Gardening resources and tips, etc.

[Suffs Profile]

I'm sure he'll be very productive there

[herbidacious Profile]

The seedlings from the Very Expensive Chilli seeds which came up have died. Damping off disease I suppose. Nothing to do with the fungus gnats? There was a small mushroom coming up in one of the pots which suggests too much water, but I have not watered them much at all. Just a light spray once or twice in the last few weeks. Not sure whether to bother ordering and sowing more. I don't really need chilli plants.
I just spotted an inexplicable crocus in the front lawn. (I don't think I have planted any at all in the front garden, let alone in the lawn.) I should do it properly/plant some intentionally this autumn.

[Sloe-Gin Profile]

I bought 18 strawb runners from Sarah Raven. They jumped into the basket while buying (yet more) seeds.
2 varieties have taken off, but Honeoye look dead, bar one. I have messaged SR and said I'll give them another couple of days to perk up. They're all in the greenhouse for now.
All my home grown runners are now planted up, too.

[herbidacious Profile]

You can buy strawberries as bare roots, so it probably will perk up...?

I have no luck with strawberries. Other things always eat them first. I have them in pots and trugs on stilts. I think I know the culprit and it's not birds, slugs or snails... imo).

[Pampy Profile]

I had mushrooms growing in a pot I planted. They grew as soon as I planted the pot so I got in touch with the supplier of the compost - they said that they use mushroom compost in the product but normally, their production process kills the spores - but not in my case. They said it wouldn't affect the plant (and it didn't).

[Lusciouslush Profile]

Were they magic mushrooms Pampy ?!?!

[herbidacious Profile]

do they look like agaricus types? I remember my mother once bought mushroom compost for the garden and got a fine crop but she didn't dare eat them.

I have just sown some lettuce leaf basil to replace one pot of sweet basil that didn't come up. (I think I buried them too deeply. I am out of practise sowing seeds, it would seem.) It feels odd sowing seeds in the kitchen in the evening... I have a tin devoted to packets of herb seeds and it smells delicious when I open it. (The dill and fennel seed.)

[Pampy Profile]

Were they magic mushrooms Pampy ?!?!

I wish

[herbidacious Profile]

I spotted two more really lovely iris reticulata down the garden. A lovely deep purpley blue. I am not sure where they came from. They were probably in a pot last year. I have a few daffs out now too. Quite a few other things which I can't identify are flowering. They may be weeds/wild flowers, but not obvious ones. On the other hand I may have put them there last year and they are only just flowering. Time to use my plant id app.

Some jalapeno seedlngs have germinated.

[Sloe-Gin Profile]

I am considering getting a quadgrow system for the greenhouse. Anybody any experience of them please?
Watering is always problematic if we're at the caravan (we have been known to come home to water)

[herbidacious Profile]

I have been using them for the best part of the last ten years. They have changed the designs over the years, and coincidentally I took delivery of two new ones today. (They seem to have a faster delivery service at the moment. I wasn't expecting them for at least another week or two. I ordered them a few days ago.)

Any problems I have had have been down to growing them outside and not sticking to five trusses. They get top heavy and tend to fall over in one of the summer wind storms (we seem to have two over the summer, one usually in August... when I am often on holiday and the situation has been exacerbated by people paid to water plants forgetting to fill up the tanks.) I won't go into more detail as this won't be such an issue in the greenhouse.
I have high hopes for the latest design which I think might be more stable - perhaps especially if you get the caps with holes for canes - and also allows a bit more spacing/air circulation between plants. (The old design was a single long thing tank.)

Bottom line is I have always had bumper crops (unless other factors, such as blight, prevent it). You will never get blossom end rot. Feeding is constant and only needs to be done as frequently as filling the tanks. I have not used the 'holiday watering kit'.

My new ones will be used in the garden and I will use the old style single tank in the greenhouse for the first time this year. Peppers and aubergines (and no doubt chillies) like the system as well. Anything that's a water guzzler, I suppose.

These were some in action in my garden last June:

51877632108_34dc3e99be_c.jpg (245.42 KiB) Viewed 3448 times

[herbidacious Profile]

There is a discussion of them here on GW forum, to which I contributed.

Have to say the tanks need filling more frequently than every five days for me in the height of summer, but again, I don't limit truss growth, and maybe it's hotter where I am than the preson who said that.

https://forum.gardenersworld.com/discus ... ing-system

[herbidacious Profile]

If you are tempted, Sloe, I was just looking at the mulch caps/lids which I forgot to buy, but am now wondering how you get them over the plants. My plants are usually quite big by the time I pot them into the quadgrow pots.

As I said in my far too long GW post, you can make your own system, but fro a greenhouse, might be better just to buy one. It will be neater and more presentable and more user friendly.

[Badger's Mate Profile]

I use AutoPot, having seen them in use years ago at Eden. They can be left for weeks but I think it's important to use very freely draining compost and not operate the watering system until the plants are quite big and have established. It's a similar principle to Quadgrow though, in that the pots are sitting in a puddle. I don't add feed to the reservoir - organic feeds can simply go rotten in the tank - but put plenty of goodness in the compost and foliar feed thereafter.

[Sloe-Gin Profile]

Impressive service from Sarah Raven. I complained that my 5 Florence strawbs hadn't taken and asked for replacements. Thy have only sent replacements for all varieties (15 in total!)

[Suffs Profile]

I agree SloeG ...I've always been impressed by SR ... well grown plants, well packaged ... if something goes wrong replacements appear promptly and with no hassle.

[herbidacious Profile]

They went through a terrible patch end of last year. They closed the customer service line too - just automatic emails ‘will reply in the weeks’ kind of thing. But they seem back to normal now. I use them a lot.

[herbidacious Profile]

I just spend best part of an hour wiping permanent marker off plastic garden tags. (Yawn.) I love the tags - they are cheerful and I can colour code seedlings ( ) but they are not as long-lasting as I naively thought they would be. Some had become brittle and snapped. I need a better way. (Basically a way to label lolly sticks without ink bleed.)

What does everyone else use?

Also... tomatoes. I can't remember what I did with my early March seedlings after germination last year.
I imagine they came out of the propagator. Draughty windowsill? Propagator with grow lights? (Which by default increase the temperature.) The Inca Berry query on GWF, which I was not really qualified to answer, got me thinking. I should add extra notes to my spread sheet this year.

[Stokey Sue Profile]

I have a box of tongue depressors - basically big lolly sticks, also sold for application of wax to skin and for plant labels
They grow mould almost as soon as they get damp, useless

I'm thinking of getting these aluminium ones, which my father used many years ago or very similar

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nutleys-Alumin ... B00IJEQKCG

[Earthmaiden Profile]

My mother used to cut up things like yogurt pots into sticks throughout the year and use biro or permanent marker.