Allotments 4 All
Allotment Stuff => The Basics => Topic started by: Beersmith on March 29, 2021, 12:10:06
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Many of the topics discussed here make good reading, the discussions are interesting and often wide ranging. Long may it continue. I really enjoy the diversity of views and am astonished by how often I learn something completely new.
But I wonder if a thread dedicated to quick answers to quick questions would also be useful. To me it seems a bit excessive to start a whole new topic just to ask if Morrisons have currently got any fruit bushes for sale. The quick questions could just stack up under the same topic, and the new questions just get a new label on the home page.
So here goes.
My celeriac have germinated really well, but compared to most years they are quite leggy. When I prick out into small pots can I bury the stem (similar to tomatoes) down to the point at which the first main leaves emerge?
Hmmmm. That's more than one line. Curses!!
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I do! :toothy10: :toothy10: :toothy10:
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Can't grow celeriac here. Too dry. Can't help, sorry. How are you going to let everyone know there's a simple question/simple answer thread?
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Can't grow celeriac here. Too dry. Can't help, sorry. How are you going to let everyone know there's a simple question/simple answer thread?
Not sure. Regular readers / contributors would soon get used to it. After each new question it would automatically appear on the home page recent topics. Newcomers not so easy.
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I do! :toothy10: :toothy10: :toothy10:
Thanks. I will do so.
My memory must be going. I'm sure I must have had leggy celeriac before. Can't remember what I did tho.
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Mine's the same - plus only three germinated, and one is trapped in its seed still.
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try putting a drop of water on the seed case to soften it so the seed leaves can escape more easily.
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We can sticky a topic so it is at the top of the forum lists - but it wont effect visibility on the home page..
Celeriac - tricky buggers at the best of time but I would bury them a bit. No idea if I can grow them here but I have 24 seedlings on the go. Just need to make a trench and backfill with manure and hope I can keep it watered
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We can sticky a topic so it is at the top of the forum lists - but it wont effect visibility on the home page..
Celeriac - tricky buggers at the best of time but I would bury them a bit. No idea if I can grow them here but I have 24 seedlings on the go. Just need to make a trench and backfill with manure and hope I can keep it watered
And you have kindly done so! Thank you.
I hope people use it!
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Mine's the same - plus only three germinated, and one is trapped in its seed still.
Warm damp conditions seems to work for me. Also I do not cover the seeds, just sprinkle on the top of the compost. The seeds might still be viable. Be patient, more might still appear.
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I've thrown more in (plus tried Obelixx's idea) - it was a Franchi packet, so I could have planted millions!
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One feature of browsing the int'web is that your interests and purchasing habits are tracked and in turn you get to see advertisements related to your interests. Lately I've been getting a few adverts for seed storage tins. The prices are outrageous and hard to see any advantage over my old biscuit tins.
Is it possible someone has ever actually bought one?
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I use old ice cream containers but now I also have smaller pots that held Thai red curry paste or Korean miso paste and they're a really good shape and size for things like Chiltern seed packets.
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Christmas present 2010 from my granddaughter. It was full of biscuits when I received it
I also have a few larger biscuit boxes that I use for my seeds.
But to answer your question;
I would never buy a box such as this!
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People have tins (plastic) of Quality St, Heros etc. I scrounge tgem and use for seed. Keeps them out of landfill. I try to keep similar types of seed in each tin.
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I've gone back to "Monarch" this year, Prinz, Prague Giant an Asterix did not do so well in our soil. Loads bolted.
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I've gone back to "Monarch" this year, Prinz, Prague Giant an Asterix did not do so well in our soil. Loads bolted.
Some things like spinach will bolt regardless. But some things - say beetroot, leaf beet, celeriac etc - are more likely to bolt if after germination they are exposed to too much wintry early spring weather. Hot dry summer weather is not the only culprit.
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My seeds are stored in an IKEA metal filing cabinet! It fits under the counter in my craft studio and has 6 drawers a bit bigger than A4.
I need two of those drawers for my peas! ;)
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Saving your own peas and beans does take up some space! :wave:
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That’s it Saddad, I’m not as obsessed with beans as I am with peas, but beans have their own drawe. Then one for flowers, herbs, companion plants and plants for my rabbits, and two for other vegetables. I also decant as much as possible into small plastic grip seal bags to save space.
