Gardening 2011

And how's everyone doing? WmC just admitted his interest level isn't there right now -- take a break!

Oddly enough I just posted my first real gardening blog post of the year. A slew of things are now in and good to go, and here's the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrwrKBMJY24

I'm going to do a little bit of vegetable gardening, interest level or no. I'm just really achy and sore after yesterday's first yardwork of the year. I was going to get a wheelbarrow full of compost out of the bin yesterday to work in to the row where I'm going to put peas, but there were a bunch of crawling things in there that I thought were maggots. Turns out they were grubworms -- beneficial, but the compost is still too wet and is not breaking down the way it should.

Hay bales delivered yesterday to make up our straw bale garden:

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5104/5614751529_3b56dd3eb9.jpg

We made a maze of them tonight, since it is supposed to rain for the next week, but it got too dark to take a picture of the layout. Also, there are 6 extra and I'm not sure where to put them.

Need to catch up with my latest videos here, I realize! I'll post some links tomorrow.

Looks like nice space for growing, Jaq!

What I've been up to:

Have sown tomatoes (3 varieties), sweet peppers, chilli peppers, leeks, spring onions, parsley, basil and coriander indoors in trays, plus about 12 different types of flowers from seed as companion plants and for cut flowers. These are all starting to come up and I think I'm going to be pretty busy with growing them on for the next month. Have also sown a couple of less well-known things too: New Zealand Spinach and Good King Henry. The first is a drought tolerant annual that should be a good spinach substitute over the summer when I have no chance of growing the real thing without it bolting. The latter is a leafy green perennial that I've got a shady spot for under my plum trees. Neither of these have germinated though :o(

Outside, I've planted half my potatoes (the early varieties), and all of my onions, shallots and garlic. Have also sown rows of kale, broccoli, leaf beet, swiss chard, radishes, carrots, parsnips, peas and broad beans, and lettuce, rocket and land cress and lots of similar salad leaves. Most things are doing well, but the first slug onslaught of the year has yet to commence, so we shall see how they fare then.

Things I've been cropping: broccoli, loads of spinach and lots of oriental salad leaves. Did experiment with growing carrots over the winter, but although they're a decent size, they've gone really pale and woody. Rubbish, basically. I guess that's some sort of transformation they make before flowering.

Planted two more apple trees a month ago. One seems fine and in leaf and blossoming. The other remains a £12 twig stuck in the ground, so I think I've been sold a dud there. Wonder if I'll get a refund?

Wow. How big is your garden?

I moved house last december and now have a garden! Not very large, about 4 by 8 meters. It's not had any work done it in quite some time by the look of it: most of it was covered by ivy, both on the ground as well as against a shed and fence. Removed all that (underneath the ivy I discovered a small pond covered by a roadsign!?), drastically pruned a wisteria and some pyracantha (ouch) that both went awol over the years and now have a clean, black piece of land. Will spade through it tomorrow and then plant new stuff. Not entirely sure what I'll plant. Most likely some small bushes, some ramblers and other stuff to go against the fence. Some herbs in a sunny corner. Anyone got any tips for other stuff that could enliven the garden quite quickly?

Wow. How big is your garden?

Oh, it's a plot on an allotment site. It's about 6 x 40 metres, a thin strip straight up a big hill.

some pyracantha (ouch)

We had an ENORMOUS one of these in our tiny back garden when we moved in here and I can vouch for their prickliness. A right surly bastard that was.

Anyone got any tips for other stuff that could enliven the garden quite quickly?

If you just want to get some colour in straightaway, you could always just sow a few packets of annuals in any bare patches until you figure out a long term plan. We did this with cornflower, ox eye daisy, cosmos, nigella and sunflowers and it was great. Just the right time of year to do it as well.

Thanks, that seems like a logical plan.

Was the Good King Henry inspired by Alys Fowler?

Second that sunflowers are always entertaining. I reckon Jerusalem artichoke can be worth planting, though you might find you have them forever if you don't harvest thoroughly.

Currently trying to decide what to plant in my neighbours garden (it's joined on to ours and I take it over when it is between tenants, so don't want to dig over too much or spend too much money) ...

Okay so I said I would post some videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vkgfcfNPmk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xrwQbnjnNI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4zJcV9tv1k

Was the Good King Henry inspired by Alys Fowler?

Ah not really cos she drives me crackers tbh, but yeah, the bottom part of my patch is slowly going a bit forest garden-ish where the trees are starting to fill out a bit. You're right about the jerusalem artichokes btw, they seem to be taking over one little corner.

