This is all Random Orbital Bob's fault...

[Doug B]

Wish I'd have known you wanted some tomato plants Steve, I gave away 2 dozen last week.

Your plants should definitely reach the top of those 4' canes these are mine

They are about 5' high already & by the looks I should get a good harvest,

 

[Steve Maskery]

That looks impressive, Doug.
What name are they? (As if that would mean anything to me...)

 

[CHJ]

Anything temp. Steve for now just to keep the direct sun off the bags, water in the bags could easily get 40-50 c if direct sun gets on them in a sun trap situation.

bags full of shavings/sawdust, you must have some.

You're 2-3 weeks ahead of me Doug, too cold here without heat in greenhouse for earlier planting and starting plants in warmer conservatory results in leggy plants due to lack of light although you would be pushed to see the difference in light levels.
300 ft lower in the valley out of the frost pockets are 3 weeks further forward.

 

[Doug B]

I've gone for yellow tomatoes this year Steve, those are Golden Sunrise, my later ones are Sungold.

If you ever want general garden gear the cheapest place is the allotment shop round the corner from me, it's open Saturday & Sunday.

 

[Woodmonkey]

Gardening virgin here too, knocked up these raised beds and I've got tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, corgettes, cucumbers, baby sweet corn and kohlrabi all of which seem to be doing pretty well so far!

 

[AES]

You're mad, all MAD I tell you!

To quote another thread (which, shamefacedly I actually started) when he first saw my thread, our Cyprus-based friend wrote something like "What's going on here? Is this GQT or a wood working Forum? Has this place changed to a GARDENING Forum?"

I have to say that he and I share exactly the same approach to all this gardening nonsense - green concrete mate.

If someone else is going to do it then I don't mind the "fruits" - minute though they usually seem to be by the time the weeds, the hail, the rain, the slugs, the aphids, the snails, the sun, and the local rabbits and hedgehogs + gawd knows what other freak weather and animal life have all had their say.

But if I'm going to have to do it, then "No way Jose" - life's just too short.

So it's off to the decent supermarkets and (private) green grocers, etc, etc. AND you don't get even more backache and crook knees and shoulders at the shops either!

And there at the shops incidentally, despite our lunatic government apparently revelling in what is generally called "Europe's High Cost Island", you can still buy a helluva lot of tomatoes for 30 quid. AND what's more, if you buy the right sort from the right place (they're called Primagusta Cherry Tomatoes here - don't know or care if that's the breed or the "manufacturer's" brand - they come from Italy BTW), I swear by all that I hold as true and good that they taste just as good if not better than the taste I remember from my youth!

AND you don't have to wait until September, or water them, or cover them, or do anything else to them except just buy them!

You just come with me to the shops tomorrow and we'll buy 300 grams of these superb tomatoes for 3.80 Swiss Francs (I guess they're about half that price in Italy). For info, at the current exchange rate, one UK pound will buy you 1.30 Swiss Francs.

You do the sums, I'm too lazy and it's too late.

But - enjoy yourselves by all means, and I'll just stick with green concrete (if only SWMBO would let me get away with it) plus the shops. Nice girls there too, quite often! None in my garden (SWMBO excepted, natch)!



AES

P.S. Give it all up NOW Steve, before it's too late!

 

[Woodmonkey]

Green concrete's going a bit far, but did you notice how lush and green my plastic lawn is looking?

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

You're mad, all MAD I tell you!

To quote another thread (which, shamefacedly I actually started) when he first saw my thread, our Cyprus-based friend wrote something like "What's going on here? Is this GQT or a wood working Forum? Has this place changed to a GARDENING Forum?"

I have to say that he and I share exactly the same approach to all this gardening nonsense - green concrete mate.

If someone else is going to do it then I don't mind the "fruits" - minute though they usually seem to be by the time the weeds, the hail, the rain, the slugs, the aphids, the snails, the sun, and the local rabbits and hedgehogs + gawd knows what other freak weather and animal life have all had their say.

But if I'm going to have to do it, then "No way Jose" - life's just too short.

