Gardening thread 2021

[Ferris]

Tell me more about the pucks.

The black one is a professional tier job, found it under the deck. Inglasco manufactured, ~6oz and covered by vulcanized rubber, looks like it was used in an NHL game before being repurposed as a chew toy by a previously resident dog. Scrubbed clean in the sink, we roll it off things and go "ooh!" before it hits the ground.

The orange one was in a neighbour's driveway down the street that my boy ran down and refused to leave until he knew what the orange thing that caught his eye was. As our neighbours are very elderly (on both sides, bless them) they agreed that he could have whatever he wanted as long as he left their property and didn't give them a novel coronavirus[nb]they are, of course, much nicer and kinder than this pastiche paints them (I think they gave it to him unasked for); but funnier this way innit? Or is it? I've lost my touch[/nb].

[Ferris]

Well the hop bines are fucking massive.

I can't get a good photo of them all, but I have 4 bines that are ~7ft long, and a couple more in the 4-5" region. I'd guess all of them are growing 2" a day? But it's hard to tell. Early May I cropped a couple of earlier bines that looked a bit yellow and shit and weren't growing very quickly. I'm very glad I did because everything that's come up afterwards has been lush and green.

They overran my existing 4ft trellis so I trained the more enterprising bines onto a neighbouring green bean trellis and they've taken over that as well. We're past the solstice now, so they should switch from growing tall to producing flowers in the next week or so.

I have some buds that I'm pretty sure are flowers emerging already (photo below). Those flowers turn into hop cones at each leaf branch/node, so on that basis I'm on a one way trip to Hop City.

.

Weirdly, the second rhizome of the same species I bought from the same place and planted at the same time (and treated in the same way) has only managed about 20cm of growth total. Glad I got two.

[bgmnts]

After pruning off some leaves from my sage last week, it's grown back with a fucking vengeance. I let my mouse roam around in the pots just to see something knew and he did a shit in it. I wonder if that gave the plants some extra oomf!

[Ferris]

If I was a plant I'd want to grow as tall as possible to get away from mouse shit. Could be a gamechanger.

[Dex Sawash]

~7ft long, and a couple more in the 4-5" region. I'd guess all of them are growing 2" a day?

4ft trellis


(and treated in the same way) 20cm.

Obviously unequal treatment, the imperial ones are flourishing.

[bgmnts]

If I was a plant I'd want to grow as tall as possible to get away from mouse shit. Could be a gamechanger.

Mouse shit is perfectly fine, it's mouse piss that's 'angin.

Still, poop is fertiliser right? Fuck it.

[Brian Freeze]

You could make a compost bin from a yoghurt pot to let it rot down first.
I think fresh dung takes nitrogen from the soil as it breaks down. Hopefully someone with actual gardening credentials can advise you better.

[Ferris]

Obviously unequal treatment, the imperial ones are flourishing.

This was done on purpose. If you say something is "about 7 inches" on CaB (or anywhere on the internet to be fair), you get a supply of low effort knob gags. Switching to metric below 2' seems to negate that.

There's method to the madness.

My phone changed a single quote mark to the double one though, so for clarity the shorter bines are still 5 foot or so.

[Ferris]

Been building railings this week and looped some lights around it like people do in magazines. Does look nice actually



I unwound the hops from the other trellis and re-wound them around the deck hand rail which has sort of worked? You can see the "sunny side" of the potted garden as well - onions, tomatoes, garlic, and the herb garden up top there.

Anyway I am fucking KNACKERED because what you can't see is the amount of ironstone and soil I've moved to make the lawn flat and dig up all the hostas[nb]I FUCKING HATE HOSTAS NOW[/nb] and other shitty uncared for plants to make everything more habitable.

[WhoMe]

The most ridiculous storm shat down on us earlier, been clearing hail and logged water out from the pots for half an hour. Tomato plants appear to have collapsed. Gonna deal with the fallout properly tomorrow. Fucks sake!

[Ferris]

Ah that's a bollocks. My broad bean plants have been beaten to fuck, think it was a similar storm a few weeks back and I didn't notice.

Are tomatoes hardy or not really? I can't tell but mine have grown so poorly it's not easy to say if that's down to me or the environment (or a happy combination).

[Brian Freeze]

Hopefully your garden bounces back while you sleep.
In my limited experience tomatoes are extremely vigorous and want to grow like buggery so can recover very well given half decent conditions, unless they are runts to begin with. Getting decent fruit ripened off them is a different matter.

Our chillies have done extremely little in the way of growing. Monkey face. Different seed supplier required for next year.

[Ferris]

First hop flowers





The flower petals broaden and turn into hop cones, you can see they've started at the edges already. They're about 5mm long at the moment but will likely get to ~3cm or more before harvest time.

You can see I've had issues with mysterious hop-eating pests also. I found an ungodly amount of aphids on a lupin plant nearby which may be the source, but I haven't found anything on the plants themselves so who knows.

[Ferris]

They are beginning to believe:

[Buelligan]

Great looking hop flowers you have coming there Ferris.  Those holes don't look anything to worry about - aphids aren't really hole-makers, btw, they're sap-suckers - the holes could be anything from snail or slugs or leaf-cutter ants, to someone or the wind bruising the leaf against a thing.  Pretty normal for a plant to have a little damage like that if it's growing in the natural world. 