Ned, I'm praying for your beans and mint!

Anyone grown hops?

Thanks Nick! I think they're beyond help, though.

So we replanted a bit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhnN5BVAd2E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pm-sGtoSNU

Not really in the spirit here, but what are the best ginormous, foliage-laden ready-potted plants to plonk into a patio during the DC summer, and then ignore save regular watering? Their role is to be a shield between me and the street when I am sitting on the street-level patio.

WmC I just want to tell you that we're growing your cherry tomato plants that you sent me last year and I just picked one off the vine and OMG nom nom nom

my fingers still smell like tomatos even though I only picked like one of them

Cool, I'm glad they're producing! Be careful around those vines -- those Wild Cherry tomatoes in particular produce tons of yellow pollen that will stain the shit out of your clothes. For some reason it's hard to remove.

Try them at different stages of ripeness! I like them orange and barely-ripe, a sharp tomatoey burst. When they get riper, they're really sweet like tomato candy.

Also, I still have lots of those seeds if anybody wants any for late summer/fall, or for next year. They probably won't be too fresh after that.

What's still worth planting this year in the UK?

Not too late for sowing climbing beans (french & runners), maincrop peas, radishes and lettuce, and then later on in August and September is the best time for sowing winter salads like purple mustard, mizuna and pak choi iirc. Things like winter spinach, swiss chard and corn salad can go in around that time too. One other thing I'm planning on trying is something called broccoli raab aka rapini which I got some seeds for last year but never got round to doing anything with. Bought them from Real Seeds (love that place), and those need to go in over the next month or so. Florence fennel is another good one for right now too. Have got away with sowing early cropping carrots at this time of year as well, which I'll harvest late autumn/early winter, but germination can be a bit iffy if it's too hot and dry.

Purple mustard is highly recommended by the way if you haven't grown it before. Slugs and snails don't tend to like it much and it can be hugely productive, especially in the spring. You're supposed to be able to cook it in stir fries, but we always just eat the smaller leaves as salad (it's pretty hot and spicy though!). Once it bolts you can eat the buds like sprouting broccoli too. All you need to watch out for really is the pigeons who tend to decimate and brassicas over the winter if not netted.

decimate and any brassicas

Thanks Nick.

And ...

Our nastursiums are covered in black insects. Do we remove them or leave them there (because they're doing the trick and attracting them away from our veggies)?

I have one pretty good sunflower as a result of my first attempts at gardening!

Hooray!

djh: I would be tempted to pick off the leaves that are worst affected and bung them in the compost, just to stop the problem getting any worse. With any luck, the ladybirds will finish off the rest.

Ta.

i want so badly to get rid of the constant cat shit in my garden :(

Yeah, that is the worst. Inadvertently put my bare hand in some the other night while I was doing some work, horrible furry bastards.

the morning's harvest:

http://i.imgur.com/HMgpT.jpg

heirlooms turning out not as tasty as I'd hoped. :(

hey - does anybody know what makes tomatoes split? a lot of ours have been splitting on the vine - dad says it's because they've been left on the vine too long. other thoughts?

Are they watered on a consistent schedule?

I think they may need a consistent water supply. They split because of a period without water, their skins start to dry, the fruit thinks "ok I'm at my mature size, time to ripen" but then there's a big rain or a lot of watering, and the skin is too inelastic to hold the extra water without splitting.

Strictly a theory I pulled out of thin air.

I don't know what makes them split. The botttom half of half of my tomater plants are turning yellow and spotted, losing leaves, and one of them is only bearing one gigantic, hard fruit. I don't...

A little googling confirms irregular watering as the most common culprit for cracking.

The best tomato I've ever grown — for lack of cracking, uniform perfect globe shape, rich tomato flavor, tolerance for a wide range of temperatures, and resistance to bugs and disease — is Boxcar Willie.

we've got a few box car willies! they're not ripe yet

Similar to Remy Beam. I'm not going to have a tomato harvest this year ...

In non-vegetable news, the big althea (aka rose of sharon) next to our back deck drops seeds every fall, and they lunge up as little altheas in the spring. I left a bunch of them alone, and yesterday I saw that one out of the dozen or so has white blooms instead of purple. So I will be hanging on to that one for transplanting this winter.

man our peach tree is going OFF this year. fruit is really big, plentiful, and soooo good. the thing about peaches being a low % fruit only applies to supermarket peaches - every single one I've had has been a winner.

only downside is the occasional worm and/or ant you get in the peaches. no biggie

The one thing that has done well in the straw bale garden is chard, but only in the rows that are oriented north-south:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6030/6009578551_1ed21e1439.jpg

Arugula did okay, but bolted and flowered while we were away on vacation, again only in the north-south oriented rows. The east-west rows are all stunted.

mmm, peach envy. It would be nice go out and pull breakfast off the tree.

