Plans for planting

[Murox]

With what grows in my garden it would have to be goats I think !

Yes goats are great browsers; three of them and horse managed to reclaim around an acre of scrub over the course of one year for me previously. Geese seem to be the most useful grass cutters as they are noisily protective as well.

 

[Erichalfbee]

I've resorted to a styil electric because I've had enough of the petrol mower that I've had for 20+ years, petrol mowers are over rated.

Will it top two and half acres of grass and flowers that's done just once a year in one sitting?

 

[Gilberdyke John]

Yes goats are great browsers; three of them and horse managed to reclaim around an acre of scrub over the course of one year for me previously. Geese seem to be the most useful grass cutters as they are noisily protective as well.

Geese are great. We had a pair about 50 years ago. It was amazing how they deterred unwanted visitors simply by wandering around our yard. Burly lorry drivers stayed in their cab and blew the horn for attention. Once a pre-teenage boy came into the yard and my dad shouted watch out for the gander. Reply was I'm not scared of geese. To give him his due he didn't run away when the gander spotted him and stomped towards him hissing as he went. No - but a yellow puddle appeared around his feet. My dad had to go over and shoo the gander away while the lad escaped.

 

[Nannysbees]

I've resorted to a styil electric because I've had enough of the petrol mower that I've had for 20+ years, petrol mowers are over rated.

I love my petrol mower, had years of extension leads and the faff of adding two together and the blinking cable getting in the way. The freedom of pulling a cord and off I go is much more enjoyable for me

 

[Nannysbees]

Geese are great. We had a pair about 50 years ago. It was amazing how they deterred unwanted visitors simply by wandering around our yard. Burly lorry drivers stayed in their cab and blew the horn for attention. Once a pre-teenage boy came into the yard and my dad shouted watch out for the gander. Reply was I'm not scared of geese. To give him his due he didn't run away when the gander spotted him and stomped towards him hissing as he went. No - but a yellow puddle appeared around his feet. My dad had to go over and shoo the gander away while the lad escaped.

How are they with crops and flowers in the garden?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

petrol mowers are over rated.

electric may be fine for a little terrace house pocket handkerchief lawn but when it takes over an hour to even do a quick topping of the lawns then petrol will win every time

 

[pargyle]

Will it top two and half acres of grass and flowers that's done just once a year in one sitting?

Yes ... but it will take you about three weeks, a very long extension lead and a second mortgage for the electric you are going to use .... you'd probably best factor in some physio afterwards as well after all that pushing ...

 

[Nannysbees]

First signs of borage, just ordered some phacelia seeds.

 

[JamezF]

First signs of borage, just ordered some phacelia seeds.

No sign of mine yet, but that's probably no surprise. Didn't get much done in the veggie plot today other than giving a hedge that now shades the polytunnel a fairly serious prune with the chainsaw (and feeding all the wood through the chipper). I've removed a sycamore and thinned some hazel and elm to reduce the shading and give others more space to grow.

My wife and daughter arrived home late this afternoon laden with seed packets and I already had a fair bit of sowing to do this weekend, so tomorrow is going to be a busy day in the greenhouse

James

 

[Nannysbees]

No sign of mine yet, but that's probably no surprise. Didn't get much done in the veggie plot today other than giving a hedge that now shades the polytunnel a fairly serious prune with the chainsaw (and feeding all the wood through the chipper). I've removed a sycamore and thinned some hazel and elm to reduce the shading and give others more space to grow.

My wife and daughter arrived home late this afternoon laden with seed packets and I already had a fair bit of sowing to do this weekend, so tomorrow is going to be a busy day in the greenhouse

James

Fab, been in the greenhouse most of the day.i love this time of year

 

[Gilberdyke John]

How are they with crops and flowers in the garden?

No problem at all. It was 50 years ago so they are long gone.

 

[bobba]

Started my chilly on Friday.

I have Cyanes, Orange-Habanero, Hot Thai, and some big light green ones that I dont know the name of. 10 seeds per pot.

I am spoiled rotten and have access to some useful facilities at work. So I start my seedling in a environmentally controlled room set to 20c and a relative humidity of 65%.

Next I will pot them out and put them in an automated greenhouse. It has heaters, shade screens, vents and lights.

The up side is I never have to worry about the weather, but the down side is the greenhouse at work gets a lot of pests some years.

I usually start my chillys in February and will be able to harvest chillys from April to January on a good year.

I always grow a few cyane plants in the size pot you see in the picture, the plants will only grow to a small size, but will flower much sooner. They will keep me going until the bigger plants start producing.

 

[Nannysbees]

Started my chilly on Friday.

I have Cyanes, Orange-Habanero, Hot Thai, and some big light green ones that I dont know the name of. 10 seeds per pot.

