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...

That reminds me that I still haven't watched last week's GW.

I seem to have acquired a few plants today - an astrantia, an aquilegia, a pink and an erysimum. They just jumped into my basket. As they do.

I must pick the windfalls off the lawn, as they are crawling (literally) with slugs.

I love topiary. It is one of the things that does look well in my garden. The neat shapes offset the rambling roses and clematis. I find clipping the topiary very restful too. I always think of Sam Gamgee in the Lord of The Rings- you know, the bit where he is outside the window and Gandalf is telling Frodo about the ring and the sound of the shears stops and Gandalf hauls Sam in and he begs to go to see elves. (It is in the book not the film).

I dont know how you all have so much vegetables and fruit. Perhaps it is too much to ask that veg and fruit grow under a north facing oak tree. Not one of the three apple trees have fruited this year. What shall I do to make it more likely that they fruit next year. It could be a lack of bee but this year it was definitely a lack of blossom. Anyway I am mulching more compost round the beds. Just in case it helps. And the birds from the tree are eating the slugs for sure as I don't have any.

funnyperson - we have hardly any fruit in our orchard. I think it was the crap weather. All you need is a storm at the wrong moment for the blossom and you have had it . We have bees in the orchard, so it wasn't pollination.

Mulching will help. We have been putting that stuff on to prevent caterpillar damage too (like a glue gun around the tree, we do it in autumn and spring).

We should keep our fingers crossed, other people on this thread have great crops

I only have a great crop of apples, going to waste because they are dropping before I can pick them. All other crops are risible that includes both tomatoes.

I have just returned from holiday to find the 30 kale and cabbage plants I ordered in August waiting patiently on my doorstep. I opened the package with my heart in my mouth, but astonishingly they still seem to be alive, if rather yellowed. I've given them a good soaking and planted them into pots - does anyone know when I should plant them out into the garden?

I harvested a tasty 12 tomatoes before going abroad and have another batch coming on nicely, but unless they get some sun they will never finish ripening.

On the plus side the hardy geraniums I bought from Maud a few weeks ago are thriving.

Well at least someone has apples. On the radio this morning there was a mention that the apple crop is down by 25% this year.

Maud could you not place a basket strategically under the apple tree then your crop would not go to waste. You could then put the spare apples out by the gate for passing children.

I am in Kent this week, and I am going to take the opportunity to have a look at Sissinghurst, which will be interesting, as I have only seen it before in summer.

Mooncup - I too have a batch of yellowed spring cabbages & broccoli in pots. My winter ones arrived a few weeks earlier (and a lot less yellow) and I planted them out at the weekend when around 6-8in tall. If my yellow ones grow then I'll plant them out at about the same size.

I think dropping into a basket would cause as much damage to the apples as dropping into the garden. I need to get out there with my apple picker, so that they're picked rather than just dropping all over the border and lawn. It doesn't help that dh refuses to eat windfalls, although I have tried to convince him that as long as you check for bruises they're perfectly usable.

I still haven't potted up my miniature plugs of violas and pansies that were free-for-postage with GW magazine.

ok, final reckoning on the tomatoes ... three plants in a trough planter (probably one and a half grow bags equivalent) and I have 350g of ripe / will ripen indoors, plus have already eaten 100-150g, and I have 600g that are resolutely green and will become chutney.

That vegan chap on GW ... wow!!!

My tomato harvest - 2 pale green with tiny pink hints from outside plants & four starting to turn (think they may have been black tom plants) from indoor plants.

Dog ate the two from outside as I didn't put them high enough out of reach.

Four, part ripened tomatoes remaining.

Now...what shall I make?

Managed to watch GW for the first time in weeks this evening. Did not help with my tomato envy

lexi could I come and make a (purely scientific) inspection of your trough?

yeah sure funny! it is a zinc one from gardentrading I think. Interestingly, these plants were not immune from blight, but I took off any leaves that it appeared on, and also when it started to make a truss go brown, but it was always there on the stems, and yet I still got a reasonable (green) tomato harvest.

here, this one, Large

I must go and check tomorrow on my pitiful abundant crop of tomatoes.

I bought another rose this week. ::shame-faced grin::

I found another tomato! It was hiding behind a leaf. So..final tally...five.

Beat that Maud.

Think I may have harvested the last good crop of beans tonight. Still have courgettes coming though. If the frost holds off anyhow.

Your trough is very interesting lexi because smaller and more modern than I had pictured; can I ask, are there drainage holes?

