The all new 2019 growing your own thread!

dancing_star

Pablosmummy wrote: »

Due to my rubbish labelling I'm trying to work out which seedlings are Pak choi and which are psb. I think I'll have to wait until they are bigger cos they look exactly the same.

Yup, done that too. And kale/chard. I now have some rather random looking rows in my beds. Oh well!


I too have successfully grown tomatos from pinched out shoots. Not because I knocked it off with my bum but because it was quite a big side shoot, and I am such an old hippy I didn't have the heart to chuck it in the compost. I had far too many tomatoes already so heaven knows where I'll squeeze this one!

zafiro1984

There was a break in the weather this afternoon and I managed to weed three raised beds. The rain has done a tremendous job, the soil was warm and very friable. The weeds came out very very easily.

I took a chance and sowed some parsnips, I know it's late but my last two sowing have failed miserably so this is a last chance.

Hopefully, tomorrow if the weather is kind I'll weed the onion bed if not I'll spend some time in the polytunnel. I read somewhere that once you have a polytunnel you grow more and more in it at the expense of the outside beds - it's so true. I'm already harvesting mangetout, dwarf beans, salad leaves, kohl rabi, and new potatoes and I didn't really start this year until March as I spent some of February in hosp having my knee replaced.

Does anyone know of a weed killer that deals with mares tail?

unrecordings

Wash out here for last couple of days, so I'm having a rest. Managed a bit of top dressing/hole filling a couple of days ago before rains started, so I'm itching to get out and finish that. Looks like one of the bare root apple trees I bought from Poundland and planted just days before The Beast From The East is fruiting, which is very very surprising. I'm assuming the June Drop will have them though. Grass at the bottom of the garden is now so long it's affecting my ability to get through it - need some kind of ski attachment for the strimmer (hmm thinks...)

Major work for next week: threading a 50m hose down the right hand side of the garden to a standpipe - gravity fed from the massive water butt that is never empty. I'm sort of copying the system that I've run down the left hand side, but only goes as far as the greenhouses

Nematodes should be due in a couple of days hopefully and it's the ideal weather to apply them

Suffolk_lass

zafiro1984 wrote: »

Does anyone know of a weed killer that deals with mares tail?

SBK Stump killer is a concentrated form of glyphosate. You can use a paintbrush to topically apply it. Nightmare. Most people say you only control it - eradication is impossible. It is another one with 3 ft roots.

Suffolk_lass

unrecordings, I may have missed it - what are you using nematodes to control?

Our little apple trees are varying from none to so heavily laden we will need to pick half if they don't fall this month - they are all on dwarfing rootstocks

unrecordings

Suffolk_lass wrote: »

unrecordings, I may have missed it - what are you using nematodes to control?

Slugs - nematodes prey on baby slugs/eggs so disrupt their reproductive cycle rather than killing the adult slugs (a preventative measure rather than a reactive one)

I can guarantee there are some U-Boat sized ones out there right now

BananaRepublic

The black, white and pink currants are doing nicely. Medlars looking good. Zero quinces. Cherries abundant, plums swelling. Carrots and onions doing well. Poor germination from root parsley. White beetroot okay, but mediocre germination. Leeks totally destroyed, 3 square metres, netted, pegged and weighted down and yet over the past two months something got in and turned the surface into a Somme renenactment. Three times now over the last week I have found a juvenile bird inside, and I had to free it. I have no idea how they get through the netting, obviously under the edges, but it’s pegged and weighted. These young birds have the intelligence of a house brick. But they didn’t do the original damage. The one massive disadvantage of no dig gardening is that the layer of compost is attwctive to anything that feeds on worms, and they will turn it over to find the worms.

Squashes are doing badly, the organic compost seems not to their liking, in fact my chillis hate it too.

zafiro1984

BananaRepublic wrote: »

The black, white and pink currants are doing nicely. Medlars looking good.

That reminds me to net the blackcurrants. Medlars -I had a good crop last year but bottled out eating them when they had rotted - anyone know what they are supposed to taste like or better still another use for medlars.

Suffolk Lass. Thanks for the advice on marestail but I believe there is a killer for marestail/horsetail that doesn't rely on glyphosate. I'm trying to track it down as I'm hoping to use it on a couple of raised beds. I regret the day I bought some top soil about ten yrs ago to fill my then new raised vegetable beds.

Rained yesterday so spent a couple of hours undercover and managed to finish tidying up and moving various plants around.

Suffolk_lass

zafiro1984 wrote: »

Suffolk Lass. Thanks for the advice on marestail but I believe there is a killer for marestail/horsetail that doesn't rely on glyphosate. I'm trying to track it down as I'm hoping to use it on a couple of raised beds. I regret the day I bought some top soil about ten yrs ago to fill my then new raised vegetable beds.

Ammonium sulphamate? Roger Brook talks about it on his no-dig gardener blog here

zafiro1984

Suffolk_lass wrote: »

Ammonium sulphamate? Roger Brook talks about it on his no-dig gardener blog here

Many thanks Suffolk Lass I've just had a quick look at his blog but will spend more time looking tonight.