So it's off to the decent supermarkets and (private) green grocers, etc, etc. AND you don't get even more backache and crook knees and shoulders at the shops either!

And there at the shops incidentally, despite our lunatic government apparently revelling in what is generally called "Europe's High Cost Island", you can still buy a helluva lot of tomatoes for 30 quid. AND what's more, if you buy the right sort from the right place (they're called Primagusta Cherry Tomatoes here - don't know or care if that's the breed or the "manufacturer's" brand - they come from Italy BTW), I swear by all that I hold as true and good that they taste just as good if not better than the taste I remember from my youth!

AND you don't have to wait until September, or water them, or cover them, or do anything else to them except just buy them!

You just come with me to the shops tomorrow and we'll buy 300 grams of these superb tomatoes for 3.80 Swiss Francs (I guess they're about half that price in Italy). For info, at the current exchange rate, one UK pound will buy you 1.30 Swiss Francs.

You do the sums, I'm too lazy and it's too late.

But - enjoy yourselves by all means, and I'll just stick with green concrete (if only SWMBO would let me get away with it) plus the shops. Nice girls there too, quite often! None in my garden (SWMBO excepted, natch)!



AES

P.S. Give it all up NOW Steve, before it's too late!

Bah.....Humbug

 

[Doug B]

You're 2-3 weeks ahead of me Doug, too cold here without heat in greenhouse for earlier planting and starting plants in warmer conservatory results in leggy plants due to lack of light although you would be pushed to see the difference in light levels.
300 ft lower in the valley out of the frost pockets are 3 weeks further forward.

You surprise me Chas as I'm quite a way north of you, the only heat I use is the propagator for initial germination in Jan/Feb. I do have to move the seedlings between greenhouse & frost free shed most evenings in the coldest months as I couldn't afford to heat the greenhouse.
I should add it's not just tomatoes I like to get an early start on, onion & brassica seeds are amongst others that get started off as early as possible & then I do staggered sowing over the next months to provide a harvest over a longer period.

 

[CHJ]

You surprise me Chas as I'm quite a way north of you, the only heat I use is the propagator for initial germination in Jan/Feb. I do have to move the seedlings between greenhouse & frost free shed most evenings in the coldest months as I couldn't afford to heat the greenhouse.
I should add it's not just tomatoes I like to get an early start on, onion & brassica seeds are amongst others that get started off as early as possible & then I do staggered sowing over the next months to provide a harvest over a longer period.

There's the difference, a work content routine I've let slide several years ago, when I was spending so much time travelling to-and-from distant family and other reasons, a week away from base or other time constraints was leading to waste effort.
(even have power to greenhouse for propagators)

Further south we may be but a sharp frost at the end of May is not unknown in open countryside here, it was enough to take all the early miniature lilac blossom, all the damson blossom and delphinium flower heads etc. this year.

Self-set potatoes that were showing through were all cut back, an allotment 800mtrs or so away got away with it.
Go down the valley into Stroud and River Severn Valley area 7 miles away and as long as they are not in a sheltered frost pocket they are anything up to a month ahead with blossom and outdoor tender veg.

Kidney beans planted out 4 weeks ago were cold enough for a week to turn all the leaves Yellow, only just recovering.
Fighting nature is hard work and frustrating at times.

Am making up more protection frames this year, we need to net stuff to stop birds taking cabbage, seedlings and pulling up leeks etc. old ones were on last legs after about ten years and will be covering several with plastic for next year to bring the strawberries and salads forward.

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

Are you sure your garden isn't actually a nursery Chas???

 

[CHJ]

Sometimes it just seems like a never ending list of jobs that need doing Bob but we can't have time to vegetate can we, that would never do.

 

[AES]

CHJ, taking my tongue firmly OUT of my cheek now, we had plastic nets over our grape vines (until we took the vines out that is - MUCH too much work for VERY small returns after a hail storm one year).

But back to being serious, PLEASE be careful about birds being able to get in under the nets somewhere, and then either starving or shocking to death. I found it personally heart breaking taking several corpses out from under - I'm a softie I guess, but even a dead spaggie upsets me. I LIKE birds, even though they do cack now and then.