I have some small rectangular plots. Lots of sunlight in the mornings, in shade from about 12. What can I grow there? (to eat)

Where are you?

Los Angeles, California

There's a "cottage garden" between the public car park and the Trout inn in Wolvercote (Oxford, UK) that I kind of want to use as "inspiration" but not sure whether it would be right to just take a photo, without chatting to the owners first. Looks relaxed (but probably hard work) as opposed to my garden which just looks scrappy (though it is cared for).

(Obviously that has nothing to do with LA).

What's likely to be digging holes in a UK garden?

Whatever it is is leaving them uncovered and - seemingly - not crapping in them.

Our allotment got vandalised, only two days after I built our shed.
http://sickmouthy.com/2011/08/24/vandalised/

:-/

Scik, that's disheartening.

Our apple tree, which is in our unfenced back garden and very near the sidewalk, has started to drop fruit as it's ripening. Last year, people were apparently constantly in the yard picking what they could reach off the tree while we were off at work, to the point of moving (and breaking) a bench and our damn heavy worm bin in order to climb higher. This year, I want to put an official looking sign out that says "INFESTED" and see if that deters anyone.

Bad luck with the shed Nick. Have had a plot for four years and thankfully have never had that happen, but have known others that have and it's nearly always just teenagers larking about.

What's likely to be digging holes in a UK garden?

Whatever it is is leaving them uncovered and - seemingly - not crapping in them.

This happens here too, and it's normally badgers or foxes looking for worms.

US tomato growers: anybody want to go in with me on a seed order this winter from Tomatofest? Part of the problem is I only need one packet, but they have a $15 minimum order.

I'd go in for a packet or two. It's been such a cool dry summer my tomatoes haven't done very well. We've had 4 tomatoes ripen on one of 4 plants. The other 3 have fruit, but it's all so green I've started looking for green tomato relish recipes. And - a plant volunteered out of the bottom of the compost bin - it's growing out of the wire mesh low to the ground. I propped it up tonight to keep all the fruit from rotting. It looks like those Campari tomatoes from Costco, which we have eaten plenty of, and has about 10 small fruits and lots of flowers. Not much hope for them to ripen on the vine, unless the warmish sunny weather we've had this past week freakishly continues through September.

My tomatoes have been rather pitiful this year as well -- I don't think the weather was conducive to growing, and I also don't know if the heirloom tomatoes I grew were less hardy than the regular old tomatoes I grew last year.

I'm gonna have another crack at tomatoes this year - last year we had a LOT of rain and a fairly mild summer so my batch came out floury and tasteless... and then, as every year, the fucking possums ate them all anyway. I guess this year I'll need to do things properly and cover the plants with mesh, which I've put off doing as I dont have a car to go get hardware supplies.

Also, does anyone have tips for best results in pots with tomatoes? I use potting mix fortified with seaweed fertilizer and a bit of slow release stuff, but im not sure if I should add other things to the soil mix to encourage good, flavourful fruit?

First year since I've been gardening that I've had no success with tomatoes (am in the UK).
Everything just withered and died.

Much of the garden looks pretty sad at the moment. Kind of open to buying some plants to perk it up over the winter but not really sure what.

I'll go in with you WmC for a packet or three

not sure what's good off the tomato fest website though. seeds were kind of hit or miss. enjoyed the paul robeson and green zebras (green zebras, really low acidity and taste very fresh, almost like a cucumber!) but the big rainbow was kind of disappointing. the amish pastes were good! would be looking for a good general purpose paste/sauce/roma tomato. (for some reason the boxcar willies from the site, which you're big on WmC iirc? didn't grow very big in our garden)

Yeah, the Boxcars are all I want to order this time. They don't get huge (about 12-14 oz. for us), but they had everything else going for them -- good flavor, no cracking, resistance to bugs and disease, perfect round shape, very little waste. Jaq, I'd recommend the Paul Robesons for Seattle -- they're a Russian variety, suited to a cooler climate and shorter season.
http://store.tomatofest.com/Paul_Robeson_Tomato_Seeds_p/tf-0373.htm

I grew a couple of them my first year trying tomatoes and really liked the strong flavor.

My dad died and, being Irish, inherited a green thumb. I am an embarrassing disaster on my block!! All of my neighbors are happy and chipper as they plant rows of flowers and prune hedges.

