The all new 2019 growing your own thread!

-taff

I'm not a fan of buddleia at all. I'm with you on the decay aspect un, and also on the destructive habit which can cause the decay in the first place.

Bees and butterflies love it, yes, but there's other stuff they love just as much.
For some reason, it's on a par with lavatera for me, grows uncontrollably, colonises instantly and is a right pain to totally get rid of thanks to all the damn seeds....

PipneyJane

-taff wrote: »

I'm not a fan of buddleia at all. I'm with you on the decay aspect un, and also on the destructive habit which can cause the decay in the first place.

Bees and butterflies love it, yes, but there's other stuff they love just as much.
For some reason, it's on a par with lavatera for me, grows uncontrollably, colonises instantly and is a right pain to totally get rid of thanks to all the damn seeds....

At one point, we had a buddleia growing out of the flat roof over our kitchen. (The roofing felt was in a terrible state when we moved in. That it was only one buddleia is more of a surprise.)

Back on topic, I've been harvesting and eating the green carrots. They taste like carrot tops and, according to the Carrot Museum are perfectly edible. (The green is chlorophyll; nothing more.) They're just bitter and not very nice. Sadly, even the orange carrots in the crop taste like carrot tops. We're very disappointed.

- Pip

euronorris

unrecordings wrote: »

I know bees love it, but for a long time I could never quite understand the attraction of buddleia because round here it's associated with industrial decay (you see it growing out of walls of abandoned factories & workshops). I suppose it's a pioneer species like silver birch, which I happen to like - you can see forests of the stuff where railway yards used to be

I see where you are coming from, but I do think it is quite pretty, and it certainly attracted LOTS of butterflies, which DD loves. So, it can stay.

Suffolk_lass

I'm with you euronorris - some of the varieties are pretty special - especially the dark purple (Black Knight) and white (White Bouquet) with the blue (Empire Blue) - they ensure your later season beans are polinated as pollinators attract other pollinators

zafiro1984

I'm with you Suffolk Lass. we have a hedge of buddleia along the main track between the house and the workshop. It's about 15yrs old and consists of Red Knight and Black Knight. DH keeps it in shape every April as he cuts it back to about 4foot high with the flailer. It's looks great in summer and is covered with flowers.

Another odd hedge we have is pampas grass. It's about 100 meters long and stopped growing at about 15foot high, we do nothing with it at all. It's very thick and wide and this time of year looks glorious with all the feathers.

I spotted some fly aragic toadstools under some beech trees the other day. I love the look of them.

Veg Plot
Outside - Found an escaped courgette now a marrow - marrow and ginger jam!!, beetroot still ok, plenty of carrots, should be enough to last to the other side of Christmas. Digging up the potatoes as and when needed, I must start to use the leeks,.Boxes and boxes of apple windfalls, they're not wasted, the animals get spoilt. I've used the bramleys in chutneys, jams, made mincemeat for Christmas and frozen loads to use over the winter.

Inside - Dug up my first sweet potato yesterday, I got four tubers from the first plant. They were quite large, one was more than I would use in a meal. Five more plants to go but I won't dig them up until I've used the ones now in the fridge. Peppers still doing ok. The leaves on my 'new potatoes' for Christmas are starting to turn colour but I'll leave them in the soil until needed. had a good crop of endive but I found it too bitter so the turkeys will have a treat.

Fallen behind with my timetable of tidying the veg plot, I'll try to catch up but life is pretty busy at the moment. I'm having an echo cardiogram Monday to make sure my ticker is still working OK (open heart surgery last year, plus another op earlier this yr and before my next op in Jan).

unrecordings

Seems I'm outnumbered

Maybe a pot of the stuff next year near the pond. We've a lot of sedum that attracts late foraging bees, and some bits in pots from dividing the original plants - it all needs a bit of a plan really

MysteryMe

Had a quick tidy up, all the tomato and pepper plants cleared away so nothing on the go at the moment.

Cleared out three hanging baskets and planted up two troughs with pansies.

Lifted out the freesia bulbs from their containers and put them in the garage.

Next year I'm going to ditch the beef toms and plant more of the Terenza and Money Maker.

I will try and grow courgette from seed again but if not successful will buy a couple of young plants.

I am going to ditch the padron peppers that I grew, the parrot turned his beak up them. I thought they were chillis but I tipped the propagation pots up and the seeds got mixed up, Might try another type of sweeter pepper for him.

Not made my mind up with the raspberries, very poor fruiting return. Most probably given them one more year.

May increase my strawberry plant numbers.

Edit to say, I bought toms for the first time in months on Saturday. Just goes to show how beneficial it is to grow your own!

-taff

Reporting back on the straw bale experiment - it did work, the tomatoes grew big and strong after a shoddy start and produced omatoes much later than any other tomatoes outside.

However, I'd say they'd be better planted with a leafy green or brassica of some type due to the amount of nitrogen they must have been producing as they rotted.
One bale has filled my compost bin almost to the top [it was half full from normal taking down the garden for winter stuff] along with some cardboard and it did rot quite well judt by itself so I'm looking forward to the compost next year.

zafiro1984

MysteryMe wrote: »

Edit to say, I bought toms for the first time in months on Saturday. Just goes to show how beneficial it is to grow your own!

Funny you should say that as I did exactly the same thing yesterday. However, they were notably lacking in flavour the home grown ones were much better.

Rabbits have eaten all the leafy tops off the carrots, the stalks sticking up look quite weird, fortunately they haven't learnt how to dig up the roots yet so I shall continue to use them.

Rain, more rain, wind, and now its getting cold. This time of year is not my most favourite time !!!

unrecordings

zafiro1984 wrote: »

Funny you should say that as I did exactly the same thing yesterday. However, they were notably lacking in flavour the home grown ones were much better.

Ditto. A bowl of cherry tomatoes appeared on the kitchen table yesterday. My remaining crop is in a tub in the fridge, they're mainly lime green so i'm going to keep them in there for a while and ripen them in maybe a month and see how they fare.

Very cold here too - last green bin collection tomorrow but it's too cold for getting my money's worth and cramming a little bit more in.