But I'm sure a countryman/agriculturalist like you is already well aware.

AES

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

I spent 20 minutes guiding a Robin out of my shed the other day....they're so keen to follow me around and get that juicy worm that they even fly in the shed!

 

[CHJ]

....But back to being serious, PLEASE be careful about birds being able to get in under the nets somewhere, and then either starving or shocking to death.

We don't have birds, we have flocks, our own fault with all the feeding that goes on.

Just come back in from 1-1/2 hr wander through local woods and tracks to find 4 Partridges, a couple of Pheasants, a pair of Mallards, a Wood pigeon, Yellowhammers, Chaffinches various **** etc. making the best of the quiet time in the back garden, they having been limited this morning to uninterrupted access as we were working out there.

Never lost a bird to being trapped, only my soft fruit has suffered, a Dove went away as a battered ball of feathers in the clutches of a Sparrow Hawk this morning whilst we were sitting a few feet away having a coffee break though.

 

[CHJ]

I spent 20 minutes guiding a Robin out of my shed the other day....they're so keen to follow me around and get that juicy worm that they even fly in the shed!

We have some Dunocks that regularly take a turn around the garage if door is open and covered storage area looking for spiders etc.
Frighten the life out of you sometimes when they decide to leave just as you are going in.

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

Likewise...we have a regular Red Kite now that does the rounds above the garden and very occasionally swoops on a pigeon. Though rather horrific on one level, it's also quite breath-taking when you realise their size and majesty close up. The Red Kite's have been fanning out concentrically from the RSPB release site near Nettlebed on the M40 for over 20 years now, rather lovely birds in my view.

 

[AES]

OK gents, I was sure I was "preaching" to the already informed in the choir!

We have Red Kites, Storks, Herons, and "Mause Bussarde" (Mouse Buzzards?) in plenty here, and if you're a bit into aero stuff, like me, they are absolute magic to watch in flight. All that skill and they don't even do a pre-flight briefing, let alone hold a licence! And never been anywhere near a flight school either.

But apart from Crows and Rooks "guarding" their territories, we don't see all that much "action" here, and that never seems to come to much. I guess the "worst" is the magpies for generally acting like the local avian thugs, especially against the smaller Sparrows, Robins, **** of various sorts, and of course the Swallows + "Mauer Segler" (literally "Wall Soarers", otherwise dunno the name).

But never had birds into the cellar or garage - I guess as we're built on the side of a hill, from the front, ours looks just like a bungalow, so it's too low for them. Only at the back do you see the full 2 and a bit stories.

Yup, I like birds - better than yer BL---Y gardening any day (sorry, I'll take me Christmas Scrooge 'at off again).

AES

P.S. Got some GEORGEOUS tomatoes at the shops today (OK, OK - hat, coat, door)

 

[Farmer Giles]

The missus is our gardener, she has started practicing permaculture, which I guess is roughly sustainable organic mainly no dig gardening, loads of mulching. Her main problem is slugs, it is very wet up in t'Pennines and they thrive. We've tried almost everything with varying degrees of success.

Slug pubs just attract more slugs from the area, a bit like announcing a party on facebook. Coffee grounds tend to deter them a little, so does wood ash, however he favourite is the scissors and head torch, she tends to chop about 100 in two every night between the polytunnel and the veggie beds. She comes back with a manic glint in her eyes

She's tried human hair from the barbers, no good, sheep fleece, no good and spreading oats around the tender new plants as the slugs are supposed to gorge on 'em, trouble is the rooks do too and it disappears in a couple of hours. She puts boards down for the slugs to hide under in the day to make them easier to round up with the scissors and in the polytunnel there's a boat load of nematodes munching away at the slugs. It's a bit like a Zombie film with an unlimited supply of bit part actors though. She's keeping them at bay but it's a lot of effort.

The frogs will be out of our pond to help and we did consider getting some ducks until we discovered only Khaki Cambells really like slugs, chickens get bored with slugs very quickly then scoff yer plants.

 

[Bm101]

Ever tried electric fencing Giles. I kid you not. Look it up.