The Gardening Thread

[Gethin]

4 minutes ago, Bailo said:

What's up with my tomatoes peeps, slow growing, dark purple underside of new leaves and yellow lower leaves? I've repotted, adding bonemeal and fed them to see if that helps.

Charles Dowding has been talking a lot about pyralids in commercial composts - basically residual traces of weedkiller - that have been causing things like this. You may have been unlucky with stuff you've bought?

https://charlesdowding.co.uk/?s=pyralids

https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=477

[pipnasty]

Feeding tomatoes when they haven’t fruited yet can be problematic. Yellowing lower leaves are fine as the plant discards them anyway

[Bailo]

29 minutes ago, pipnasty said:

Feeding tomatoes when they haven’t fruited yet can be problematic. Yellowing lower leaves are fine as the plant discards them anyway

Yeah I've read that and have always avoided it but this is desperation time.

36 minutes ago, Gethin said:

Charles Dowding has been talking a lot about pyralids in commercial composts - basically residual traces of weedkiller - that have been causing things like this. You may have been unlucky with stuff you've bought?

https://charlesdowding.co.uk/?s=pyralids

https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=477

Wow, that's pretty much like my tomatoes. The purple colour remains unexplained by the curling, stunted, thin stemmed plants is very like mine.

 

[Gethin]

14 minutes ago, Bailo said:

Yeah I've read that and have always avoided it but this is desperation time.

Wow, that's pretty much like my tomatoes. The purple colour remains unexplained by the curling, stunted, thin stemmed plants is very like mine.

 

If you think it might be, then tweet him about it with an idea of what composts you've been buying - he's been compiling lists of affected brands

[Bailo]

12 minutes ago, Gethin said:

If you think it might be, then tweet him about it with an idea of what composts you've been buying - he's been compiling lists of affected brands

Westland, which he's already tagged. I've started using some of my own compost with the tomatoes, hopefully that helps.

[Gethin]

29 minutes ago, Bailo said:

Westland, which he's already tagged. I've started using some of my own compost with the tomatoes, hopefully that helps.

Yeah, Westland happen to also be a major producer of weedkillers so I can see how it might have happened

Having used whatever was cheapest at B&Q in years past, I was planning to go with peat-free (to top up my own) this year but circumstances have meant it's question of using whatever I can get hold of. (Wilko own brand is f***ing s***e BTW)

Next year I'll be looking at a bulk-buy of peat-free stuff from smaller producers. 

[Gethin]

Didn't maim myself on the angle grinder but my back's nicely f***ed with all the lifting

[Nathan Explosion]

Who had "Survives, but with a bit of a twinge" in the sweepstake?

[Gethin]

1 minute ago, Nathan Explosion said:

Who had "Survives, but with a bit of a twinge" in the sweepstake?

Me.

[Tommok]

I had "Disappears without a trace like Macca" 

[charlie clown]

I had "Got arrested for over-exposure of builder's a*** crack"

[Gethin]

19 minutes ago, Tommok said:

I had "Disappears without a trace like Macca" 

Would entail the missus doing some digging and moving the slabs. Not happening

[Rex Ham]

Tip: dont put tomatoes in your compost bin unless you want tomato plants growing every f**in where as you use the compost. hundreds of them. 

[Gethin]

8 minutes ago, Rex Ham said:

Tip: dont put tomatoes in your compost bin unless you want tomato plants growing every f**in where as you use the compost. hundreds of them. 

Depends how hot your compost bin gets. Low temps won’t kill the seeds, higher temps will. 

[charlie clown]

We get a lot of taters growing in ours - I usually chop up the veg waste fairly small before it is composted to avoid that stuff but the missus just throws full size spuds on there and then we get them cropping a few months later. We actually had a full Sunday lunch out of them a couple of weeks back.  

[Gethin]

Finally starting to get decent bits of a meal out of the garden now. New spuds, beets and cavelo nero  tonight

[Rex Ham]

...at least you had a bit of variety on your plate there, CC had a Sunday lunch consisting of only potatoes from his compost. he knows how to look after his family.

[charlie clown]

We're having to make things stretch in lockdown. That meal of pommes frites with kartoffle gratin and a side of mashed spuds was a real winner. 

[Nebraska Red]

We are now living in Florida and gardening is a whole new ball game. We found a garden center near Daytona Beach today. Ended up buying dwarf lemon, lime and tangerine bushes in containers/tubs plus a miniature banana tree and a bunch of flowering shrubs we would never dream of planting in Nebraska. We'll have to wait until much later today to start planting. 

[charlie clown]

I guess you're going to kind of forget everything you know about growing stuff. Different ball game altogether I should imagine.

[charlie clown]

Been gradually re-engineering, clearing and gravelling a big path that runs around and through our back garden - on the last leg now so another step closer to having what looks like a normal garden instead of a neglected area of Somme trenches. 

So next step is to clear the new border that has been created by narrowing one of the paths and I've ordered a tonne of manure and a load of plants to fill it. It''ll be a busy few week weekends ahead in the garden.  

[Rex Ham]

Big projects in the garden are great, once you get them started. I procrastinate more about garden stuff than anything else, but I normally enjoy those things more than I do other stuff. Weird.Got a long trellis built on a dividing wall recently (not my own work) and now choosing climbers to grow in pots. Eventually plumped for a climbing hydrangea which is spring flowering, a russian vine(flowers in summer) and a chocolate vine(summer autumn flowering). Its a long wall.

[Gethin]

I've got one of them for the autumn winter - there's a whole section (about 15x12m) that's been built around sleepers. It's well over 15 years old apparently and all the sleepers are f***ed so just gonna remodel it. Loads of really good limestone rocks in the garden anyway so going to use them instead of the sleepers

[Nebraska Red]

So I'm sat watching the match and I can hear mowing, strimming and some clanking. Look up and there's a guy on a ride on mower in my back yard. Only, it's not my lawn guy who came on Wednesday. Go out front and there's 2 guys planting a tree where there used to be privet bushes. They are supposed to be at 306, we live in 206. I'm now waiting for the owner of the landscape company to show up.

Funnily enough, we had talked about pulling out the privets. 

[Nebraska Red]

Owner finally showed up and is currently outside replacing the boring privets with some dwarf azaleas and bougainvillea.  He was very nice about the mix up and gave us a tradesman discount card we can use at 2 local garden centers.