[Closed] STW Growerists - How does your garden grow?

thepurist - where are you? In Leeds, only just the tiniest glimpses of dahlias here in Leeds. These were left in their pots over winter, but out of the wet/frost.

willjones - I'm a soft southerner but I'd guess pots will be a bit quicker to warm up than the ground. I won't give up on them yet.

Capn your triffid is a Centaurea montana.

Thanks! STW Hive Mind strikes again!

It's a stunning flower, just an amazing colour.

Sneaky day off spent in the garden. The weather is too good to be in the workroom.

Planted sweet peas,
sunflowers are in but already attacked by the mother of all slugs (now dead, slug not plant),
Purple flowering broccoli going in.
Lots of trimming, weeding and general tidying up.

Fridays home grown rhubarb crumble was delicious.

The Dhalias live! Or at least one of em does. Might be time for some cuttings...

Bunnyhop - how do you despatch your slugs? Was out clearing weeds and the last of the Beech leaves and found a proper colony. Felco 1 : Slugs & snails 0

I've got a tiny garden, but all the plants seem to be massive tropical things, one of them is a nice lily (I think), but there's also these reedy looking things with weird purple flowers - any know what this is?

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Looks like some kind of iris to me

[url= http://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/details?plantid=6230 ]Iris sibirica[/url] at a guess

An iris indeed. Pics of my lily shortly (fnaar fnaar)

Bunnyhop - how do you despatch your slugs?

It's a fine line with keeping an untidyish wildlife friendly garden and growing fruit and vegetables.

This is quite large...
It is a lily?

[img] https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/fjn9tTiwtLDeHb9gKtnHOVbKXwC_00xJvy9Rd7LqK3g=w522-h785-no [/img]

[url= http://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=177 ]Zantedeschia [/url]I'm guessing your garden is a bit damp DezB

I'm off to a great start--it was 85F degrees here 10 days ago and my tomato plants were going to blossom, but last night it was 30F, snowing in the foothills and my tomato plants are all black. So, back to the second planting!!! 😥

Lettuce potted out in a trough tonight, bought from Waitrose for £1, and should be a good cut and come again. Second stab at tomatoes planted out in a growbag as well. Went for one plum, on cherry, one yellow and a Gardener's Delight as a standard.

Oh, and runner beans are going vertical!

Well, I had a good go at my lawn. Turns out a lot of the grass plants had been growing sideways and getting quite long and coarse and making for a shite lawn. So I raked up all the stems and mowed, then I had to go over it with scissors trimming all the wiry bits.. Still the seed has taken so I'm hopeful for the future...

If you have sweet peas, go and water them! Mine were parched this evening.

I overseeded my lawn as it was very patchy two weeks ago and over the past two days it's gone from brown and green to very green, loads of little shoots everywhere - just hope it will take properly and stay.
off to water it again.

Finally got round to planting some chilies: habanero, jalapeño, and the mighty ghost. Now just have to wait to see how many germinate. I've left them a bit late, but the growing season is a bit longer in Spain and I'll bring them inside when we hit the end of October - last year my cayennes were still going well into December.

slugs/ snails are decimating my leafy ground-level plants...
got a bottle of nasty stout I don't want - might shove that in a pot in the ground and see what I can lure...

Sprouts planted, parsley (my seeded one never took) bought locally, sage and beans.

Slugs have eaten all the sunflower plants, I might just be able to save one if I sneak out tonight and go slug hunting.

Raspberries are budding up nicely, I've been greenfly squishing on those, also a blue tit is nesting above them, so he's gathering them for his mate.

Water in the morning then the pests don't gobble up the lot.

I set a beer trap this week and it brought immediate results. I was rather hoping that the hedgehog (who is forever getting 'chummy' with the coconut mat) would consume these beery morsels but they didn't go. The beer looked a bit diminished though.
I've got in onions, garlic, 4 types of spud, cabbage, beetroot, turnips, beans, cucumbers, courgettes, leeks, strawberries, gooseberries, tomatoes, raspberries, rhubarb, sweetcorn and I planted two apple trees this year. God knows what I'll do with it if it all comes up, freebies for locals and passing strangers most likely.

I'm debating wether or not to put the capsicum pepper I grew from a seed from a supermarket pepper outside. It has two baby peppers on it.