[confettiinmyhair]

Any advice on pumpkins? Mine are shooting off like crazy.

[Buelligan]

Feed (cheap  liquid tomato food) and water them like crazy, watch for slugs and snails, when you start to get fruit, check to make sure they're not resting on anything too waterlogged, maybe make them a little place to lie and fatten, like a flat stone, that stops them getting too damp and rotting.

[Ferris]

Great looking hop flowers you have coming there Ferris.  Those holes don't look anything to worry about - aphids aren't really hole-makers, btw, they're sap-suckers - the holes could be anything from snail or slugs or leaf-cutter ants, to someone or the wind bruising the leaf against a thing.  Pretty normal for a plant to have a little damage like that if it's growing in the natural world.

Some of the leaf damage is quite extensive, it seemed to have happened over a week in July when I took my eye off the ball because the sprog had a gastro thing and running around making sure everything went into buckets/toilets was higher on the priority list.

I hacked down some massive hostas just before this, I note they have grown back and are now getting eaten to shit. I suspect whatever is doing the eating prefers hostas and switched to hops for a week when they weren't available.

Either way, the newer growth where the actual hop cones are seems fine. I gave it a few whacks of plant food as well and that seems to have helped.

[Buelligan]

Well, hostas are famous for being adored by snails and slugs.  Many (not gastropods but human gardeners) will find it incredible that you hacked down hostas, most are weeping over their inability to grow them well.  You should take note of that, your terroir (as a wine lover might term it,) is clearly ideal hosta country.  Right plant, right place, so think about things, like hostas that like that sort of environment and you'll be halfway to a great garden.

[Ferris]

Really?! They grow like weeds here - I can't cut ours down fast enough and was delighted when I saw something was eating them.

Hadn't occurred to me they were unusual but that's a great point, sounds like they are a good (and quite specific) indicator of what grows well. Will ruminate on it (and google it).

[Buelligan]

I thought I remembered a Gardener's World thing on hostas - here it is.  Hopefully, you'll become obsessive.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Care to see my Hot Banana?



Chilli plant we got from a garden centre. Bastard won't stop throwing fruit out all over the place. Not sure what I'm going to do with them all. There's also a Habanero plant just out of shot, but that's only just started flowering. I grew that from seed at the start of April, then we proceeded to have an extremely cold April and May, so it was barely staying alive. Only really got going in June.

It looks a lot prettier when the weather isn't grim.

[Buelligan]

Bloody impressive and beautiful.  You should pinch out those basil buds though.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Basil buds? That is actually a basil plant on the left. Do you mean the buds on that? It's a bit knackered looking anyway. The heatwave did it in a bit.

[Buelligan]

Didn't want to be rude, it would be right as rain with a bit of food and drink and a pinching out of the flower buds.  They'll take any amount of heat, provided they've got enough to eat and drink and you don't let them run off and flower.

[Ferris]

I thought I remembered a Gardener's World thing on hostas - here it is.  Hopefully, you'll become obsessive.

Thanks, appreciate this! Will definitely take a look, they really do grow like weeds here in a way I've never seen anywhere else.

Care to see my Hot Banana?

That's dead impressive - my chilli plants (habaneros I think) were the only things I gave up on. I'm going to give them more attention next year and see. I wonder if I could get them going out of season if they stay inside by a window..?

I used up a load of cheap chillies I bought a few months back by fermenting them with honey and roast garlic/onions to make a hot sauce. Really nice but incredibly hot so you'd have to be careful with the ratios!

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Didn't want to be rude, it would be right as rain with a bit of food and drink and a pinching out of the flower buds.  They'll take any amount of heat, provided they've got enough to eat and drink and you don't let them run off and flower.

Yeah, I may have neglected it slightly. Went away for a few days when it was 30C and when I came back some of the outer leaves looked a bit brown. It's still going strong though. I've pinched out the buds as suggested. To be honest I rarely even use basil anyway.

That's dead impressive - my chilli plants (habaneros I think) were the only things I gave up on. I'm going to give them more attention next year and see. I wonder if I could get them going out of season if they stay inside by a window..?

I used up a load of cheap chillies I bought a few months back by fermenting them with honey and roast garlic/onions to make a hot sauce. Really nice but incredibly hot so you'd have to be careful with the ratios!

You might be able to get one going in winter, but you'd probably need some sort of hydroponic lamp or something. You're not exactly in Spain are you.
I was thinking of just freezing the excess chillies. Apparently they lose a bit of their crunch, but they're probably just getting banged into a curry or something so that doesn't matter too much.

[Ferris]

Fair point.

I freeze all my chillies actually, means you can grate them with a microplane into your sofrito/mirepoix for curries and things. Makes life much easier. See also: ginger root, turmeric.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

I am quite tempted to shove that big yellow one in the foreground up my arse.

[Buelligan]

Good plan[nb]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figging[/nb] if you like that sort of thing.  On the turmeric thing, I accidentally stole a withered bit of turmeric root that was lying at the bottom of a bowl in a house I was cleaning.  Planted it, this was about four years ago and now I have a really really big pot full of turmeric - it has rather attractive leaves - tons of large harvestable roots.  Tons and tons of the buggers.  Stays out all winter too.  Think it might not survive in the UK but here it's happy as larry.