I had the most wonderful Kent apple juice from a farm shop near an orchard yesterday: freshly pressed and chilled. Three varieties: cox: sharp and acid; Ross, medium sweet, and another, I forget the name, which was sweetest of all, and so apple-y it was like Narnia when Reepicheep and the children go East and everything is more real than the real world. I'm not sure I can ever buy Tesco value apple juice at 99 p a carton again.

Glad you had so many tomatoes Lexi. In my new house the last owners left some plants so I've been munching them; they have great flavour. I've also been enjoying my first ever cucumber from my last house; I was really blown away by the taste so I'll definitely grow more next year. I think the skin was just so crunchy too which I loved.

I am having a LOT of fun looking at plant catalogues picking things out. I can't yet believe I have my own garden to plant anything I want. I'm going to spend a fortune, but I've been saving all year so I could do this, and actually given how long the plants will last me and how much pleasure I'll get from them I think it's' pretty reasonable.

Moon, I had lots of kale and cabbages which I forgot to put out with my house move and they all went yellow and died. I'm so sad! But I have lots of pigeons round about and no netting so I think they would have been chomped anyway.

Definitely got drainage funny, I am fairly sure it came like that - intended as a planting trough not a trough-coverer IYSWIM? There should be a pic of it somewhere on my fb, will draw your attention there if there is.

I am cowering in bed with a snivelly cold today but intending to wrap up warm and do important jobs in the garden... Water butt maintenance, bulb planting, Monarda/astilbe dividing, brassica tending. DH might continue the decking-cleaning job he took over from me. He wants to do it 'properly' .

Front garden is out of control again. Bloody creeping buttercup. I need to get a strategy for that patch (and a weeding schedule) otherwise it is just going to look permanently shit, worse than when it was tufty grass that the neighbourhood cats crapped in. The back garden is miraculously weed free (well, it gets the usual wind-blown annual weeds) until I saw yesterday high in the hedge a strand of bindweed, argh.

Bought a tray of 8 cyclamen yesterday at Costco for £10. Will put some underneath the acer on the rockery, and some along my 'pink border' to the front door.

Weeded the front garden (tore up weeds and long yellow grass) hackedpruned the buddlea. Have saved long woody buddleia stems for supports for raspberries. Will plant magnolia stellata, camellia, rhodedendron, clematis, wallflowers, olympic roses, lavender, applemint.
Have had all the above in pots in the porch since the spring, but am aiming for a perennially pretty front garden.

Ugh. Bindweed. I spotted some growing up the apple tree, intertwined with the clematis jackmanii. I hope the paint-on glysophate had time to work before the rain started.

I have replanted one window box and must say it looks gawjus.

Bindweed is a terrible blight on our garden. It was rampant when we moved in, that is why we sprayed over the course of one summer and autumn until it looked clear. It was not ACTUALLY clear of course! We have to be vigilant all the time. Only realised the other day it has grown right up to the top of the holly in the front garden.

Just done bulb order for the 12 large terracotta pots we have on the driveway. We are going to plant aliums and tulips in the hope of getting some colour from the windows (hardly any of the windows look out on the garden, probably due to the house being v old and the prevailing wind coming from that direction. They must have been less concerned with view and more concerned with keeping warm..). Spring Green and Christoffii (sp?). I am rather looking forward to planting them. We have got lovely soil from stacking turf a year or so ago. This feels like proper gardening

Yes, it's the constant vigilance that's hard to maintain. The moment one's back is turned, it sneaks back in.

Spring Green is a very lovely tulip and I love the effect of the same tulip repeated in rows of terracotta pots. Wonderful Carol did it at her garden on GW. I remember the envy.

Yes, soil seems to be what proper gardeners manage to improve. Monty and his vegan friend were getting all technical about it. I must admit to not having a compost heap. All the cuttings and leaves go on the beds in the Autumn (which seems to make a difference) and then what is left over (a lot) goes to the council. This is because I am reluctant to have a smelly heap to view from my windows. Its not entirely satisfactory as every autumn I have enough oak leaves to make bags and bags full of leaf mould.

Spring green tulips look beautiful. I am inspired to plant some among the hellebores in the back garden. The colours will be subtle and fresh I think. I am also going to plant loads more anemone appenina in one section under the quince. The banks of Magdalen college Oxford are so beautiful with them in the spring. Though they also have fritillaria which are a very pretty delicate plant which doesn't seem to thrive in my garden.

smelly heap?

Compost heaps shouldn't be smelly! If they are smelly or slimey they probably haven't had enough air get to them, like the compost bin I inherited on moving house last year. After a year of patient stirring and feeding it is finally producing some lovely crumbly compost. I am very proud.

I am very grateful to the garden waste recycling scheme though as prunings take years to break down. My garden is pretty small and I have still generated enough garden waste to fill the green bag almost every week for the last few months.