Greenfly are doing well this year, ladybirds were early too, slugs down on last year but snails, snails are everywhere!

Guess our mild winter has been good for our garden pests 😉

Plant wise, rhubarb struggling this year, bumper year for blossom on my fruit trees, could be a great year for fruit.

Lawn still very damp, moss treated and grass seed doing well, still looks messy.

Anyone going to that big show down south this week?

Slugs down?! I have tried the nematode worms on tnhem this year, a bit early yet to say if it's successful or not.

Potatoes now doing well, planted some herbs a few weeks ago but the mint was immdeiately eaten by the slugs.

slug in ale stew anyone?

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I can't believe how quickly they shift to get in to the beer, this was after 2 days and there are over 30 slugs in there - I may put another one down to catch the decking slugs.
Snails don't seem bothered though.

I also discovered that handling slugs is a bad idea as their slime doesn't wash off.

come on, I'm sure everyone's got some bank holiday gardening planned?
I intend to cut my lawn after a very successful overseeding.

bank holiday is next weekend. will be boogering off with the bike somewhere though.

Some of the pepper plants are getting bigger. Some have got stuck. The one that remained likes cress for 6 weeks died in the end.

Looking at potting on about 50% each of the Chocolate Habanero and Bird Eye chillis.

Anyone know a good reliable source for hot pepper seeds? (mine were a firebox.com or similar giftbox thing)

bank holiday is next weekend

this weekend.

actually I think it's Thursday here but it morphs in to a 4-day weekend 😉

Anyone know a good reliable source for hot pepper seeds?

http://www.southdevonchillifarm.co.uk/shop/chilli-products/chilli-seeds-1.html

My overseeding has worked a lot better now it's rained. The little baby grass plants were struggling due to lack of water and I didn't realise it.

Can't mow the bugger now though it's so wet, but it's already getting tall.

perfect conditions for grass growing, but not grass cutting.

Planted my new tree fern yesterday in my specially created fern bed....was very exciting! 8)

The cucumber plants are growing so well, have a mini and normal variety. Home grown cucumbers are so delicious i could eat it like a stick of rock.
Had to net off the sprouts before Mr woodpigeon ate all 4 plants this morning.
Tomatoes have been tricky to get going but I think they are finally about to flower.
No gardening this weekend, to busy riding bikes. 🙂

We have a pup in ours and have now run out of room to keep all the tubs out of her way. She has so far eaten every bud off most of the plants. Destroyed some of Abigales gnomes and is now digging holes in the boarders to replant the tubs she has killed. I thing the best thing to do is throw everything into the middle and let her arrange it how she wants

Too fast at the moment - especially the grass.

Our garden has been a mess the last few years after building an extension, got the drains put in this week ready to be signed off by building control. Now the fun starts, digging a pond tomorrow, ground is solid clay so no liner needed, may even go shopping, 😯 yes shopping, for plants, Gunnera Manicata is top of my list.
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twinwall - if you're buying a decent quantity then find your nearest wholesale nurseries - as long as you know what you want (species and pot sizes) they're generally happy to sell to anyone.

Thanks purist, got some Marsh Marigold seeds in the fridge ready for planting, won't go too mad as i know how pond plants can take over.

I'm new to the veg game - cleared a bramble patch last year and put in a raised bed. Went a bit large with it, but no matter. Right now I've got potatoes growing with gusto, a poorly rubarb and some garlic. Rather optimistically, I set three hop rhizomes by the fence - something for the longer term.

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Did great with a courgette plant last year, so have a couple starting off in pots ready to go in a bit later.

Garry lager - what's Wrong with the rhubarb? It looks fine to me.

Not sure, it doesn't appear to be growing much - the leaves are almost on the soil. Though they were meant to grow upwards more - I guess there is still time for it to fill out later in the year.

Too much soil on show There Garry! Get some broad and runner beans in, and a dose of herb seeds.

I have absolutely no interest in gardening but am very pleased at having installed the sedum roof on our extension yesterday. Hoping it rains all weekend now 😀

Open Gardens in our village this weekend, so everything's been bullied into shape, and the kids made a scarecrow for a laugh.

The tricky corner for us is under a NE facing hedge (next doors lelandii), so dry, fairly shady, and all the goodness sucked out of the soil by the hedge. Aside from the obvious (deeper border, manure, etc) thoughts on suitable planting welcomed.

