The first rule of garden club is...!?!

[Lexilicious]

hoping Humph's Happy Osteospermumsnet chums will find this... la la la... I'm uite used to being betty no mates though...

Come on in and have a seat/kneeler/foam pad and a virtual , anyone who wants to idly chat about what they've been dreaming of planting, actually planting, buying without a care for having a place for it, propagating, harvesting, hacking and chopping...

When I get my new patio, I want to make a mini water garden in a barrel. Having been to Giverney, I'm determined to have a water lily.

Great Grockle, if mine turn out not to be pumpkins I know where to find some then ! My Blueberries have produced some fruit in previous years but not very many and definitely not the gorgeous big juicy ones at the Blueberry Farm.

Humphrey, I now want a patio and a waterlilly and Maud to come and plant a white colour scheme for me. So true about clearing up after a party. I'm winding down the allotment now, i know there's a fair bit I could sow but it's pissing down yet again and I'm fed up of planting seeds that fail to germinate this year.

Teta, that sounds like a lovely holiday. Must be horrible to be back and cold in rainy Slugland after being a lot sun and heat.

House is supposed to be painted this week. I've got two trellises with climbing roses and clematis on each. Trellis is knackered so think we might take thm down and replace. I want something which will last with no maintenance if possible. Going onto painted cream rendered walls with black strip at the bottom, any suggestions please ?

Sorry Maud, that's your patio and waterlilly I want. Humph's veg patch and rose walk would do me nicely too !

I want Humphrey's estate in its entirety!

Perhaps we should all do a water lily in a barrel, as a sort of Happy Horticultural Cult equivalent of a Masonic handshake?!

I would like to do a water lily in a barrel.

I think you'd be disappointed, Humph!

I have no room for a barrel but would like a water lily in my small pond, which is not looking healthy at all - very murky green water. Need to muck it out I think.

I returned from a last gasp of holiday in trepidation at how much more destruction caterpillars would have wreaked on my brassicas. In fact not bad - lt week I picked them and eggs off every day, and removed the netting as it was clearly not preventing butterflies from getting to it. This morning I saw a robin going crackers around the plants, so I think biological balance may be being restored.

I have not been at home any weekend of the whole of August! So my gardening has been really just the odd evening tidy up here and there. I did plant lots of seeds a few weeks ago and they are mostly coming up (the un-netted carrot seed rows haven't at all) and my late beans and peas look pretty good (am completely at the mercy of no early cold snaps!). I think I have to give up on my potatoes (all six remaining bags of them) some of them have completely gone over and others are flowering for the second time. PILs spud plants have been let go so long that they have developed tomato-like 'fruits' but they think the spuds will be fine.

I am trying to propagate herbs again - have some good looking cuttings of a watermelon sage, and might do lemon verbena. My dahlia root cuttings are probably failing because I haven't been able to keep them aired and watered in the potting shed. Will soon be time to dig up my layered thornless blackberry and cut it down so it's a dormant plant. When the Monarda dies back properly I'll move it to the top of the rockery behind a dwarf acer. Agree - its all tidying up after a party, but I'm not much good at actual parties anyway so I don't mind!

The most bizarre thing which has gone on in the garden this year is that random tomato seedlings have been popping up in strange places. I wonder if it is possibly a bit of potting compost that I had tried to start toms in (too deep?) but given up and recycled on the flower beds.

It's time to think about next year's planting. I am tending towards giving up on potatoes, onions etc., but then I wonder if I'm just reacting to this bad year and should give things another chance...

It's very hard giving up on things, I find. I resolved a few days ago to give up on hostas - I just can't defeat the slugs - but I know I will weaken next spring, when the time comes to dig them up, divide them and take them to the plant sale.

Wynken i'm happy to be home.Though i can't believe the number of slugs and snails everywhere.I'd also forgotten about the grey,windy,rainy,cold weather - all of which we had yesterday.
I also would really love some water lilies.In Malaysia they have huge glazed pots filled with fish and water lilies outside the hotels.I don't know who stocks them in the uk though.
Maud,my Hostas look like lacework now.Funnily enough they've never hardly ever been nibbled on in previous years.I have spent 2 whole days weeding and cutting back.I have what looks like millions of Aquilegia seedlings everywhere.But am reluctant to pull them out as i really love them.but they do look really untidy.Only another months worth of weeding left sadly.
Regarding Sweet Peas-I planted about 40 sweet peas this year.So far i have had about 10 flowers.So the return on investment is pretty low .However they smell absolutely gorgeous and will hopefully carry on flowering for a long time.The Sarah Raven Dahlias are absolutely stunning.Huge deep pink flowers and yellow anemone ones are out so far but i have several ones that are about to flower.Its all very exciting.

I have a tomato plant growing between 2 paving slabs! They are very determined things!

My hostas are also like lacework.

My neighbours children are throwing caterpillars and snails over the fence into my garden. I can only assume that the mother has told them to - she's gone bonkers & won't let her children speak to my DS. I think this may be another ploy to get at me. Since I already have about 10 million snails and have given up on brassicas, the extra few nibblers won't make any difference!

