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Gardening

Find tips and tricks to make your garden or allotment flourish on our Gardening forum.

Potting shed summer party

999 replies

Blackpuddingbertha · 26/07/2013 20:42

Following on from the Blooming into Flaming June thread and all others before it.

The potting shed is open for summer. Elderflower wine aplenty and room for all. Monty will be along later...

OP posts:
Blackpuddingbertha · 22/09/2013 16:38

Cantspel, PM me your address, I have plenty of seeds.

Been out apple picking, have loads and the tree doesn't look like I've touched it!

OP posts:
Rhubarbgarden · 22/09/2013 19:35

We went to an Apple Day at a local park this afternoon. Lots of fun apple-related stuff going on, and mummers, Morris men and live music. Kids had a brilliant time playing in mud, and I took my apples along to the identification stall. Turns out we have Orleans Reinette, American Mother, Brownlees' Russet and Bramley's Seedling. Very happy to find that out.

ComeIntoTheGardenMaud · 22/09/2013 19:45

How exciting, Rhubarb. I haven't heard of the first three - are they rare? We had our big tree identified at Brogdale. It's Jonagold, a crosss between Jonathan and Golden Delicious. Very definitely not exciting!

funnyperson · 22/09/2013 19:50

Ah yes. Brogdale. I have been there.

funnyperson · 22/09/2013 19:52

Apple day at Hughenden manor is very lovely - 12th Oct this year.
Went with the younguns when they were little. They loved it. I loved it too.

cantspel · 22/09/2013 19:55

Thanks bertha have sent you a pm.

Rhubarbgarden · 22/09/2013 20:25

Jonagold is supposed to be the best apple for storing. Should see you through the winter!

Apparently our varieties are all very typical of what was planted in local garden orchards in the twenties and thirties. I don't know how old our trees are, they are pretty old and gnarled so that could be about right.

ComeIntoTheGardenMaud · 22/09/2013 20:39

Hmm, but we just don't like the flavour. We don't often bother picking them and let them fall and rot. They make excellent soil improver!

Bumbez · 23/09/2013 07:09

I'd love to know what varieties my apples and pears are. Two of our trees look really old and one is very young - only produced about 15 small tasty apples.

I've got crates from tesco and am going to try and store the cookers. The pears are ripening too quickly to store so have gone round all the neighbours.
I have spent all weekend pulling up ivy and am so sore but at least I've got somewhere to put the alliums when they arrive.

Looking through the suttons catalogue I found mini kiwi plant - very tempted, any one else grown it?
I loved the sangui- something on Monty -it looks like a border possibility.

ComeIntoTheGardenMaud · 23/09/2013 07:48

Sanguisorba. I liked it too - I realised that that was what I had seen and admired in a garden at Hampton Court.

I had a very satisfying couple of hours in the garden yesterday. I have picked all the green tomatoes and put them in a bowl with a banana and tidied up the front garden. Almost the best thing was finding two verbena bonariensis in a crack in the paving.

echt · 23/09/2013 08:14

Mention of Brogdale takes me back a visit DH and I made when we lived in the UK - a wonderful place.

Today has been very warm, so good all the blasted mulching's been done. DH took 15 barrowloads to our lovely NDN.

Spring's in full swing, with wattlebirds perching on the velthemia and Ned Kelly grevillea, as well as the nameless yellow-flowering shrub that's kicked off. I put the velthemia on a table so we can see the acrobatics of the birds, and give them advance notice of the cat, belled and tiny, but still thinks she's a killing machine. A nosy miner (its real name), gave her a right telling off today.

In the veggie beds the monster purple sprouting broccoli is, er... sprouting like a good 'un, but really needs a bed of its own.

Most of the day was spent ripping out fitted carpet, underlay and gripper rods from our front room to expose the kind of thing I remember from Victorian houses, where the varnish on floorboards only goes up to the edges of the carpet, as was. An additional feature is varnish that only goes up to the next bit built on. I'm trying to think of it as evidence of history, but as the original house was built in the 60s, with 70s/80s add-ons, it just looks like can't-be-arsedness.:o

Enough with the carpet already. The evening is loud with cockatoos, a good thing as there's only been the pair for a few years, so a mob battling it out is good to hear.

