tomatoes suffered a few blossom drops after the last couple days of extreme heat. To be expected I guess. Hope all those with injuries are doing ok x

euronorris

One of our bushes has been covered in blackfly. Wasnt sure what to do, but saw some ladybirds on it the other week, so left them in the hope that they would get to work. Seems they've been busy, as plant is now covered in baby ladybirds happily munching on the blackfly!