You cunts doing gardening at all this year (2024) or what?

[Buelligan]

Yes! That's what mine looks like. We just have the one in the garden set amongst some other flowers and shrubs, and it's quite striking.

I should use blackthorn, but I fine it a bit stubby. I'd like to find some longer thorns so that I can use them for pins (for when I do Roman and medieval heritage sites), but also get enough to make bundles to make wool carders. I know someone who has an MsC in prehistoric textiles, and envy the  heck out of her adventures with all of her workshops and hedgebothering.

I'm jealous too!  Just racking the brainhole for slender long pin thorns native to your isles.  Not much stands out.  :(

Marked out a plot and started digging up the turf, started pouring with rain almost immediately.

I insist you watch this man's channel.  It's a fucking revelation.  Make sure you look at the stuff where he compares yeilds from the ongoing (decades long) tests he's doing between dig, no dig traditional and shit.  I would've done the garden I'm doing now on his principles but the owner looked horrified when I tentatively suggested it.  I know when I'm beaten.  Anyway, watch it, all the horrible grind of gardening falls away.

Corbyn goes gardening.

[Galeee]

My garden, which is actually a corner of a field, is clay soil, and is still a swamp.
I hope the trees have survived. There are fruit and native trees, plus some nut trees on the go.
I have some raised beds with better soil in them but need to finish putting paving slabs around and between them, as I might sink down and never be seen again.
I get all my slabs from Freecycle and the bricks for the beds, as garden and farm stuff gets stolen a lot in our rural paradise.
Up at the house, I haven't got a garden any more, just a building site, but my roses are all still there, and an intrepid clematis.

[king_tubby]

Just made a leek and potato soup with leeks and potatoes from the allotment.

[Galeee]

We're still on our onion haul from last year and some raspberries remain in the freezer.
Early spuds to start soon. I'm told that if you grow spuds alongside winter mustard, it helps with yield and pests and that.

[extraordinary walnuts]

I insist you watch this man's channel.  It's a fucking revelation.  Make sure you look at the stuff where he compares yeilds from the ongoing (decades long) tests he's doing between dig, no dig traditional and shit.  I would've done the garden I'm doing now on his principles but the owner looked horrified when I tentatively suggested it.  I know when I'm beaten.  Anyway, watch it, all the horrible grind of gardening falls away.

Corbyn goes gardening.

hah! I'm reading this guy's 'No Dig' book at the minute. It's all good stuff but I must dock him one star for publishing a Kindle book that not only uses some of the fugliest fonts I've ever seen, but does not let the user change them. Maniac.

No dig is the way to go, I can't do it at my current place but have grown stuff that way before. The yields just got more and more bountiful every year and the place was absolutely rammed with beneficial insects and bird life.

This is the book that got me started with permaculture and that: Gaia's Garden

[madhair60]

i have never gardened ever

[Buelligan]

Get out there now!

Read something, somewhere, can't remember where that touching soil, breathing in soil bacteria, ingesting minute quantities of soil microbes on freshly harvested food, shit like that, has immense value, both for digestion, general health and mental health.  In short, it's a fucking panacea.  Go, roll naked on a grassy bank, maybe just in some nice pants, and tell me your world is not improved.

[madhair60]

i went outside for the first time in my entire life and i got stang by a scorpion :(

[king_tubby]

Is the scorpion ok?

[madhair60]

unfortunately the scorpion has "the gift"

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Of course, The Scorpion is the nickname of the Daddy on B-Wing.

[gib]

managed to grow some spinach from seed outdoors this winter, grew very slowly but looking ok now

tried sowing 'meteor' peas, someone on youtube reckoned they would grow in the winter and it turned out to be true. They're still pretty small seedlings but at least they have a head start.

tried another thing i'd seen which was planting supermaket garlic cloves and they all have put out decent green leaves over the winter

[Ferris]

i went outside for the first time in my entire life and i got stang by a scorpion :(

thirty quid well spent.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

A strawberry plant appeared in my garden last year out of nowhere. I believe a bird may have eaten a strawberry, flown over the garden and done plop which landed in a plant pot, the seeds have germinated, thus creating the strawberry plant. Is this the circle of life which Elton spoke of?