Honestly though I don’t think I’ve got that many seeds.
At least I keep telling myself that!!! :toothy10:
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As I say to OH everytime I'm in a Garden Centre.... "you can't have too many seeds!"
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As I say to OH everytime I'm in a Garden Centre.... "you can't have too many seeds!"
Especially when they are reduced at the end of the season and you see all the varieties that might be good to try - just in case.
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Is anyone monitoring the potato blight reports? It has seemed ominously humid to me in the past few days.
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Not that I know, but I was thinking that watching the Weather Report last night... high humidity and overnight 14/15C...
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Don't grow potatoes myself any more but I di grow tomatoes and keep them in the polytunnel to avoid blight.
Yesterday, for the first time, I got to visit my farmer neighbour's veg plot - very agricultural system with the soil clearly having been ploughed and then harrowed/riddled by tractor. We'd gone to pick baby artichoke heads for a visiting friend. There were also five long rows of potatoes and 3 of shallots, all looking strong and healthy but all a very strange bright blue.
I asked and it's a product they apply liberally to control pests and diseases. Now I know how they get perfect cauliflowers but I no longer want to eat one.
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You only need to put your first home-grown cauli into salt water to realise why pesticides were adapted so readily!
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I know, and I don't get decent firm curds either so clearly need to improve my techniques - or just keep buying the organic ones. Don't eat many anyway.
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I don't get decent firm curds
In general terms, there are two things that I found to be essential:
1)The Variety
2) The firmness of the soil they are being planted in!
I never dug the soil just prior to planting, I preferred to do my soil preparation in the autumn, this way I found my light soil firmed up nicely over the winter months, and I only needed to form a hole where each plant was planted.
I usually used a bulb planter to do this.
If I were planting out late plantings eg Autumn & Spring cropping varieties as a follow-on crop, I would just tidy up the surface of the bed rake in a fertiliser and plant out as described before!
(https://www.thegardenersalmanac.co.uk/Content/B/Brussels%20Sprouts/05-Planting%20out.JPG)
oops! I used more than one line for my answer....Sorry! :angel11:
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There were also five long rows of potatoes and 3 of shallots, all looking strong and healthy but all a very strange bright blue.
Sounds like Bordeaux mixture. There was a recent topic where it was discussed at some length. Effective against fungal diseases. It is not a product I use myself, but there were good arguments that used with care and in moderation it was not nearly as harmful as many modern agro chemicals.
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Nothing moderate about the intensity of blue powder on these plants! Something I've seen sold here is a concoction of horsetail to dilute and use as a fungicide.
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Bordeaux mixture is also an approved organic fungicide, so buying green won't necessarily avoid it!
I imagine its major use historically was to counter mildew in vineyards.
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I know Bordeaux mixture is accepted organically but I don't use anything on my crops and was shocked to see these plants more blue than green. They looked like a doctored pic for blue roses or tomatoes from a dodgy Chinese seed selling site.
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Would someone kindly remind me of the best site to identify wild flowers? I have several in my wild flower / meadow flower area that I don't recognize and would like to identify. Cheers.
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Sorry Beersmith, I'm too old fashioned, but have a wonderful book that I use!
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Sorry Beersmith, I'm too old fashioned, but have a wonderful book that I use!
Yes I still refer to my parents old copy of the AA Book of the British countryside for that sort of thing!
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Would someone kindly remind me of the best site to identify wild flowers? I have several in my wild flower / meadow flower area that I don't recognize and would like to identify. Cheers.
I use plantsnap for Android
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Would someone kindly remind me of the best site to identify wild flowers? I have several in my wild flower / meadow flower area that I don't recognize and would like to identify. Cheers.
I use plantsnap for Android
Many thanks!
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Davholla posed a question about missing gooseberries. Why it is locked so no-one can reply??
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I have unlocked it.
I dont have access to see how that happened but I figure it was related to a database error that Dan had to fix around that time - the site was down for a while..
