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

KajiKita

Greenhouse planted up! 😊👏 Verrrr proud of myself as normally everything is dying or falling over by the time I get it in the ground 😉😂



I’m also having issues with compost this year. Binned off a bag and two thirds of some yesterday as much over the cardboard over the cut flower bed - I sprinkled some foul smelling comfrey compost under  cardboard first. It wasn’t growing anything well - so frustrating when that was the main compost I have been using for all seed sowing and potting on this year 😢

KK

-taff

I was using Levingtons red with Jogn Innes, seed germination was marvellous, but as soon as they popped out, they stalled and stayed stalled until I swapped the compost for some from the allotment shop [ yes, it did have peat in it, small amounts though] I've cleaned the roots of everything and put it back in bags to use as mulch elsewhere. It's very disheartening but quality seems to vary from year to year, bag to bag....

greenbee

There was a tip on GW a few weeks ago to bury some of your kitchen waste in the commercial compost for a week (and then remove it) to introduce microbes to the commercial stuff. Apparently it's pretty sterile and lifeless.

I have high hopes of the Plant Grow stuff that I've finally managed to get hold of. It feels and smells more compost-like than the other stuff I've had so far. It's local, recommended by numerous people, and a by-product of the biodigester so should have microbes in it... 

I must copy @KajiKita and move some marigolds from outside (they pop up everywhere) into the greenhouse. Those can grow in the ground. Everything else is in pots as the soil in my garden is so appalling. 

KajiKita

greenbee said:

There was a tip on GW a few weeks ago to bury some of your kitchen waste in the commercial compost for a week (and then remove it) to introduce microbes to the commercial stuff. Apparently it's pretty sterile and lifeless.

I have high hopes of the Plant Grow stuff that I've finally managed to get hold of. It feels and smells more compost-like than the other stuff I've had so far. It's local, recommended by numerous people, and a by-product of the biodigester so should have microbes in it... 

Oooh, interesting thought …. I’ve been reading quite a bit about permaculture recently and this makes sense. 

Not heard of Plant Grow - will look out for that. 

I’ve found reading about permaculture principles and approaches has made me quite a bit more relaxed about my garden this year - bind weed is what my garden likes to grow - it will take a while to shift the ecology to an environment that doesn’t want to grow that as much. In the meantime I am knocking it  back regularly (mainly just pulling it) and remembering that interacting with it means my ‘gardener’s shadow’ falling on it also means that I am noticing other competitors and things like black fly starting up on the broad beans … I’m also deliberately leaving some of the gentler ‘weeds’ that like to scatter themselves about - there is one that likes to grow in walls that has tiny purple and white flowers that is dancing about in my greenhouse - I’m leaving it be - it will attract pollinators, looks pretty and helps the overall ecology of my dreadful soil 🤷‍♀️😊

The foxgloves have always been welcomed - can’t pull out all the foxgloves 😉❤️

KK

greenbee

I leave a lot of 'weeds'. If I like it, then it stays. As a result I have masses of feverfew, poppies, ivy-leaved toadflax, creeping buttercup, creeping ivy etc. I pull them up if they're growing where I don't want them. 

Hopefully the plumber will turn up tomorrow (he says 10am, but has never so far been on time) and get the IBCs up and running. We've had quite a bit of rain, and are due more, so it would be nice to start harvesting it. We should get the ones behind the summerhouse done on Friday if all goes well (although the blinds in the house are proving problematic due to there being nothing of any substance to attach them to, so they may take rather more time than planned). 

kazwookie

Never thought I would be saying this, but woo hooo it is proper rain here! water butts are filling up slowly, just had to go out and lift the lids slightly to look!

greenbee

My IBCs were being connected in the rain @kazwookie - it'll be interesting to see how much I get off the shed roof!

EssexHebridean

Hurrah for rain here too - and I am now glad I spent some time yesterday raking over the grass to remove some of the matter stuff - here's hoping for it getting a new lease of life thanks to the natural watering! It will definitely be nice to have the water butt a bit fuller again too!

Interesting chat about compost - we've talked about this before haven't we, but I really do start to wonder if ours is the reason for what feels like really slow germination and growing progress this year. Hmmm. Interestingly we bought a bag of Aldi's own basic version yesterday - £3.49 for 40 litres - and both agreed that it felt far nicer than the Westland stuff we'd bought previously. MrEH is still of the view that colder nights than are seasonal might be slowing things down - so here's hoping that is the case as some of the seeds we have waiting to do anything were the last of favourite varieties of things so it would be annoying to have a complete failure on those in particular.  we have used that bag of the cheap stuff for some "guerrilla gardening" involving a load of spare and out of date flower seeds so we'll see what if anything of those comes up, that might give us a proper take on how good - or otherwise - the compost is.  

Big focus yesterday was on tidying and wood-preserving - particularly once we started dismantling a section of raised-bed outer in front of the shed and discovered quite what a poor state the base of the shed was in. We've got a couple of those bottom sections painted with the preservative now and will continue to work on that task, but there's not a lot we can do about areas that have already been badly affected. I got the holes drilled and preservative onto the wooden wine boxes I want to use for herbs - so will get those planted up at some stage before too long. The worst of the unevenness has been trimmed out of the grass too, without taking out any of the daisies which are looking fantastic, and we sheared round the path edges just to tidy things up - such a simple thing but makes such a difference! 

debtfreewannabe321

We've also had a good soaking this afternoon - finally! So glad that my DP decided to put some guttering up on the new greenhouse (all salvaged bits from round the garden) and attach it to the water butt. So we should have a bit of water in there as it catches from both the greenhouse and garage. 
DP also made me a cute potting table from leftover scraps of wood ☺️. 

The compost we've been using isn't great either. We got our last lot from £stretcher and actually it felt better than the one we'd spent a lot more on in b&M! I added in feed to it before using it and potting everything up. I've noticed it's either bone dry or soggy wet and there doesn't seem to be much in between 🤔 feel like I need to add something to it but I'm unsure what. 

Cheery_Daff

Delighted to report that some of my second sowing of seeds have germinated! Sown in a mix of topsoil (bought for levelling the lawn, which I've still not done) and home made compost from the bottom of the compost bin. It looks dry like nothing will grow, but there they are, my little seedlings, starting to peek through 😃



So much for bought in compost! Will investigate making my own mix next year.

Spent an hour this evening weeding one of the beds in the veg patch, ready for the plug plants which will hopefully arrive at some point this week. It's quite still out here tonight so I've probably been bitten a million times but hey ho. Lovely evening, curlews calling and cows standing watching me over the fence 😂