[Buelligan]

Yep, that's the problem. Think we're going to have to be extra fussy on the fertiliser.

Sorry, this has been bothering me, took a moment to check with old Charles Dowding and yes, BER is a sign of lack of calcium, but as I'd suspected, from my own sad end rot experiences, it's almost certainly not so much that you lack calcium in your soil, more that the plants haven't been able to take it in because they've lacked water.  So, before going fertiliser mad or owt, try a more generous and regular watering regime.  I know that's a pain and can be expensive but you'll keep off the dreaded end rot.

[Blumf]

<...water the feckers more...>

That'll be on the list, and it is a PITA, having to lug the watering can up and down the garden, but I could well believe it's the issue. Thanks for the non-literal digging.

[falafel]

Hose not an option? (Perhaps you're using a water butt, fair enough if so - but there may yet be a way to transport the water without lugging a can?)

[lauraxsynthesis]

Tonight I picked up a load of fruit plants from Lidl for £4 each, so if they die like all the others it's no great loss. Blackcurrant, redcurrant and early and late raspberries.

[gib]

Here is some of the beet spinach i mentioned



and here is my best pea plant that sprouted in the winter

[king_tubby]

Two carloads full of crap from the allotment down the tip, last of the leeks, greenhouse spuds planted, broccoli looking good, pub lunch. Get in.

Tomorrow we've teamed up with some other plots to get a half ton of manure delivered, so fun times shovelling shite in to wheelbarrows.

[Underturd]

I'm growing snails in a big plant pot in the kitchen which is fun but slow.

[NattyDread 2]

Lettuce, rocket, chard and basil seeds all sprouting merrily away at the moment.
An over-wintered chilli plant (chenzo) is going great guns already. Still getting through last year's crop (which I pickled most of). Excellent crop from one container plant.

Just ordered some 'Ukrainian Purple' tomato seeds. My tomatoes didn't come to much last year so hoping these work well. Anyone tried growing them?

I was given some raspberry plants by a neighbour that have been sitting outside in a poly bag since last year. Need to find a good spot for them as they're getting going too.

My garden's a total state so I really need to get stuck into some tidying up before everything's in bloom. The daffs are cheering things up as usual just now and I have some lovely purple hellebores that are looking great. Probably not for long though as they're near the bird feeder and end up getting covered in shite.

[Buelligan]

Here is some of the beet spinach i mentioned

We call those blettes, I love 'em.  Cook them as two things, green bit like spinach and the stems are fucking delish steamed and then with some bechemel or just gruyere or ideally, both and under the grill.

I got strawberries really beginning to berry up.  Obvs, still green and hard but yep.  Got onions in.  Artichokes.  Even planted some saffron.

Loads of seeds sprouting too.  27C here yesterday.

[Pink Gregory]

hoping to get the huazontle (aztec broccoli) going this year now that we have soil

thought we had some big plants going a few years ago but turns out it looks exactly like Fat Hen

[gib]

27C here yesterday.

we were up to 16C here but right now it's down to 6C, so not many joys of gardening this weekend

[Ferris]

Still under a foot of snow here.

It was eight foot in February, 12 in the drifts. Madness.

[Buelligan]

Hates the cold but would like more rain.

hoping to get the huazontle (aztec broccoli) going this year now that we have soil

thought we had some big plants going a few years ago but turns out it looks exactly like Fat Hen

They're in the same genus, I think, so they should look very similar.

[confettiinmyhair]

hoping to get the huazontle (aztec broccoli) going this year now that we have soil

thought we had some big plants going a few years ago but turns out it looks exactly like Fat Hen

Aztec broccoli was on Gardeners World this week. Monty Don seemed perplexed by it.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Aztec Broccoli?

[Buelligan]

Gardener's World featured it in a lovely short bit about a no dig garden in the north of Britain - timestamped - https://youtu.be/h4cyQVUE3RA?t=1226