I think the wife has been reading about Kim Kardashian, said why can't you treat me to a large expensive rock?
[img] https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/3PkuGS9rk1PtdohOEpRAcifi58azwt1IVMDpyHD7kOc=w830-h553-no [/img]
1.5 tonne of Westmoreland, got to be a VS2.

That rock reminds me. Need to research on the growing of Moss.

Does anyone know how much growth you can expect from a climbing plant in a pot? I want to set a Virginia creeper to grow over my house wall - it's a v large expanse and, crucially, I don't have any soil at the base, so it would sit in a pot. Would this be futile, or can they grow to a decent size from a big plant pot?

[i]Would this be futile, or can they grow to a decent size from a big plant pot?
[/i]
It would have to be a very large pot, with the right soil, out of direct sunlight and need to be kept damp and well fed all year round.....so its not impossible, but tricky!

It's taken over 7 years and now our bee (other insects too) friendly garden is really showing signs of so much activity.
Bees are everywhere. I've even left the purple sprouting broccoli flowers to continue blooming, as they are swarming around this plant.

Will try and put some photos up at some point.

[i]Bees are everywhere[/i]

😯 SWARMMMMMM!!!!

Ive got a lot of tropical plants including cordylines which flowered this year. At times I had over 30 bees on each plant.

We've got a lot of green strawberries, but I'm thinking we'll be on holiday just as they're ripe. Anyone know how long strawberries take to ripen?

Garry_L have you tried

Forcing
You can get a head start on established rhubarb plants, and encourage them to grow faster by doing something known as 'forcing'. At the start of the year in late winter / early spring, you simply isolate the new growth from the light by placing a large container up-side-down over the plant. This will cause them to grow fast and tall. Leave the cover on for about 4-6 weeks and you will be able to start harvesting shortly afterwards. This should not be done in the first year with new plants, only established ones.

My brother does this with his and it seems to work

berries on the Rowan this year are a disaster 🙁 we had a storm blow through and it decimated the rowans blossom ! Terrible timing for it.

Turf time this weekend. Before and after.
[img][url= https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5158/14248508859_607d776ce7.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5158/14248508859_607d776ce7.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/nH6kgR ]Before[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/people// ]sandwicheater[/url], on Flickr[/img]

[img][url= https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2916/14435149625_0716480cac.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2916/14435149625_0716480cac.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/nZzV56 ]after[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/people// ]sandwicheater[/url], on Flickr[/img]

Started on the new (extremely unloved and overgrown) allotment

Sat 08:00, get petrol strimmer
08:20 - go mental, as discover bricks, glass, plastic, netting, wire, buliding site fence holders - massive picking up/moving session
09:20 - start strimming, rake, discover lots more bricks, more strimming, raking, discover more bricks and paving slabs, more strimming
11:47 - finished, return strimmer best £14.97 I've spent for a long time

Sun 08:00 first dump trip - Berlingo totally full
08:30 - lots more raking, digging up platic, mesh, bricks, slabs, catalogues, hedge trimming - bagging it all up
11:00 site cleared, now vaguely level
lay weed membrane
another totally full berlingo to dump

need more weed mesh to cover and need to start looking for manure - perversley satisfactory

The strawberries have gone mad. I've probably picked a small punnets worth every evening.

Does anyone know why my cucumbers are prickly? (still taste delicious though).

Some varities just are hairy/prickly Bunnyhop. Sugar snaps cropping like mad here, artichoke on the way, climbing French beans are still a disappointment but runners are ok. Parsnips seem to have failed (last years seed packet) and carrots are variable

Slowly getting there on the Garden front:

18 months ago

[url= https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8059/8266975208_b6e5d00555.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8059/8266975208_b6e5d00555.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/dAwpHj ]Workshop front[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/people// ]brf[/url], on Flickr

Now-ish (a few more shrubs and roses in the beds since this photo):

[url= https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3862/14378955052_0daa67f155.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3862/14378955052_0daa67f155.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/nUBUo9 ]More paving[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/people// ]brf[/url], on Flickr

Was supposed to be finishing it this WE with new turf for the lawn, but my skip was cancelled by the council, so I've no where to dump soil when levelling it all off....