The FastDay Forum

Hi @david f. Thanks for volunteering! My sprouting broccoli is looking a bit windswept after all of our weather. A lot of leaves blown off but the centres are still in tact. Any advice appreciated!

Move them somewhere less windy.

There, glad you asked?

Ha, very funny. I'm hoping they have survived this week's pasting again. They should be ready soon........

[janeg]

IT"S RAINING!!!!!
have moved all the tubs into the direct hit of it- real water for them, that might perk them up!

Golly. Didn't realise it actually rained in the sandpit. You probably have some of our overspill. We are totally sodden as you have probably seen on the news. But as someone else said on another thread - better than that 'polar vortex' over NA. Poor things.

Andy considerable more impressive than my hort cv.

To be honest mate, im probably a little bit of a fanatic. My boss always says that to be a really good gardener or plantsman, you have to be a fanatic.

Im always up at Wisley or kew or visiting locals gardens....we have some stunners round Sussex icluding Sheffield Park, Wakehurst Place, Borde Hill and Nymans.

Had the pleasure of doing The Eden project, Lost gardens of helligan and Trebah down in Cornwall last years. To be honest, when you have Kew and Wisley within an hour's drive, nothing else compares and apart from Heligan, i was a bit disappointed.

That's why I moved out the industry because I know I'm not.

I love growing but with road links are so good now, stuff can come over from Holland at a moments notice and they have the advantage of light levels (and certainly at one time heating subsidies).

I've just had a rather depressing walk around the garden, what a mess! Everything looks scruffy and dull. The purple sprouting broccoli is flat on the ground yet again, they keep blowing down and each time I'm trying to stake them up in mud. Our garden is always damp in winter, we live at the bottom of a hill, a frost hollow and every year we lose a shrub or tree, I don't mind too much as then I have the space to plant something else. The laburnum tree blew down in the storms before Christmas, it succumbed to a late frost last spring, my son was going to chop it down but now he doesn't need to!

No splashes of colour around the garden now except for a pale pink bedraggled flower on the tip of a kaffir lily. There some deep blue flowers on a prostrate rosemary I have in a tub, and we have the greens and golds on the evergreen shrubs as well as the mahonia and winter flowering honeysuckle so not all bad news.

....and the sun is just peeping through the clouds

I think you have just persuaded me to go out and do a routine inspection......

I always try to walk around the garden in the new year to see what is flowering, this year is the worst ever!

Does anyone here keep a garden diary or record? I found my old ones a while ago, I started them when we moved to Cornwall' covering three gardens (we moved house a couple of times). I kept it up for 19 years until I stopped gardening because of back pain - I've started gardening again but now I'm careful not to overdo it.

It was interesting to read about the different plants that I propagated and planted, the lists of veggies that did well that year - or not, the hopes and dreams each time I changed the garden layout, the joy of seeing it coming together and frustration when it all went wrong, or the destruction of bad weather, rabbits etc.

As it's a new year I might start another one.....


Today's delight - I found a lonely, brave little snowdrop in flower.

[Betsysgr8]

Enjoying broccoli from the garden now and a couple of cauliflower are ready to be cut and consumed. Brussels still very tiny. Jonquils in the pots are blooming first time in YEARS! So pretty and dainty. Tomato plants blooming like crazy but just one yellow tomato picked so far.

Today's delight - I found a lonely, brave little snowdrop in flower.

Now that makes me want to get out and inspect my flower beds, but it's getting dark so I shall have a look tomorrow. Thank you coffeetime .

It's an incredibly hot and dry summer in Sydney this summer. No real rain for at least 6 weeks now. i think Christmas eve was the last time.

Anyhow, its a disaster for my cucumbers and pretty much giving up as the aphids have taken over. 5 separate plantings and only one has survived with about 4 ccucumbers all up

No big drama as im a believer in working with whatever the weather easily allows but as an experiment wondering if i can save one or two plants. Covered in aphids and with the ants happily helping out.

Im an organic gardener so no pesticide suggestions pleas.

any ideas?

@Juliana.Rivers, Monty Don would say that, if you can't leave them for Nature to balance out, then either wash them off using a jet of water from a hose (not a jet washer!) or use soapy water to wash them off. Hope this helps.

I garden on a half acre plot in South Lincolnshire, on the border of the Fens, surrounded by farmland. My soil is what is called locally 'black top' which is perfect for growing anything - as long as it doesn't need an acidic soil. It is stone free, free-draining and has a good humus content and neutral ph. I only use half of the plot for a garden because it also accommodates a house and a very large 'crew yard', or u-shaped agricultural building, which we use for storage and workshops for the family business. The remainder (that we call 'the other end') has my fruit and vegetable beds, compost bins and an area in which we move the chicken run around.

We moved here nearly twelve years ago and I started the garden from scratch. Two years ago I was unable to garden and last year I didn't manage to get on top of it, so this year there is a lot of clearing out and cutting back to do. Unfortunately it is always windy here (being so flat) and I don't like the cold, so I'm a fair weather gardener!

Sorry to witter on! I only intended to pass on Monty's words of wisdom! Fingers crossed for a good growing season - wherever we are!

Hello another keen gardener here in Perth , Western Australia, may I jion please?

I developed my interest in gardening when moving to Austalia, but have to face many challenges. Firstly, there is no soil only sand! Then after a week or so of hot weather the sand becomes water repellent, so the water runs simply off and the plants die despite me watering. That took a while for me to figure out and am still working to build up a layer of humus, so water can get INTO the root zone.

I have no two types of gardens, a winter, dirt garden facing east/north east and a aqua-ponic garden in the back.

Aqua-ponic combines fish ponds with hydrponic planterbed and allows my to grow most of my veggies myself. Since i am a organic gardener, i don't have problems not being able to spray.
Unforunately having fish also means that i am unable to use snail bait, therefore o sometimes have to be quick to harvest my greens, before these pesky slugs do.

Love this blog, am always interested to learn about how other gardens work!

Hello another keen gardener here in Perth , Western Australia, may I jion please?

I developed my interest in gardening when moving to Austalia, but have to face many challenges. Firstly, there is no soil only sand! Then after a week or so of hot weather the sand becomes water repellent, so the water runs simply off and the plants die despite me watering. That took a while for me to figure out and am still working to build up a layer of humus, so water can get INTO the root zone.

I have no two types of gardens, a winter, dirt garden facing east/north east and a aqua-ponic garden in the back.

Aqua-ponic combines fish ponds with hydrponic planterbed and allows my to grow most of my veggies myself. Since i am a organic gardener, i don't have problems not being able to spray.
Unforunately having fish also means that i am unable to use snail bait, therefore o sometimes have to be quick to harvest my greens, before these pesky slugs do.

Love this blog, am always interested to learn about how other gardens work!

Hello to the other side of Australia! would love to do have fish. OH says no room. but he said that about the quail a few years ago.

Is it too late to start off garlic from bulbs bought in the supermarket in the UK? I do have a border that is very hot and dry, they would love it there. But even that patch is sodden right now.