I am spoiled rotten and have access to some useful facilities at work. So I start my seedling in a environmentally controlled room set to 20c and a relative humidity of 65%.

Next I will pot them out and put them in an automated greenhouse. It has heaters, shade screens, vents and lights.

The up side is I never have to worry about the weather, but the down side is the greenhouse at work gets a lot of pests some years.

I usually start my chillys in February and will be able to harvest chillys from April to January on a good year.

I always grow a few cyane plants in the size pot you see in the picture, the plants will only grow to a small size, but will flower much sooner. They will keep me going until the bigger plants start producing.

Wow That's really useful to have that at work!!

 

[JamezF]

Today I have been sowing more peas for shoots and radishes, peas for, err, peas, sugar snap peas and a few flowers (nasturtiums and cosmos), until I ran out of seed compost, so sieving some more is now on my list. I would have done it this afternoon, but the weather has been miserable I also lifted the remaining parsnips as they're starting to produce leaves again.

The peas, broad beans and radishes that I sowed a few weeks back are now in need of transplanting, so that's on the list for this week. Some of the mustards and other leaves in the polytunnel are also pushing up flower stalks, so they can go on the compost heap and the peas and radishes can go in their place.

Lots of the winter brassicas are clearly also thinking about flowering and I suspect we only have a week or two left for the sprouts and curly kale. The few remaining beetroot might get turned into soup. I shall be researching what we might be able to do with the sprouts, swede, parsnips and leeks. I don't think I've ever managed to grow enough before that we started to come out of winter with vegetables still in the garden. Could be a bit of a gap now though, until this year's are ready to harvest.

James

 

[Nannysbees]

Today I have been sowing more peas for shoots and radishes, peas for, err, peas, sugar snap peas and a few flowers (nasturtiums and cosmos), until I ran out of seed compost, so sieving some more is now on my list. I would have done it this afternoon, but the weather has been miserable I also lifted the remaining parsnips as they're starting to produce leaves again.

The peas, broad beans and radishes that I sowed a few weeks back are now in need of transplanting, so that's on the list for this week. Some of the mustards and other leaves in the polytunnel are also pushing up flower stalks, so they can go on the compost heap and the peas and radishes can go in their place.

Lots of the winter brassicas are clearly also thinking about flowering and I suspect we only have a week or two left for the sprouts and curly kale. The few remaining beetroot might get turned into soup. I shall be researching what we might be able to do with the sprouts, swede, parsnips and leeks. I don't think I've ever managed to grow enough before that we started to come out of winter with vegetables still in the garden. Could be a bit of a gap now though, until this year's are ready to harvest.

James

I planted peas in the raised border today along with lettuce and carrots in troughs.Phacelia seed arrived didn't realise it can grow to 1.2m!!!!!! Have to plan carefully where that can go, Richard noel had it last year but I think he planted near enough a field, should be interesting

 

[JamezF]

One of the beasts I lifted this afternoon:

I think that one would probably get me through the winter all by itself.

James

 

[Erichalfbee]

Wow. I can never grow parsnips from seed....I cheat and buy plugs.
Last years ended up looking like an octopus despite being planted in poor soil

 

[Murox]

Wow. I can never grow parsnips from seed....I cheat and buy plugs.
Last years ended up looking like an octopus despite being planted in poor soil

they don't appreciate stones either, or maybe your soil is not as poor as you think it is.

 

[Erichalfbee]

they don't appreciate stones either, or maybe your soil is not as poor as you think it is.

Yes you might be right. I shall try again

 

[JamezF]

I'm not sure there's really any truth in the suggestion that parsnips need to grow in poor soil to produce nice roots. If it's not stones then I wonder whether there's something else at work. I get the occasional plant that forks and produces lots of small roots, even when the rest in the row are perfectly fine. And I know of people who grow decent roots in soil that contains plenty of organic matter. Perhaps artificial fertilisers or incompletely broken down manure might cause problems though?

The only other possibility that springs to mind is if the seedlings are transplanted rather than sowing direct. Parsnip tap roots apparently get very long very quickly and perhaps could be damaged by transplanting.

Lots of people seem to have very complicated processes for preparing the ground and sowing parsnips. I just draw a shallow drill in the bed where I want them to be, water the line of the drill fairly generously from a can without a rose, sow the seeds and cover them with the soil pushed up either side of the drill. Last year I also lay some fleece over the soil which I think improved germination and perhaps kept the slugs and snails off the seedlings whilst they were small. Because they germinated so well I thinned them twice, initially just to give the remaining ones enough space to get going, and then to final spacing after they'd got properly established. This year I'm going to experiment with closer final spacing to see if that reduces the size a little. The one in the photo probably is the biggest I've ever grown, but there are plenty that are 4" or more across the shoulders which can be a bit wasteful when, say, one isn't quite enough but two is far too much.

James