Gardening Resources & Tips

[herbidacious]

Thanks for pointing that out, Scully. I think I deleted my email without reading it. What bargains! I have placed an order.

[Earthmaiden]

Is there a way of washing large garden pots without getting soaking wet? I've an outside garden tap which provides cold water and an indoor shower with hot and cold whose drains I don't want to clog up. I'm revamping my garden over the winter to make it easier to manage and will be getting rid of a few pots, some plastic, some nice ceramic (pots are so hard to maintain, they need watering all the time and attract mud from nowhere on the ground around them) which I would like to clean before giving away.

I think it might be on with the waterproofs and out with a good brush .

[herbidacious]

I don't wash mine, really but if I did, probably a hosepipe and a builders mixing bucket.

https://www.toolstation.com/flexi-tub-4 ... lsrc=aw.ds

I suspect getting wet is a bit unavoidable.

[Earthmaiden]

Yes, I think it is!

[scullion]

i don't wash them much either but if i did, yes, a hose and a big trug.
i wish i lived nearer, i'd take the ceramic pots off your hands!
try putting them on marketplace. i think our daughter looks on there for them (she's up in the vale of the white horse).

[Earthmaiden]

TBH it's the plastic ones which I'll probably get rid of first (there aren't that many, the garden is tiny!). Not quite decided yet as the downgrading will probably go on through the winter.

[Suffs]

Oooh! East Ruston Old Vicarage features on GW this week
https://www.northnorfolknews.co.uk/news ... ers-world/

[Stokey Sue]

You have reminded me I have meant to get one of those bucket things (I think of them as Gorilla tubs, as that's the first make I saw) - handy for lots of things, some people use them as laundry baskets

I have spent a lot of today outside with my new snips, snipping, I was worried about my winter savory as it seemed to be pulling apart, deadheading has revealed that all that was wrong was that the weight of the flower stem and seed pods was pulling some branches off position, it loos fine now it has had a haircut. Have also sorted last season'ss bulbs, and swept and cleaned gutters

[herbidacious]

I don't know if anyone knows about this but thought I'd ask (if I put it on my FB gardening forum I will get a lot of answers based on opinion rather than knowledge, and then there is the 'there is no such thing as a weed lot' who will condemn me for the waspocide...)

We had a wasps' nest in one of the compost bins last year (? could have been '22...) and husband and neighbour strongarmed me into having it dealt with (along with the one in the balcony roof spaace). It was sprayed with I know not what. (But potent enough to kill a mouse under my bedroom floorboards, I susupect.) Will the compost be ok to use, now, does anyone know? I supsect the answer is 'yes' but thought I'd ask.

[Suffs]

I wouldn’t give advice to another person without knowing what product was used … can you contact the business involved?

However, are there invertebrates busy in the compost? If so I would use it on open ground myself … probably not for seedlings tho’. Just to be on the safe side.

[herbidacious]

Thanks, Suffs.

I can't remember who we used. It must have been arranged by phone as no email trail. (I could look at my bank details.) Doing a search on here, I see it was August 2022. (The board makes a good reference source for past events in my life!) But that's a good thought about looking for wildlife in it now. I hope I can remember which bin it was. I have three...

[Suffs]

Well, if there’s a bin where the contents seem lifeless that may be the one if the product was overly noxious… but my guess is that they wouldn’t be allowed to use something that might still be harmful more than a year later.
As I said, I would use it in the open air and keep it away from seedlings.

[herbidacious]

I was just going to put it round the base of raspberries. Will have a look when I am feeling a bit better.

[Suffs]

I think that’ll be fine Herbi … especially with winter rains to dilute anything that might still be lingering

[Stokey Sue]

A quick google doesn’t reveal what chemical they are likely to have used p, as has been said what’s toxic to Hymenoptera doesn’t necessarily affect mammals but two things

1. the nest was dealt with by professionals who should have warned yo if you shouldn’t use the compost.

2. Compost heaps are chemical factories, there’s a reasonable chance the chemical has been broken down, if the garden waste has composted and it has got warm in there.

I remember my dad killed a wasp nest in a compost heap and dug it out, an amazing papier-mâché structure.

[herbidacious]

I had a suspicion that the gas or whatever they used killed a mouse. But it might have been a coincidence that I started to get dead mouse smell a week later in a very hot summer. (I had also had a nest dealt with that was in the cavity between the balcony floor next to my bedroom.)

It was two years ago though. They should have warned me but doesn't mean they would have, alas.

We found little nests in the same spot in the balcony floor when we had it renovated some years back. Beautiful.

Thank you, both.

[herbidacious]

Does anyone do Bokashi composting?

My hotbin keeps going anaerobic (the stench is terrible. Think council bin lorry smell... I have a load to transfer to the garden compost bins - 100 ft away from the house - at the moment and am not looking forward to it, to put it mildly. I am waiting until it gets colder out, and my neighbour's bean crops have finished and thus he is less likely to go down to the bottom of his garden and complain. Once in there the smell usually goes in about a week). And while I will pursue this and try to stop it happening, I was wondering about boskashi bins. This is just for kitchen waste. Garden waste goes into normal bins.

[Suffs]

.

So far this year I’ve picked 3 ripe tomatoes … this is the rest of the crop … there’s a ten pence piece in the foreground for scale.
OH planted the 7 plants out for me and then they’ve been neglected … not sideshooted, left to sprawl and watered only two or three times.
Think the plum variety was either Roma or San Marzano … the big ones might have been free with GW … as I’ve said before … I’d lost my gardening mojo.
I might have to make some chutney …

[Stokey Sue]

That's a shame Suffs, chutney is good and I guess you can get some to ripen indoors

[Suffs]

They’ve all turned from dark green to light green which is the precursor to tomatoes turning red, so I’m hoping that a lot of them will ripen