Justvera's Outbox

Thanks for your reply. Actually I did not expect the bulbs to give the extra warmth,I am already using the soil warming cable for the extra heat. I did not know if it had to be ultra violet bulbs to give the light or if the normal daylight bulbs would do the trick. Nice to hear you had such a bargain with the chainsaw.

Thankyou Doctorbob,but I was hoping that putting the leyland trimmings through the shredder would enable it to break down quicker.I have some bad patches of heavy clay and thought that it could perhaps lighten it up a bit.I was a bit bothered about whether or not it could be poison
to the ground.

I also have the same problem this year with my leaks.All papery and half dead with no thickness ocurring at the stems.
I dug a bit of a trench this time in order to have longer stems,and still used the dibber at the bottom of the trench.,I earthed them up,bit by bit and thought I had overdone it,causing this problem. They are quite close to where my blighted tomatoes were growing which I also thought could have been the problem.

I shall be very interested in replies you receive.

Peter,your photo shows the garlic sitting on top of the soil,is this the way you leave them to grow ?And is October the correct time to sow them please ?

I have experienced the same problem. I have handpicked all the caterpillers off ,Loads of them ! Each day a few more seem to appear from no where. Over the last two weeks I can see fresh growth,and I am hoping enough will mature to make a possible future crop.. I did previously cover these plants with mesh but did not expect the butterflies to find their way under the netting.As the baby plants grew,the netting was not touching the ground .

I hope to make a better job of them next year. I think the ones that appear now are the tiny quarter inch babies which were missed by me at the beginning of my caterpiller hunt.Do not pull them all up until you have tried. Look for the yellow eggs and make sure you kill them off ! ( under the remaining leaves and stalks )

If you still have a huge muckheap from when you kept your horse,you will find it is worth it's weight in gold. The older the better. I am lucky enough to have first call on the muckheaps which my grandchildren are glad to get rid of. Fantastic stuff.I wish you luck with your garden!

Read it all and enjoyed your pictures. Really lovely

Now is a good time to take the clematis cuttings. I have failed in previous years but have at last succeeded by not enclosing them in a humid atmosphere. I have kept the top leaf dry and watered from the bottom and kept them in the shade under the staging of the greenhouse. It is almost three weeks and every single one looks great so far. I took a dozen cuttings using the half ripe parts.previously I was treating the cuttings the same way that I do for Camelias.
(sealed inside a polythene bag )

Had to give up shredding and composting the newspapers. I have four large compost bins but the lawn cuttings and other garden scrap just keep them filled up ! It seems to settle down a bit more every day but a few hours working & they are all full again !

The experiment with the beetroot was a 'no go' they did not change colour at all ! It was worth a try.

Being away from home for a few days I was amazed upon my return to see hundreds of baby caterpillers on my various greens. I sprayed them after picking off everyone I could see which took more than four hours !I fed them to my Koi and Goldfish. Two days later I still found a lot more of the caterpillers which I can't believe I had missed the first time.
Every day I find more of them,mostly only a half inch long,makes me wonder if this is worth all the trouble ! All of my cauliflowers, brocoli ,Savoys and brussel sprouts have holes all over the place,I am hoping the hearts of them will grow and be OK.Is it possible for birds to get at these things when most of the baby caterpillers are underneath the leaves ?

Thankyou for your help.Luckilly I have other tom plants outdoors that seem to be thriving,so we shall be able to have some pleasure from my own home grown stuff.

Can you get 'Google ' ? If you write into the search panel,"Propogate Camelia.?or whatever it is that you want to take cuttings from,you will have lots of advice and often with pictures giving you step by step instructions. I have propagated Camelia and Clematus with the help from google.

They are in very large flower tubs. I mixed some well rotted horse manure and also some bonemeal into the compost (which came from the garden centre.) I thought the bought stuff would not be good enough to feed them for the time it would take for them to produce toms. Thanks for your help though. Could I mix into the top of the soil some crushed and microwaved egg shells ? (I think that must be calcium)
I have kept them well watered on a daily basis.

You are lucky to have this manure. A year old and it would feed your soil beautifully either as a top dressing around your plants or ,if it is from a stable and mixed already with bedding it could be dug in at any time . If it is freshly collected from the field,best to add it to your compost heap,or leave it to rot down a few months before use. The three donkeys would produce tons over the year and is like gold !!

When my bulbs die down,I plant my courgette plants (which I raised in my cold green house,) into the beds,and I just leave the bulbs in place to come up the following spring. It has worked for the last three years and I have had good crops of the courgettes. I leave the leaves tied up until they die completely,and I add compost on the top as I plant the new stuff. Any spare space and I pop in a few lettuce plants.I prefer to have some nice home grown veg rather than the flowers which do not last long anyway.The beds give continual interest.

Thankyou Andrew & Majeekahead for your welcome help. How nice to have more experienced gardeners ready to advize !

I can put off the sowing of my toms now,until I return from a long awaited holiday. ( Where it is hot ) Thanks again.

I regularly spend a penny in a bucket in my greenhouse and add it to one of the compost bins.This is purely because it is easier than returning to the house or having to take off muddy shoes.
My garden is quite private although I had a shock in the summer when a head popped up at the top of the high fence,close to my greenhouse and a lady asked me if I had seen her white kitten !! Just at the wrong time for me. !! .

I grew some lemon grass from seed last year and kept them in pots until june,when I planted some of them outside. I kept five in large pots inside my unheated greehouse where I intend to keep them until next spring. The ones I planted outside I have covered with piles of grass cuttings to see if they will survive the winter. I pulled up part of one of them and they are forming small bulbs a bit like a spring onion. They do not seem much like the expensive lemon grass which I have bought from Tesco's in the past,but hopefully,if they survive,next year they will be sturdy enough to harvest. If they survive I would happily send you some in the spring

Thank you Peter for your help. I will dash to our local garden center and if successful will plant them today.

Thankyou for your help concerning my pear tree,I will do as you say. Kind regards from Vera

Thankyou very much darryluk. I will try to get rid of the little devils otherwise I shall lose my enthusiasm for growing my veg.I have swarms of them every time I move a leaf .

I have sown some cauliflower seeds which are showing themselves now. I intend to overwinter them in a cold frame hoping for some early ones next year.

Thankyou walrus for your comment

I also picked off the nasty blighty parts on my tomatoes ,I am pleased that I did not uproot and burn them because I still had quite a lot of toms that were perfect,on the same plants.

Thanks a million for this information. I shall now make a few strawberry plant pots to give away.

Just beautiful

Many thanks,Will do.

I also have a small pond which gave me problems with blanket weed. I introduced a bunch of oxygenating weed ,which grew quickly and after two years ,with the plant growing & growing,I now do not have any blanket weed,and have now put cold water fish into the pond. The water is clear.A new pond does take a while to settle down.I could send you some of the plant.

Yes,I have cut down this plant and it has grown a double stem now and looking great. I did it late summer and it really took off the following spring.