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Gardening
Tips June 2009
There
was a short article in the daily paper saying that plant nurseries
generally and especially growers of large quantities of salad crops are
importing Lady Birds to keep crops clear of Aphids. Using natures own
natural little predators to keep pests at bay is very “Green” and
environmentally friendly. You can buy little packs of eggs or larvae
from specialist dealers to put in your own greenhouse, but they are
quite expensive. Myself, I never use insecticides in the garden and
certainly not in the greenhouse, but I do hang up the sticky yellow
cards that you can buy. The cards are specially made for greenhouses and
are not toxic. Aphids go for yellow and will get stuck on the cards as
will many other insects such as flies, but Ladybirds, are not attracted
by them so are perfectly safe. It
should be safe to put all bedding plants out now as well as vegetable
plants such as Runner Beans, Courgettes, etc. Aubergines
need a little protection as they don’t seem to like the wind on them,
but are quite easy to grow in either a glass or polythene greenhouse. We
are trying Sugar Snap Peas, Okra and Radish Mooli in pots this year, so
I will tell you how they do later on. Lets hope the Runner Beans do
better this time as nobody I have spoken to seemed to do very well last
year. The
Rhubarb has done really well this year with good stems and the leaves
could almost be used as umbrellas. If you leave the stems too long
before you pick them they can get very tough, so make sure you only pick
the young ones to eat unless you cover the plant with something like a
very large upturned plant pot to draw them up. You might want to try growing a few vegetables in large pots as there are plenty of young plants for sale in the garden centres. It is easy to transplant young vegetable plants, but remember that root vegetables are best not disturbed after sowing as it can cause the roots to fork or divide. Sow things like Beetroot and Carrots directly where you want them and thin them out afterwards. If your vegetable plot is full you can easily grow Beetroot and Carrots in borders among bedding plants as they have rather attractive leaves. Well
that’s all for now.
Gardening Tips Week Ending June 1st
There is a restaurant and there are various grassy places with benches where one could have a rest or picnic. It was a beautiful day out and made a memorable birthday.
Late Chrysanthemums should be ready for their last potting soon. If you have Tomatoes flowering in the greenhouse and haven’t seen any bees to pollinate them, you can do it yourself. When watering the Tomatoes in the morning, give the canes supporting them, a gentle shake and this will make the pollen fly about and aid pollination. Well that’s all for now. Frances Hartley. Gardening
Tips week Ending 6th June Hello
folks We
have had such a long dry windy spell the soil was so hard I The
Rowan or Mountain Ash trees have been smothered in flowers this year so
there should be plenty of berries for the birds later on in the Autumn
and Winter. The trees are suitable for a small garden and the flowers
are highly scented. Everybody knows of the red-berried variety, but I
also have a yellow berried and white-berried one that has pale pink
flowers. We have about a dozen Rowans growing down the length of our
short road that I have grown from the berries since we moved in 14 years
ago. The different coloured berries look attractive on the trees in the
Autumn, but they are not only good for the birds to eat, because if they
are boiled with apple they make a tasty jelly. It
should be all right to put hanging baskets out now and you can also get
your tubs planted up because the danger of frost should have passed.
Runner Beans, Lettuce, Courgettes and any other vegetables will be all
right to plant out as well. I am trying Squash outside this year and
have also put out some Golden Berry plants. In case they are not very
well known the fruit is sold in small packets in supermarkets just
labelled as Physallis. This is a bit misleading as the Chinese Lanterns
are also called Physallis. They are all the same family but different
varieties, with the ones you can eat called Physallis Edula. Some
restaurants now put a few of the berries in with things like fruit
salads and round the plates as a garnish with things like sliced melon.
My family have been eating Physallis berries for years and they can be
eaten fresh as a fruit but they can also be cooked and used in pies. Well that's all for now Frances
Hartley. Gardening
Tips Week Ending June 24th. Sweet Peas should be flowering well now, but to keep them so, they should not be allowed to set seed, or they will think, “Job done” and stop flowering. Also the more flowers you cut the more you will get. Tomatoes should be fruiting now. If so and you have baby ones on, start feeding the plants with a high potash feed such as Tomorite. If you give a Nitrogen feed you will get a lot of growth, but not much fruit. I have not seen many bees about yet to pollinate plants so when watering the tomatoes I like to give the support canes a little shake to disturb the pollen. Any winter and Spring flowering shrubs should be pruned without delay if not already done. If you can get into garden Centres you will find most of them are clearing out Dahlias, Spring flowering bulbs and the big beautiful Lilies. They will all be reduced quite a lot now and will still flower as the flower will already be in the bulbs waiting for a good drink and a little T.L.C. but do check that the bulbs are not shrivelled. If you are fond of Salads sow a few seeds of Lettuce at a time and a few more after a couple of weeks. If bending is a problem sow them in a trough stood on bricks. The cut and come again Lettuce, where you can pull a few leaves at a time, are quite good if you don’t mind having small leaves. Scatter a few Radish seeds in between the lettuce as well if you like them because they will be ready at a different time.
All for now.
Frances Hartley.
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You
can also get Red Spider mite in the greenhouse when it is dry and very hot,
but the simple cure for this is to throw a bucket of water over the
floor to damp down occasionally. Plants like Cucumbers will love the
increased humidity.
For my Birthday this year two of my sons took me
to the “Dorothy Clive Gardens” on the Nantwich road from Stone. The
gardens are built in a quarry and are fairly steep, but the paths are
gravelled and the few steps there are have rails at the side. The main
attraction is the huge variety of Rhododendrons and Azaleas.
Unfortunately they don’t last for long, but are very colourful during
their peak time in May. There are banks of white, yellow, orange, red,
pink and mauve everywhere. A few Bluebells were still out as were the
white and red Brooms and the lovely yellow cup shaped flowers of the
Freemontedendron. We also saw a wooden pavilion tucked away with a white
Wisteria trained along the front of it. Then we came across a long arch
of covered in laburnum with it’s racemes of yellow flowers hanging
down. One of my sons is 6 foot and he had to duck once or twice to
negotiate the path between the mass of hanging flowers, but it looked
really good.
Well back to gardening and getting those tubs and
baskets filled. The weather is so changeable, but it should be safe to
put all those bedding plants out now and also Runner Bean plants. With
Runner Beans I like to make a trench and spread a few sheets of
newspaper in the bottom, not a thick layer though, or it won’t rot very
well. If your vacuum cleaner bag needs to be emptied spread the contents
of that along as well, then fill in with some good soil. I like to add
some water retaining crystals and some slow release fertilizer mixed
with soil before completely topping up. I also add some of the water
crystals and slow release fertilizer to baskets and tubs.
couldn’t
put a fork in my garden, but it is gradually improving now with the
addition of lots of home made compost. My 3 water tubs were all empty so
I was glad to see some rain. The only problem is that the rain brings
out the slugs and if you have trouble with slugs and snails crawling up
planted tubs there is now something to stop them;- It is called “Slug
barrier copper tape” and is easy to stick round tubs and troughs. I
tried it last year with success and have put fresh on again this year.
The tape can be bought from most garden centres and probably from all
sorts of other garden shops. It comes in 4 metre rolls, (roughly 12 ½
foot) priced at £4.99.
If slugs and snails are a problem, Vaseline
smeared round pots and tubs about 1 ½ -2 inches up from the bottom will
stop them. I was fed up with them blocking the spout of my watering can
so that was what I did and it worked.