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Gardening resources and tips, etc.

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby Stokey Sue » Thu Jul 08, 2021 6:11 pm

There was a little corner I expected to look great - Best Gold zantedeschia and dwarf French marigolds in the same shade of yellow
The colours are an exact match but I've only had 2 blooms on the Marigolds as the beasts ate them and the zantedeschia are standing proud, but not quite to scale with anything else

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby KeenCook2 » Thu Jul 08, 2021 6:26 pm

Herbi, have you needed to pollinate any of your tomatillo plants outside? Probably not as you've got lots of flowers so probably have lots of bees.
I am just noticing how many of my fruits appear to be empty husks. I read up a bit and it seems that sometimes the fruit develops later than the husk grows, or, there aren't any pollinators around.

I have a feeling that I may have to do it for them with a paintbrush, as I did with the first flowers that grew when the plants were still inside. What do any of you think?

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby Badger's Mate » Thu Jul 08, 2021 10:32 pm

Be patient, the fruit will come. :D

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby dennispc » Fri Jul 09, 2021 11:38 am

Never had such an infestation of green and black caterpillars as we have with our Autumn Raspberries this year, absolutely decimating them. Too late to do anything now, but what about the future? I haven’t used pesticides for decades, usually throw dirty washing up water over fruit bushes, but the little buggers work only on the underside!

About two weeks ago I did mulch with fresh grass cuttings.

Advice please.

raspberrie.jpg
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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby scullion » Fri Jul 09, 2021 12:55 pm

looks like raspberry saw fly.
not much you can do now but try raking the soil up underneath the canes and attracting a friendly robin to go rooting for the caterpillars that may have dropped off and burrowed into the soil ready for next years infestation.
i suppose you could take up the plants over winter and either move them to another place or pot them up while treating the ground in some way.

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby KeenCook2 » Fri Jul 09, 2021 6:04 pm

Badger's Mate wrote:Be patient, the fruit will come. :D


Will report back BM :crossed :thumbsup

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby ZeroCook » Sat Jul 10, 2021 1:25 am

KeenCook2 wrote:Herbi, have you needed to pollinate any of your tomatillo plants outside? Probably not as you've got lots of flowers so probably have lots of bees.
I am just noticing how many of my fruits appear to be empty husks. I read up a bit and it seems that sometimes the fruit develops later than the husk grows, or, there aren't any pollinators around.

I have a feeling that I may have to do it for them with a paintbrush, as I did with the first flowers that grew when the plants were still inside. What do any of you think?



They're not self fertile, KC2. You need at least two plants to cross fertilise, even if they're the same variety, even if you do it by hand.
https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible ... -husks.htm

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby dennispc » Sat Jul 10, 2021 8:34 am

Good morning scullion, though presumably it’s raining down your way as it is here. Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. Thank you for the suggestions, sadly we don’t have much bird life here, not since acres of green fields on two sides of us were turned into housing. We no longer have bird feeders though do keep the garden bird and bee friendly. As our circumstances allow I’ll cut down the canes now, keep agitating the soil in the hope a passing bird might benefit. If not next year, when the first holes appear I’ll do it the old fashioned way and pick the caterpillars off, leaf by leaf. Thanks again.

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby KeenCook2 » Sat Jul 10, 2021 7:49 pm

ZeroCook wrote:They're not self fertile, KC2. You need at least two plants to cross fertilise, even if they're the same variety, even if you do it by hand.
https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible ... -husks.htm


Yes, ZC, Herbi very kindly gave me two plants for exactly that reason :thumbsup

What I was wondering was if you had to help them along when they were planted out, as we don't attract many bees etc as we have very few "flowers" - the garden is very lush and green with ivy, basically, and there isn't much colour to attract them.
A bit of honeysuckle and some climbing white jasmin, or whatever it's called, but not even very much of that. Some vinca flowers, but not even very many of those now.

When the flowering cherry was in blossom it was another matter, of course, but that unfortunately didn't coincide with the tomatillo flowers!!!

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby herbidacious » Sun Jul 11, 2021 10:37 am

I am lucky to have had bees all over mine. They seem to really like them. I suppose paint brush pollinating is a bit of a pain but you might as well have a go. It definitely works as we have both found out.

Thyme is a great pollinator attractor (and a nice and useful thing to have.) But I suppose iit might depend on what your neighbours have too. Not sure how it works.

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby Badger's Mate » Sun Jul 11, 2021 10:55 am

Ivy is an important plant for pollinators.

Yes, bees are lovely but many other insects pollinate flowers. Give your tomatillos time. They produce empty husks that then fill. Please let them do so. I generally grow about a dozen plants, resulting in way too many fruits. Mine are just beginning to flower, some are just beginning to show up on other parts of the plot as weeds from previous years. They'll be transplanted somewhere more suitable. I found (yet) another bag of fruit in the freezer the other day, just when I thought I'd used them all. :D

This might help. Note the comments about pollination.

https://horticulture.co.uk/tomatillo/

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby dennispc » Sun Jul 11, 2021 11:23 am

With the raspberries I’ve decided to take off leaves as they get infected, and hope we get some fruit. Keep agitating the soil. Put leaves in an old plastic farm sack for now.

