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Gardening resources and tips, etc.

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby Sloe-Gin » Sun Apr 24, 2022 7:14 pm

Herbi, I'm worn out even thinking of all that work!!
I have planted up 4 Quadgrow pots. I was panicking about getting the root ball/plant through the much caps, so kept some smaller pots back and they went in relatively easily. I reckon I am a month ahead of where I usually am, so, barring frosts etc, we may have our first tomatoes in about 5 weeks :crossed
The rest of the tomatoes are far too big to fit mulch caps on, so I will see what difference, if any, they make.
I am going to buy another QG for my chillies, which I'll grow on the staging.

Been busy earthing up first earlies, planting Pink fir apple and moving the cold frames.
Spring has sprung.

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby herbidacious » Sun Apr 24, 2022 9:03 pm

Husband did the heavy work. After a long nap I sowed some seeds - flowers and peas and pricked out just a few calendula and cosmos. There are more to do. I have been coughing a lot as a result and tired inspite of the two hour sleep.

re Quadgrow mulch caps, that's why I didn't buy any in the end. My plants are never small enough to go through them by the time I put them in their final pots. I wanted them as much as anything for the cane support holes! They weren't available with the older models.

I might put some plastic sheeting on top of the pots this year. I have some red stuff somewhere bought to try out James Wong's suggestion (that it makes for better-flaboured tomatoes.. or strawberries. Sounds dodgy to me what worth a try.)

Some of my tomato plants are flowering, but I have been removing the flowers as they are still in small pots and probably a month of going into final ones.

The neighbour I gave tomatoes to gave me a couple of Jerusalem artichoke plants. Quite excited about that... although they were joined together and not sure if I should have split them. She says she loves Jerusalem artichokes grated raw in salads. (Less of the inulin effect that way too.) She also told mer her family's recipe and method for making passata. It involves cooking the tomatoes in their skin in very little water with an onion and something else so that they more or less steam in their own juice. She bottles hers (as any sensible person would). I might try this this year if I have a good crop.

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby Badger's Mate » Mon Apr 25, 2022 9:18 am

I use Auto Pots with success and was going to increase the number of such things in the greenhouse but haven’t yet, largely because we didn’t go away much in the past few years. I am interested in the Quadgrows as a possible alternative.

I bought some red-dyed wood chips on the off chance that I might plant some strawberries, but didn’t, so it got put under the raspberries. It keeps some of the weeds down I suppose.

There were a couple of Jerusalem artichokes left in the plot last year from the previous winter. When dug up, there were so many that the Mudlarks cafe received a bag of at least 10kg. If they are in the ground, you miss a few and they are left alone, they can be quite productive. I am pretty useless at digging up all my spuds; they would become weeds the following year, but instead get treated as first earlies, whatever the variety.

In the 80s my surplus tomato crop was bottled but nowadays it seems much easier to freeze them. They get halved and roasted first though, at low heat so they shrivel a bit. When defrosted they liquidise very easily (skins & seeds included) into a lovely paste.

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby Wic » Mon Apr 25, 2022 2:59 pm

I got a Quadgrow this year, the ability to leave it for a week if you go away was the main draw, and all the reports that said they helped improve the crop because of the steady watering. However, I didn’t realise, till I started to plant up the QG pots, that I should have factored in the small holes in the Mulch Caps. I don’t usually put my tomatoes into big pots till they are a fair size, and that fact had completely passed me by. It would have been better for me, certainly, if the caps had been in two pieces. However, I rolled the plant stalks and leaves in some stiffish plastic sheet to make a vertical tube and fitted the covers over them. It’s caused a bit of bruising here and there, I think, but should be OK in the long run. I’d be interested to know how everyone else gets on with theirs.

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby herbidacious » Tue Apr 26, 2022 9:13 am

Quadgrow are great but you need to keep the tanks full if possible when the plants are big as they can get top heavy and the whole lot can topple over.
I find I need to fill more often than once a week in the height of summer.
Maybe both issues would be ameliorated if I didn’t let my plants get so big, though.
You really don’t need mulch caps. They didn’t used to do them. But I suppose if you have bought them, you will want to try!

BM I roast my tomatoes - whole or halved or quartered depending on the size - then run through a passata maker - skins and pips included. Then freeze. But it does take up a lot of room. My freezer isn’t huge.

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby herbidacious » Tue Apr 26, 2022 9:17 am

This is my passata maker. An invaluable gadget. (There’s a cheap one on eBay at the moment.)

https://seedsofitaly.com/passata-machin ... o-uk-only/

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby Sloe-Gin » Tue Apr 26, 2022 11:45 am

I agree, Wic. If only they were in 2 pieces like a jigsaw.
4 of my tomatoes are in and looking fine. The rest will go in without caps.

I was watching Beechwood recently and they had a clip on container gardening. One of them was a 'wicker type' hamper. We got one for Christmas with M & S goodies (sans plates, cutlery, straps et) and a cardboard box fitted it perfectly as a liner. It's now full of scented dianthus.

