GreenFly - A 'flylady style' gardening thread with weekly tasks to tame your garden

greenbee

Lump hammer @Brie

Brie

greenbee said:

Lump hammer @Brie

actually I was more worried about the bitey ants than anything else....

meanwhile - for those with lots of tomato plants that have too many leaves....found this on Cranks when I was looking for some salad ideas.....

Tomato Leaf Pesto

• 1 handful of tomato leaves, destalked
• 15g fresh oregano or basil
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled
• 40ml olive oil
• ½ a lemon
• sea salt & black pepper

And basically you blitz the first 3 ingredients, mix in the oil and lemon and season.  Apparently tastes very strongly on the tomatoes.  Keeps for 5 days and they do mention that the leaves are not poisonous as often believed.  Of course people used to think that the tomatoes were poisonous as well! 

greenbee

Ooh... I might try that!

I assumed the lump hammer would deal with the ants too  

KajiKita

That kind of cover with a chute below it at my parents house is still used for coal deliveries, @Cheery_Daff. 

KK

redofromstart

Not really in the mood for gardening today but the weeds are increasing as I watch so I have watered the tomatoes and peppers, taken a tub trug of sticky weed and rose stems out of the front (which was blocking the birds from one of their water trays so important), removed the black fly infested broad beans and sprayed the remaining beans with diluted washing up liquid as they actually have some bean pods on.  The first pea pod was ready so I ate that and the handful of raspberries.

Once the lawn is done then the green waste bins are full ready to go out.

greenbee

I found some pods on my broad beans yesterday too, when I was taking the tops off to eat (no blackfly amazingly). I need to hurry up and decide what to put in after them. 

Watered well last night, and did some weedkilling, so obviously it rained this morning. 

There is weeding to do, more beds to make, pots to relocate tomatoes into (someone gave me some buckets so the toms that are in small pots can be upgraded). I also need to get my act together with building more beds and setting up irrigation systems - I now have cardboard, compost, soaker hose and accessories, so there are no excuses other than lethargy (or maybe apathy). Peas, courgettes, and strawberries are now being picked (as well as the broad bean tops).

Today is feeding day, so that will happen at some point. The benefit of it being overcast is that I don't have to wait until the sun is off the garden to do it. 

Slinky

Somebody was asking about raspberries, we have autumn fruiting ones and they are looking good for later in the year. We get a few around this time, but the big crop is yet to come.  The strawberries have been cracking. We've had strawberries with everything for about the past 3 weeks. These were in a new raised bed created at the end of last year, and have somehow escaped the attention of the many slugs. I'm just wondering if the oak boards have put them off?

Cheery_Daff

KajiKita said:

That kind of cover with a chute below it at my parents house is still used for coal deliveries, @Cheery_Daff. 

KK

That's what I assumed ours was when we moved, but there's a separate coal shed, and the big slab beneath the whole is more like a very shallow sink with a drain hole at one end 🤔 

No gardening here this weekend, although I have done a lot of looking at other people's gardens for inspiration lately - does that count?? 😂

KajiKita

I have spent c. 6 hours, weeding and clearing an overgrown border today and then planting it! Shattered now but pleased as it looks a lot better 😊
There is a volunteer hawthorn in the midst of it that will need hoicking out come the winter. Also removed three baby brambles and two optimistic oak seedlings …! 

KK

EssexHebridean

Our garden seems to mostly be ticking over now. MrEH planted the bargain blackcurrant into what we have decided will be its final spot, so we'll see how that gets on. He also fixed up a trellis for one of the two newly sown cucumbers to have a go at climbing up, as the two in the growbag are looking like they really would prefer to be clambering up something. They're setting fruit though, so they're obviously not too offended by their ground dwelling status. In front of that he's built a wigwam for the bush beans which have also now been planted out.

We have now discovered that the runner beans all have at least a degree of blackfly as well. Honestly - it's never-ending! Currently we're combining spraying with dilute soap solution and just simply gently squishing the little blighters too - we're slightly hoping that they may behave a bit like ants in that if you make their lives unpleasant enough, they will decide to move on elsewhere... 

Also in bean news, the Borlottis seem to be germinating v-e-r-y- s-l-o-w-l-y. At least they ARE germinating I guess, but I have no idea why we seem to have had such limited success with all things beany this year! 

Our super bargain pea plants have a handful of pods on, but it IS just a handful - so we ate the first pod last night straight off the plant and they were delicious! Realistically the others are going to be consumed the same way, and we will just continue to pin our hopes on more flowers still to come. 

More basil sown, also more radishes. Still need to find more containers but that is an ongoing project. 

Lovely over the road neighbour has given us two more big ceramic pots as well - one is already planted up in the front garden - all using plants we already had and freeing up a large pot and a small trough in the process (the trough already has the radishes in it!). The other one needs thought - I'd ideally like to put it in the back, and again, might look to use it in place of a large plastic one which would be better suited to seasonal use I think.