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby KeenCook2 » Sun Jul 11, 2021 12:36 pm

Badger's Mate wrote:Ivy is an important plant for pollinators.

Yes, bees are lovely but many other insects pollinate flowers. Give your tomatillos time. They produce empty husks that then fill. Please let them do so. I generally grow about a dozen plants, resulting in way too many fruits. Mine are just beginning to flower, some are just beginning to show up on other parts of the plot as weeds from previous years. They'll be transplanted somewhere more suitable. I found (yet) another bag of fruit in the freezer the other day, just when I thought I'd used them all. :D

This might help. Note the comments about pollination.

https://horticulture.co.uk/tomatillo/


BM, that's really helpful, thx :thumbsup
That link is great, more helpful than any of the ones I'd found.

Perhaps you can give me some advice on my sage now ... :oops:

I had a small trough of two sage plants, bought at a good garden centre, and they were doing really, really well for several months.
However, they are now very, very sad looking. I harvested a lot of the good leaves yesterday and made some pesto; I have cleared a lot of the dry and dead foliage from the bottom of the plants. I had been led to believe that sage plants hate having wet roots so I haven't overwatered them.

Ah, I just did a google and it seems that they have powdery mildew ... I had wondered what the white patches on the otherwise healthy leaves were.

Well, I don't know if they'll be salvageable or if they've had it ... :thumbsdown

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby Earthmaiden » Sat Jul 17, 2021 2:29 pm

Some may have seen that I am tidying my elderly neighbour's garden. I came across two sacks of garden rubbish and had to tip it out as the sacks were heavy and disintegrating. The contents had, I thought, turned into nice soil, but when I transferred some into a pot I discovered that amongst everything else, there had been coal in the sack. It has disintegrated into the other organic matter and the soil has a rich coal smell. I have emptied some into a pot but wonder if anything would grow in it and if so, anything in particular. Any ideas?

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby miss mouse » Sat Jul 17, 2021 4:14 pm

KeenCook2 wrote:
Perhaps you can give me some advice on my sage now ... :oops:

I had a small trough of two sage plants, bought at a good garden centre, and they were doing really, really well for several months.



I and a better gardener neighbour have been having sage failures for years. Possibly the latest one has decided to make the effort. Any news of any sage pestilence anywhere?

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby Stokey Sue » Sat Jul 17, 2021 4:26 pm

I am thinking sage is not keen on containers, unless they are so big it doesn't notice it is in a pot, I always have trouble with it, it has exactly the same treatment as the other mountain herbs like rosemary, winter savory, various thymes which are really happy. It suffers from powdery mildew if nothing else gets it first

Current one is 50/50 to survive the next winter, but the usn appears to be helping a bit

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby liketocook » Sat Jul 17, 2021 9:20 pm

I grow sage in a huge pot and reckon to get 2-3 years out of it max before it either goes woody or mildewy. I wasn't convinced the lot I planted last year had survived over the winter but it's rampaging now. I'll see how it does over the winter this year but will probably start again next year to be on the safe side. The current batch is from a supermarket pot which yielded 6 plants, three I planted and three I gave away. My DIL-to-be's didn't survive but the two my sister planted in her garden are doing really well. I'd agree it doesn't seem to like pots as much as being planted in the soil.

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby miss mouse » Sat Jul 17, 2021 9:43 pm

liketocook wrote:I grow sage in a huge pot and reckon to get 2-3 years out of it max before it either goes woody or mildewy. planted in the soil.



Ah, is it short-lived? Oh dear, will my elderly on peg out this year?

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby Suffs » Sat Jul 17, 2021 9:50 pm

I don’t know what I’m doing to make the sage gods smile on me but my culinary sage is huge. I planted it in 2012 or 13 … I cut it back hard each spring … several branches have layered themselves so what was one plant is probably 1m x 1m … it’s in full sun until early afternoon. I don’t fo anything to it except cut loads for cooking and take cuttings for friends. The soil is gritty loam.
Last edited by Suffs on Sat Jul 17, 2021 11:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Gardening resources and tips, etc.

Postby liketocook » Sat Jul 17, 2021 9:51 pm

miss mouse wrote:
liketocook wrote:I grow sage in a huge pot and reckon to get 2-3 years out of it max before it either goes woody or mildewy. planted in the soil.



Ah, is it short-lived? Oh dear, will my elderly on peg out this year?

In pots I've found it is, but the high salt content in the air here nor the wet climate probably doesn't help tbh. I can get it to last longer if the winter isn't too cold/wet but after a few years it gets very woody with very few stunted leaves so I've abandoned trying to keep it going for more than a few years. Is yours in the ground? My grandparents' had a huge sage bush in the garden which my Papa pruned back every year. I don't think it was ever replaced.

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