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby herbidacious » Tue Apr 26, 2022 11:57 am

Maybe write to them. They keep redesigning it.

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby Wic » Tue Apr 26, 2022 8:37 pm

I’m glad it’s not just me.

I could see the point of the mulch caps. Up to now I have cut circles from compost bags and covered the tomato pots with those, but it’s a bit Heath Robinson. I liked the fact that they have holders for canes.

I’m probably not the person to write to them with suggestions, we’ve already had an argument about them sending a component that I saw had broken bits and they said it didn’t matter. They did replace it in the end, but I’d suspect I’m persona non grata.

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby scullion » Wed Apr 27, 2022 12:48 pm

yesterday consisted of digging barrowloads of rotted wood chips and mulching up the first earlies again - they had grown ferociously while we were away - could possibly do with another earth up sometime but i think i may concentrate on the main crops for that - earlies don't store as well.
a couple of courgette plants were planted out. one of which has a well munched stem but i've carefully planted it a bit deeper to overcome that and the other has already got an opened flower on it so i thought it was about time!
a row of old beetroot seed went in to the ground but i'm going to plant up a module tray with the new seed just in case they don't come up - you can never have too much beetroot (well, we can't).
wild rocket, japanese mustard salad leaves and green in snow seeds went in and i planted out the nine star and some of the romanesco (broccoli) - under netting.
someone has left a couple of trays of brassicas outside our shed door - i don't know who and i don't know what type. i won't plant them out until i know they aren't meant for someone else!
today i will find some room for the squashes (that germinated in the module tray, outside, as the broccoli was hardening off) - they sink or swim!
the leeks are beginning to show after i had to sow another load. i've gone back to ignoring what it says on the packet and just sown them outside, in pots, to transplant from there. it seems to work for me.

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby herbidacious » Wed Apr 27, 2022 9:45 pm

I'll write to them, Wic!

I hope my plants have survived my being away again. I hope to go home tomorrow and some gardening therapy on Friday might be good. The weather doesn't look very nice though.

My mother had and to some extent still has a lovely garden. She seems to have quite unusual versions of things. Three years ago I wouldn't have been able to identify most of the things. There is a little pot of pale, almost pink violets I shall take back with me. There is a lovely deep pink honesty too.

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby scullion » Thu Apr 28, 2022 12:12 am

maybe you can make a sort of 'memorial' bed for her, in your garden, with some of her plants - if the soil will allow.

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby PatsyMFagan » Thu Apr 28, 2022 2:23 pm

scullion wrote:maybe you can make a sort of 'memorial' bed for her, in your garden, with some of her plants - if the soil will allow.


That's a lovely idea :clap :clap :clap

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby Sloe-Gin » Thu Apr 28, 2022 6:45 pm

With a little bench

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby herbidacious » Thu Apr 28, 2022 10:45 pm

I guess I could. Will think about it. I probably will take a few plants in due course. She has lots of pots too... and quite a few chimney pots, which I'd rather like. The husband may object, though! I am really glad we had some overlap with my relatively new interest in flower gardening (as opposed to long-time vegetable gardeing interest) and her life time passion for it.

I brought some of the violets back today. They will have self seeded in there. (They are also, conveniently, in a smaller pot which someone had put inside the bigger one.) Most of her pots are full of weeds but most of them pretty ones.

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I will probably wait until the lovely honesty goes to seed, and collect those, as it is in a big pot.

It just occurred to me that maybe violets go this colour when they are fading?!? Hey ho, if so. They are still her violets :)

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby scullion » Thu Apr 28, 2022 11:46 pm

no, they are pink violets, not fading ones - aren't they lovely!

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby herbidacious » Fri Apr 29, 2022 12:06 am

I think so. And this is the honesty.

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She had an interesting vinca

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Neither really unusual but nice

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby scullion » Fri Apr 29, 2022 12:25 am

she was a lady who liked pink, obviously!

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby Suffs » Fri Apr 29, 2022 10:25 am

Old chimney pots are much sought after and fetch good prices at country auctions etc. I used to have quite a few in a previous garden ... Ex was a builder ... but I didn't get custardy ;) of them. :( I had several grouped in the garden, and would plant trailing bedding plants etc in a pot that just fitted in the chimney, lodging on the rim ... that way I could ring the changes and always have something looking good there ... we also had one each side of the cottage porch doorway ... in the winter we'd have a little variegated ivy in them with tete a tete daffs or crocuses or whatever to pop up in the spring, and in the summer a traditional mix of pelargoniums and blue and white trailing lobelia looked very pretty tumbling from the chimneys outside a white cottage in a village marketplace.

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby herbidacious » Fri Apr 29, 2022 12:39 pm

I think the honesty and violets were self seeded from elsewhere.

She was obssessed with red the year before last. Last year it was another colour. She and I both love those deep violet blues. But her garden is full of (varied) colour.

There are at least 4 chimney pots. I will make sure I have at least two of them. Not sure what my sister's attitude will be towards small things. She is always short of money.

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