Show Us Your Veg Patch - You Know You Want To!! (Merged Thread)

jtb2412

Thanks for the advice about the ants/aphids !

Am at work at the moment so will sort the little blighters out when I get home.

Just out of interest, what will the aphids do to the plants?

kayjay1809

Divadee - what a wonderful veg patch!! I'm very jealous

I have a question - I have a small garden and have removed a very large shed leaving a space of about 12ft x 4ft which is very compacted, I have no idea what is under the soil as I haven't got hubby to dig it yet. If I were to put a raised bed or two in this space, would we need to dig it over first or would the raised bed with compost in be sufficient?? As the soil's been under a shed for many years I'm guessing it's not good quality soil (but weed free lol!). Any advice would be most welcome, thanks :j

divadee

Primrose wrote: »

Divadee - lovey tidy veggie plot! Just a thought about your tomato pots. I grew aubergines & peppers in pots on my yellow stoned patio last year and found that after feeding them with Tomarite, the patio stones underneath got stained brown with the compost liquid, etc. You might find that placing your pots in large plastic drip saucers will prevent any stain damage to what looks like white stones underneath them. It also allows any surplus water which contains liquid fertiliser to drain though, be collected rather wasted, and reused.

we have not had any probs yet with where we have put the pots and have done it for 2 years, but i didnt think about the wastage of tomarite!!! will have to get some giant saucers now lol

divadee

kayjay1809 wrote: »

Divadee - what a wonderful veg patch!! I'm very jealous

I have a question - I have a small garden and have removed a very large shed leaving a space of about 12ft x 4ft which is very compacted, I have no idea what is under the soil as I haven't got hubby to dig it yet. If I were to put a raised bed or two in this space, would we need to dig it over first or would the raised bed with compost in be sufficient?? As the soil's been under a shed for many years I'm guessing it's not good quality soil (but weed free lol!). Any advice would be most welcome, thanks :j

we had very compacted ground as it was little miss divadees play area and had been under play bark for about 5-6 years. We left the bark where it was and placed the raised beds in, then we only dug the raised beds area so didnt have to do the whole space. We then topped up with top soil, compost and well rotted horse poo and left to settle for about 6 weeks regularly hoeing the area to get rid of weeds.

we wanted to re-use the bark all round the beds, as grass you obviously have to cut, if you leave it bare it becomes a swamp, so putting the bark round was ideal for us, and just using what was there. Obviously it will beed some topping up in the years to come, but at least its very low maintenance.

Lotus-eater

jtb2412 wrote: »

Just out of interest, what will the aphids do to the plants?

They suck all the juice out of the plant and introduce viruses, the honeydew covers the leaves and makes them sticky. Mould forms on the sticky dew and affects the photosynthesis of the leaf. (I copied that from the web )

I was going to say something rude about sucking the juice out, but managed to restrain myself.;)

jtb2412

Thanks lotus

Am just about to have some lunch (back from work, i'm a part-timer lol) and then going to go armed with my soapy water and get the little critters ! I'll teach em to suck me juices ! :eek: (no inuendo intended ! )

MRSMCAWBER

Hi all

Just been outside removing the flowers from my cucumbers and whilst i was out there picked the few odds n sods of beans/peas that were ready...
so have a few peas, french beans, sugar snaps and borlottis along with a bit of kale, chard and the kholrabi tops to go with dinner tonight.. Not much on the bean/pea front..but its a start and if i pick them it will encourage more flowers



Re..the ants/green fly.... i have a very lovely little blue tit who keeps going under the net where i have my broad beans and helping himself to any bugs he can find :T so i now leave him a little gap so he doesn't get stuck

jtb2412

Ohh Ohhh ! I've just been out to check on my plants and a courgette has flowered ! It looks wonderful ! (sad aren't i? lol) Do I need to do anything? They have male and female flowers don't they?

Pleased to say the aphids have now gone (soapy water) and the ants have gone too so BIG thanks for the advice :beer:

Had lots of rain here yesterday/night before so things have shot up ! Also manged to get a water butt from freecycle so can now start saving money on my water bill ! It filled up in one night ! :eek:

How is everyone today?

MRSMCAWBER

Hi there jtb

Not sad..well if you are -im sure that there are lots more of us who are "sad" too :rotfl:

Have a look at your courgette flower and see if there is the start of a courgette behind it..if not -don't panic if it just drops off in a few days
I had several flowers on my 1st one and was sooo excited, so imagine how gutted i was when they just dropped off :eek: it looked like someone had cut about 1cm off of stem off too...i had a right hissy fit..until i checked up and found out that if there are no female flowers about the male ones will just drop off as there is nothing for them to do ..i have had quite a few flowers -but none with courgettes attatched yet :rolleyes:

Primrose

JTB - don't worry about your courgette flowers. The males and females seem quite happy to look after themselves and in all the years I've been growing them I've never had to do any hand pollination.

KayJay - think you would be well advised to dig over the compacted soil where your old shed has been. It will not have been exposed to light or air for many years and there could be a fairly solid layer of clay there which might impede easy drainage in the future if you put further layers of topsoil or compost on it. It will also make life easier for the worms in pulling through top layers of humous enabling it to be integrated more easily in the soil.