I had plans this year to

1) start a compost pile (all I got was a hole)
2) my flowers are crippled (rabbit pee?)
3) have just started trimming dad's GIGANTIC bushes

At least I pay someone to mow the lawn so I can feel like a rich heiress.

Dilemmas, dilemmas. Undecided what to plant now (for next spring) and if to transplant anything into the garden (from the garden centre) for the autumn/winter.

Jut rather caverlierly planted some thyme, spinach and tomato seedlings I bought from a florist down the road. The thyme'll be fine, but the tomatoes are just a test run - its probably a little too early to have started any and I really didnt prepare my large pot with new soil properly, dammit. I might do a second batch in a new larger container lined with newspaper, soil fed with cowpoo, and compare the 2 batches.

I should mark my posts "UK-based".

I have started an experimental area of "no-dig gardening", basically laying down a layer of cardboard, a layer of year old leaf mulch and then another layer of card board (Google "Alys Fowler" + "No dig" for her video - on the Guardian website if my memory serves me correctly).

I will be keeping you all updated. Which should be exciting.

Leaf mulch is very good - I wish I'd bagged up more leaves.

Thyme responds well to being planted and then forgotten about/being left well alone.

O yeah I figured it went without saying I am in Aus, we're just coming into a (rather early) warm spring, hence planting out already. Herbs I love, they really are quite "set and forget".

Toads in the garden make me glad I've stuck to organic gardening.

Recommend any gardening blogs?

Any idea what a "blister-like" disease on chard might be?

Do the areas turn dry and papery? This is happening to mine - not sure if it's sunburn or a parasite or what

Me three! Happens on the older, bigger leaves, so I try and harvest them when they are wittle.

Yes, brown, papery patches. Sometime looks like something is growing underneath.

Just got back from looking at our garden; definitely starting to shift to thinking about some sort of fall planting but what we still have is continuing on...

Perhaps bizarre question: are gooseberry bushes aesthetically pleasing or are they kind of ... scruffy like raspberries? i've tried to answer this with google images without much success.

The ones my parents had were fairly rounded - they are more like a blueberry bush (relatively compact) than rambling canes like raspberries and blackberries.

I've gotten nowhere with finding what causes those papery patches on chard, btw. I'm almost convinced it's a pest like aphids vs. fungus or sunspots or virus.

Looks like Bacterial Leaf Spot, maybe?
http://pods.dasnr.okstate.edu/docushare/dsweb/Get/Document-1393/EPP-7666web.pdf

My altheas are infested with Lygaeidae -- seed bugs or milkweed bugs. ;_;

Looks more like the peppery leaf spot photo, but not exactly. Definitely confined by the leaf veins on mine, but starts nearer the edge of the leaf. Now that it's so much cooler, it's not happening at all - and the chard is still growing like mad.

Any idea what a "blister-like" disease on chard might be?

I always get this! Seems to be associated with shield bugs arriving, so it might be a virus. If you cut the whole thing back to about an inch or two above the ground, the regrowth normally comes back clean afterwards.

Perhaps bizarre question: are gooseberry bushes aesthetically pleasing or are they kind of ... scruffy like raspberries? i've tried to answer this with google images without much success.

Like Jaq said, they're more blobby than rambling. The branches are quite flexible so when you've got fruit on them, the lower ones tend to get bent down to the ground, so you might have to tie them to canes at four corners. They're not particularly aesthetically pleasing and seem happy to grow anywhere including understory-type shade, so don't bother planting them in a prime spot.

Worst thing about them is the inevitable gooseberry sawfly which I always end up infested with later in the season. The caterpillars will strip virtually all the leaves off the plant if you don't catch them early enough, and they definitely will look terrible then. Doesn't seem to affect growth or cropping too badly though if you manage to pick them all off successfully in the first part of the year, so don't let it put you off. Best thing about them is the huge amount of fruit you get. Still got a freezer full of the things here off just two bushes.

Just googled the chard thing and it looks like bacterial blight. Makes more sense than it being a virus. Chop the plant back or pull off the worst affected leaves.

http://gardener.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Bacterial_blight_of_sugar_beet

I can't see the photos due to work firewall, but that description certainly sounds more like what my plants are getting.

Hi dudes could anyone pls advise what these flowers are?

http://i54.tinypic.com/v2ve6r.jpg

One of the campanula (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campanula) - bell flowers

thanks a heap!

v pretty plants btw!

Is it possible I pissed off a rasberry bush by hard pruning/tying up remaining canes? It looks all wilty and unhappy, but maybe that is due to time of year???