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What do moles do in winter? I assumed they would rather inactive, perhaps not hibernating but more or less dormant. But a new mole hill appeared under one of my apple trees just yesterday so I was clearly wrong about that, despite it being very cold here lately. Any talpa experts out there?
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As I understand it they sleep a lot but when they get the urge to breed they set off in search of mates and that means tunnelling and molehills and then, having mated, they set off back to their own territories or pastures new and then when the babies are weaned and need their own space they all set off making new tunnels and molehills.
Self perpetuating hazards for human and animal feet/paws/hooves if they step on a tunnel or hidden hole just below the surface and the soil gives way.!
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Helpful. Thank you.
I'd assumed they lived in colonies. Not so it appears. I'm not fond of mine - he / she has never offered to help with the rent, and sometimes causes a bit of damage although to be fair never seems to eat much. Having been around for a good few seasons I have grudgingly accepted that squatters rights apply.
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I think I get just as much damage in winter as in summer but haven’t closely monitored whether they’re less active when it’s very cold. Presumably they would meet some resistance if the ground is very frozen.
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They just burrow deeper when it's cold, away from the frosty surface, like the worms they eat.
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I would say my soil is too dry for celeriac I have tried a couple of times. But my former plot neighbours always did very well and gave me a couple. I have never worked out how they did it.
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Not really a question, more of a grumble. Just bought a new can of jeyes fluid. Completely changed. No longer a thin milky liquid smelling of coal tar. Just a clear liquid no longer any apparent difference to most ordinary disinfectant. Rant over.
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Re Jeyes fluid, apparently they have removed the brown colouring so it doesn’t stain clothing etc and can be used on rust and limescale, and are putting it in a recycled plastic bottle to reduce the weight. Other main ingredients are unchanged. I love the smell of it, I hope that hasn’t changed too!
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Some local blackbirds hereabouts seem to be adapting to modern life and are active after dark in areas where street lighting and domestic lighting makes it possible. Anyone else seen this?
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Yes, lots of robins singing after dark round here too.
We are close enough to the edge of suburbia at the mo (literally one set of gardens between us and fields) that when the wind is right in summer we can hear skylarks. Not at night, mind!
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We walked round the village on Christmas Eve looking at the Advent Windows Trail. You couldn't hear yourself think for blackbirds singing along the main road! Very weird.
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Rhubarb is usually a pretty robust and trouble free plant. But mine is looking very poorly. Large brown areas on many leaves. Does anyone know anything about rhubarb diseases? It looks bad enough to kill the whole thing if it doesn't improve. It has been in the same spot for about eight years.
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Congestion?
I had a big patch of rhubarb in my old garden and would lift and divide the clumps every 3 years to maintain vigour. An 8yr old clump will probably be crying out for nutrients and space and he chance to shed old material and make new roots and shoots.
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Definitely hunger and thirst. Lift divide and feed.
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Congestion?
I had a big patch of rhubarb in my old garden and would lift and divide the clumps every 3 years to maintain vigour. An 8yr old clump will probably be crying out for nutrients and space and he chance to shed old material and make new roots and shoots.
A sensible suggestion, but it has ample space to spread in all directions and gets a regular top dressing of horse manure most recently last autumn. Also the stems are not showing any signs of being soft or bendy as I have observed before under drought conditions. On reflection eight years is a long stint so maybe issues have built up over time
Still a lift and divide is a fairly routine thing to do. I just need to get galvanized. I may do a little more research just to be sure it isn't a rust or fungal disease before taking any action.
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I think you'll find that rhubarb is like irises or hemerocallis - needs regular lifting and dividing to maintain vigour. The oldest roots in the middle will be woody and not very productive.
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I think you'll find that rhubarb is like irises or hemerocallis - needs regular lifting and dividing to maintain vigour. The oldest roots in the middle will be woody and not very productive.
Thank you ( and others too) for the inputs. I'll timetable lifting and dividing. Perhaps better when dormant?
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Yes.
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My slant on Rhubarb; https://www.thegardenersalmanac.co.uk/Content/R/Rhubarb/Rhubarb.htm (https://www.thegardenersalmanac.co.uk/Content/R/Rhubarb/Rhubarb.htm)