Can anyone tell me what to do with a pile of runner beans. I want to make chutney but can't find a recipe I like the look of.

of COURSE I would not be disappointed Maud! You are too modest

Runner bean soup was a success in our house last year. Sorry about nightmare neighbour.

Oh, Grockle, that sounds awful. I would loudly shout oi! every time a mollusc sails over the fence.

::passive aggressive, moi?:;

Ooo, soup? Good idea. Maybe Hugh FW has something in the veg book?

Loud 'OI's tomorrow, Maud

What can you throw back, Grockle? Seeds of something invasive? (but just not invasive enough to reach back to you?!). 'Accidentally' poorly aimed waterpistol fights are quite good perhaps? I suppose one should rise above...

DS went loudly and happily bananas when he noticed three small cucumbers growing on his plant this afternoon. Then did some very diligent watering as well as helping me de-caterpillar the brassicas. I think we shall win out. Not at all sure the tomatoes will win the race to autumn but I might move them back so they get the sun for as long as possible.

Blackberries ripening well in the woods - could be a foraging Sunday coming up!

I sit and plot my revenge and then remind myself that I should rise above it. It's disappointing to not play along but quite satsifying knowing that I am not retalliating.

I think we'll go foraging on SUnday, I love the children's amazement when they first see something growing, that they can pick and eat!

I have one tomato, about the size of a pea!

::whoops of joy::

Any tips for successful loganberry growing? I planted mine at the other end of the grapevine support and it is far too vigorous and needs to move. But where? Would it be best trained along the fence?

I have four teeny weeny tomatoes!

Winter veg plug plants arrived today. Have potted on for now in a vain attempt to keep slugs at bay until they are slightly more robust. Can't believe I've ordered plugs but all seed attempts have faired poorly...

That's four times as many as I have.

Oh yes, compared to your tomato harvest Maud I have a glut!

Shall we now see if we manage to get a red one?

Evening! Haven't posted for ages and not done much gardening really - its been so wet and grim here I've lost heart a bit.

However after today I'm feeling quite smug as I have both tomatoes and loads of sweet peas. Far less tomatoes than we should have considering the number of plants but plenty really although they have been so slow to ripen.

Its not all good though - no courgettes or squash at all, and a pathetic crop of onions because the slugs ate all their leaves.

I've decided to start a radical clear out of some of the garden and made a start by chopping back a massive clematis montana that's outgrown its space. Its trunk must be about 4" across at the base so its a bit of a beast. Only managed about 1/2 today and I'm not sure dc's will have the patience to help me with the second half tomorrow. Still its a start!

at Bertha's four tomato glut!

You've reminded me, Chix, that my seemingly indestructible Polish Spirit clenatis seems to have died.

I have tomatoes. They are almost all green, but there are a goodly number of them. The three or four yellow cherry tomatoes that I have so far eaten have oddly been from the plant I put in latest. The other two (moneymaker, gardeners delight) have lots of green trusses so now I need the magic combination of warm sun and soil moisture.

I harvested my remaining six sacks of potatoes this afternoon. So disappointing. One of them had not a single spud (cara, planted in May). The others had enough for maybe 3-4 portions from each sack, but that's from 3 seed potatoes each sack! When I look at the amount of compost which came out of the sacks too (at least 3x60 litre b&q peat free for £10) I reckon I could have bought a lot more potatoes (even nice varieties) from the supermarket for the cost of growing them. A massive GYO-economics fail. I've also "avoided the courgette glut" by picking them small (thumb-thick) when they are sweet enough to eat there and then.

Lots of blackberries on the thornless cultivated variety near the house, the late planted peas and beans are going brilliantly, and I have an overenthusiastic climbing squash (grown from seed from a waitrose butternut squash!) which is now almost over the neighbours hedge. No idea if it will set fruit though.

It is all a bit of an anarchic mess now. We might be here long enough this weekend (on Sunday pm, basically) to make some headway, but the front has gone very weedy and I have a serious lot of post-potato compost to spread around as mulch. I put quite a lot on the rockery where there are some nice things going on with colchicums and sedum. But then the following two weekends we will hardly be here at all again. Argh.

Two of my tomato triffids keeled over and leapt off the table in the conservatory today! Luckily this did not involve the one plant with the four tomatoes on but they had flowers dammit - they were at least showing promise. Now in a heap outside the conservatory door looking sorry for themselves.

I have overenthusiastic squashes too Lex; lots of them climbing all over my veg plot netting. Not much in the way of actual pumpkins or squashes though but several baby ones may yet show promise.

On a positive note though I decided to pay some attention to my beetroot patch today and have pulled up a few biggies. Despite all the germination and bolting issues these are definitely the best 'looking' beetroots I've grown to date. I'm hoping they'll be edible...

I think my Charlotte potatoes were a GYO economic loss too, Lexi.

It's our show tomorrow and I have almost no flowers to exhibit. Sigh.

90 mins of monty and cumberrbatch... Heaven.

But oh my life that's a painfully colourful lot of dahlias!!