Last Post 1128 days 4 hours ago
18 May 2010 21:54:18
Today the prettiest flower in my garden is sad and can not be consoled. My flower has lost her mother this week. There is no happiness in my garden til my flower mourns and smiles again.
16 May 2010 19:45:21
Way up high
A couple of years a gardener gave me some tables he had made for growing veg in. He had only a small garden and most more of it was concrete so he did all his growing on these tables. He gave them to me and I find them invaluable. I sow the lettuce on them and when it is mature I sow the next table. Saves lettuce not being used and going rotten. Also to high of a climb for the slug, well so far anyway
16 May 2010 17:07:20
who or what am I
I would be grateful if anyone could give me the name of this fella. Can-t even remember who gave it to me and I have it in pots everywhere
15 May 2010 22:32:39
There is a great movement spreading across the country and people are starting to grow there own. more and more you see people in the garden centres buying trays of pre grown veg ready for planting out. Now I see this as a start and although not in favour of this method, would prefer to see people sow their own seed, never the less it is a start. Not all people have a greenhouse or maybe the knowledge so this method is a helping hand on the start to building up their knowledge.
However I spotted something the other day in a garden centre which maybe stop and think. Is some of these new and awe struck gardeners being taken advantage off ? now I don-t mean price wise but I do mean product wise. Now cabbage, cauliflower and turnip plants there is no real difficulty with buying pre grown. I saw some dubious seed potatoes for sale in supermarkets. However what I saw takes the biscuit, pre grown carrot stock in a plastic container. Now I will stand corrected on this but I did not think you could transplant carrot. These were in a container that you would have to split the stock.
Now my problem with this is that it is taking advantage of a person who does not know and is trying to learn. Also when the the crop fails they become disheartened and do not try again next year. Are we turning potential gardeners against gardening because the ready made product failed. I think the commercial buck could destroy the naieve, budding world changing gardener.
Maybe I am wrong, maybe I am right and then maybe some of you agree with me and some may not but i think it is unfair to dash someones new found ideals this way
14 May 2010 23:01:27
Frost
More frost for tonight, however with the aid of these covers I have turned the garden into tent city
11 May 2010 23:06:08
It is spilling rain here. Several times I looked out the window and said to myself that the weather men were wrong, There no way it can freeze. However I donned the wet gear and went out and covered the drills. The neighbours thought i was mad in the rain covering the drills. When I mentioned frost to him, he looked at the sky and went off muttering to himself. I on the other hand muttered to myself about the confusing weather. It just shows the divide between gardeners and non gardeners...we don-t understand each other
10 May 2010 23:09:12
My small fruit plantation
I am amazed at chillipeppers fruit cage and would love to possess one but never the less I have a little fruit plantation of my own. Bought them in Aldi or Lidl, kept them in the greenhouse over the winter and planted them in tubs a week ago. However mixed up the labels and havent a clue which fruit bush is which. Will have to wait till they fruit now
10 May 2010 22:46:56
That damn no good low life of a rotten scoundrel is back. I speak of that pest that tormented me and dined on my seedlings. yes he is back and his vacation away from me has increased his appetite. I am at my wits end and have decided on two options. Either I adopt him and call him Arnie, or I burn the greenhouse to the ground and dine on grilled slug and crispy lettuce. Decisions Decisions
10 May 2010 22:17:09
snugly wrapped up
A ground frost tonight. Not good news for us gardeners, but I have covered the spud drills to stop the morning sun burning the young plants
06 May 2010 23:15:41
As most of you know I prefer growing the veg and truth be told was never really into the flowers. The veg are an unassuming lot and basically do what it says on the tin. You plant them, they grow and a little attention often and they are fine. However this year I have decided to try my hand at a few flowers. As you may have read I have built a raised flowerbed and created two others. Here starts the problems
Flowers are a very confusing lot and if they were invited to a dance then we have problems. now if the veg were invited to a dance they would turn up when they were suppose to. Flowers on the other hand, well thats a different story.
The perennials would certainly turn up on cue beautifully attired and certainly could be counted on. The annuals, well there be a bit of work in getting them to show but I suppose you could depend on them to be present at the start of the ball. However after that the problems start. The half annuals, well you die of boredom waiting on them. Very fussy and everything has to be right or not a hope of them gracing the ball. if its to hot, no show, to cold and they are definetly not going to be around. However the biggest prima donna,s certainly has to be the biennals. They need two years of an invitation in advance and then certainly like the half annuals may not turn up at all.
I kinda regretting associating myself with these fussy ladies and they are starting to cause trouble already. Now I find out that if the seating arrangement is-nt also right a major row could start with some overshadowing others and not allowing them to show their beauty.
I should have listened to my mentor who stated " if you can-t eat it, don-t grow it". Saying that I think the same fella told me that pure water was bad for you and should be diluted down with jameson for consumption reasons. Its starting to get confusing
04 May 2010 22:20:07
Last night I decided to check my E-mails, should do it regularly as all the garden comments quickly build up. However a couple of garden comments caught my attention and made my day. It brought joy to read these comments.
I was delighted to read that our good friend Rita is home and not only that is catching up with journals written in her absence. This is brilliant news as I can certainly say that I missed her on the site, a fountain of knowledge and gave it freely and wisely. Had the great pleasure to spend time in her company during the first meeting in Belvedere and was amazed at the amount of gardeners who made it a point to stop and talk to Rita. It shows in the high regard she is held.
I am over the moon that she will once again return to her journals an impart wise comments to us. It is indeed a great day when an absent friend returns and I know that all the gardeners will be as pleased as I am.
03 May 2010 23:32:45
I have not being on the site as I was engaged in a fierce battle of will and sanity, I refer to the battle with that slug. As I said before on day 2 of the battle there was no sign of the bugger and I thought that he had moved on. Maybe the sight of me crashing thru the greenhouse like a lunatic put the fear of God into him and he moved on. No such luck
Day three did not begin well for me, the slug was back. He had dined on my lupin seedlings and I was not impressed. I was dealing with the scarlet pimpernell of snails. However I noticed something. The distance travelled between the seedlings devoured led me to conclude that (a) either the slug was travelling up and down the greenhouse on rollerblades or (b) more troops had arrived to join the ninja slug.
Day four was spent completely clearing the greenhouse. I left not a thing in it but no sign of the that elusive fella and his comrades. I was going to follow Martins idea of the beertraps but i decided against it. I was bad enough popping the valium, but to start drinking beer on top of that so I would have some beer slops for the traps, no I had to draw the line somewhere. I left some bait for the slug, the remainder of the lupin seeds in the middle of the floor.
If this failed I would take to the drink, but low and behold on day 5 I nailed the lot. The distance to the lupins and back to the hiding place was to great and I caught them in open space. Three slugs and two very small snails. Had to polish my boots again when then the job was finished. It was a massacre but I paid a heavy price, all me lupins destroyed, parsley half devoured and a few other seedlings here and there.
Gardening is meant to be a calming influence on us, however this week brought out the murderous side of me and I think it will be a while before I calm down.
01 May 2010 23:02:20
for the last three days I have being pricing growbags but the thing that I notice is that they are smaller than previous years. normally the ones I get are 60 litres but most of the places are stocking 30 litre bags. These are miserable looking things and I don-t think they are up to the job for me. However managed to get 45 litre ones today, look to have a bit of substance in them for the job. have they stopped making the 60 litre ? I suppose with the smaller bag, I will have to water and feed more regular than with the larger bag. Another small trivial matter that when added to all the other trivial matters, makes for interesting gardening