I *think* you're supposed to prune the canes that have fruited this year? But, yeah, I'd expect it to look unhappy.

Am I (was I?) supposed to do anything with a rhubarb plant for winter? (It has gone yellow and collapsed).

I need to remember to plant garlic soon.

ahh I would kill for some stir fried garlic spears.

Nothing to be done with rhubarb at this time of year, it'll just die back and retreat below the surface. It's a good time to divide it though if it's a big plant with several growing points.

Damn I should plant some rhubarb, too. It takes forever to get established, doesn't it? Or am I lumping it in with asparagus?

I think you're supposed to leave it be for its first year to let it build up some strength, but after that it's pretty much rhubarb galore.

Can someone eyeball this pic and tell me if I've possibly crammed these lettuce seedlings in too close together? (the other blank side has been sown with rocket/rucheta seeds). Ive never grown lettuce before. I dont need them to grow to full size lettice with a heart, just a bunch of leaves I can pick regularly:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/310427_10150339879297757_726857756_8396026_1576538645_n.jpg

A little close if you want them to grow bigger leaves for harvest, but if you want little leaves then you can just keep them planted as-is and harvest the outer leaves before they start to compete with their neigbors!

neighbors, even

Thats what I'm hoping! I guess if it gets a bit much I could pinch out one or 2 and repot them. I basically have a back courtyard full of pots of salad plants - mixed lettuce varieties as above, rocket, red/yellow pepper, tomatos in 2 varieties, and english spinach. I'll be eating salad all summer!

Salads picked fresh from your own yard are the BEST!

What is english spinach, I wonder? Clearly an Aus/US translation issue.

Well, just "spinach", I guess? We use that phrase here to differentiate it from silverbeet which some older generation ppl used to call spinach (which I only found out in my teens!)

So all my life I'd eaten boiled to death silverbeet (chard) thinking it was spinach, boy was I pleasantly suprised when I had baby spinach in a salad once.

Ah so we call silverbeet Swiss Chard and spinach spinach, though I have seen at some farmers' markets another type of spinich that isn't really spinach but is called some other country (starts with an "M", can't recall) spinach! It is a totally different leaf and tastes terrible imo, and I like all kinds of greens.

Rocket we call arugula but I am sure you know that already.

Hehe even here some people seem to call it arugala or ruchetta. Crazytown!

ruchetta is craziness, never heard that!

Tis the italian way to say it, I think.

First seeds planted in 2012 (UK) - some perhaps over optimistic chilli seeds.

That first batch of my tomaters died and fell over before they even produced much fruit, something attacked it. I did a second planting in a haging basket: "tumbling tom" - and for the first time ever I have complete success!

My capsicum plants got eaten to twigs by something too which was very sad. Dont knwo what it was - the leaves were coated in eggs, so maybe cabbage moths. Or possums.

Am determined to successfully grow globe artichokes this year. (UK)

So, anyway, gardening 2012: how is it looking?

Gonna start the fight against the ivy today. Plan is a comprehensive manual, chemical, and psychological attack.

My arugula and chard from last year are still going strong out in the decrepit hay bales!

Last summer was just too cold here for much other than greens - this year I'm hoping for a better crop of tomatoes. I still have some of WmC's Matt's Wild Cherry seeds to plant. And I'd like to grow collards this year.

Does anyone have any experience with pruning apple trees? The one in our backyard is probably 30 years old and has been pollarded. Last year when the landscape people the landlord uses turned up for a spring clean up, they cut off all the flowering branches, so we got maybe 10 apples total. I want to try it myself, this year, and wonder if it's best done in the spring or late fall?

No idea about fruit trees--strawberries and rasberries are my only fruit experience!

Yesterday I seeded arugula, mesculun, swiss chard, and radishes from some old seed I had lying around--we'll see how it goes. Still a little early, but it was such a nice day that I had to do *something*

The ivy fight is gonna be tough. Next step is pick axe.

We fight a similar foe - blackberries.

Am contemplating digging out the neglected bed behind our sidewalk fence. Wd plant it with something unkillable but that won't spread ravenously. Thinking...marigolds? Lavender? It's north-facing with a tall building across the street so it doesn't get that much sun.

Lavender will be pretty unhappy without a lot of sun. How big is the bed?

Bummer. About 5' x 10"? With an iron fence along one long side, and a walkway along the other, so stuff can't spill out of the planting area.

Was just out in the garden yesterday...new thread time, I think!

And here we go:

Gardening 2012