MousyMouse · 23/09/2013 18:40

btw pears are delicious with streaky bacon and beans.
very popular in northern germany (and a good way to use up the too small to eat but too good to feed the pigs ones)
will have a look if I can find a translation.

MousyMouse · 23/09/2013 18:42

found one

Blackpuddingbertha · 23/09/2013 19:56

Bumbez, I have an assai kiwi that was supposed to grow up the patio wall. It never did. In three years. So I pulled it out this year and have stuck it the corner of the pumpkin patch as I couldn't quite bring myself to give up on it entirely. The patio wall is now covered with a white solanum which has grown manically from the twig I got from Sainsbury's. Much more satisfying.

I have two sanquisorba tanna in the long bed. They are beautiful but quite short. I loved the tall ones and will be on the lookout for some.

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Rhubarbgarden · 23/09/2013 20:17

Mousy that recipe looks fab. I shall pass it on to dh who does all the cooking!

I am slowly, slowly, getting through all the lavender clipping. It's taking forever. I'm hoping to finish it off tomorrow afternoon when I am farming out the kids for three hours. Or I might use the time to start a planting plan for the new north facing bed where the Leylandii hedge used to be. Hmm.

Bumbez · 24/09/2013 11:24

Great recipe mousy I might try that. I had so many plans but have been struck by a general can't be arsed re using the pears - Belgian pears were a disaster btw.

Love the sanguisorba tanna, particularly as it likes poor soil - should do well in my garden then Grin I liked the pink fluffy ones too - cant remember their name. When do you plant them does any one know?

Shame about the kiwi - maybe I won't then as it was £17

Bumbez · 24/09/2013 11:32

My first ever attempt at chutney! www.jamieoliver.com/magazine/recipes-view.php?title=easy-tomato-chutney it was delicious :)

funnyperson · 24/09/2013 13:26

Maud that was sanguisorba then, the one I didn't know the name of and thought might be a teazle?I liked the taller sanguisorba in the programme. I looked them up afterwards and found that Claire Austin has a number of varieties for sale

Rhubarbgarden · 24/09/2013 19:26

The pink fluffy one was Lilac Squirrel. I fancy some of those too. I think they'd go nicely with an antiquey roses scheme.

I got some but not all of my lavender clipped. I was going to mow the lawn but got the mower out of the garage and then remembered it's not working properly and I meant to ring the company that serviced it last time I mowed, and then of course clean forgot. Gah! What a waste of dry grass. I have at least rung up now and they are coming to fetch it on Thursday.

Really shouldn't have these problems with a mower less than a year old. Angry

Rhubarbgarden · 24/09/2013 19:26

The pink fluffy one was Lilac Squirrel. I fancy some of those too. I think they'd go nicely with an antiquey roses scheme.

I got some but not all of my lavender clipped. I was going to mow the lawn but got the mower out of the garage and then remembered it's not working properly and I meant to ring the company that serviced it last time I mowed, and then of course clean forgot. Gah! What a waste of dry grass. I have at least rung up now and they are coming to fetch it on Thursday.

Really shouldn't have these problems with a mower less than a year old. Angry

Rhubarbgarden · 24/09/2013 19:30

Oops

ComeIntoTheGardenMaud · 24/09/2013 21:32

Well, I think so, funnyperson. I should have taken a photo but it didn't cross my mind at the time.

Oh dear, Rhubarb. Hope you get the mower fixed quickly.

Blackpuddingbertha · 24/09/2013 21:35

Now I'm googling sanguisorba varieties, have a look at this one. The site has loads of varieties, including Lilac Squirrel. Every time you click on one it gives you loads of others to look at. Sanguisorba porn! Grin

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Bumbez · 24/09/2013 22:46

Ooh I want them all !

echt · 25/09/2013 10:00

I've googled the sanguisorba and it looks lovely and exists in au, so I'll check it out.

Today was spent removing rubble from two long narrowish beds DH jackhammered out of the drive so we can plant some native small trees; callistemon and grevillea to relieve the expanse of maroon tarmac and provide food for the birds. The rest of the beds will be filled with herbs, house leeks, aeoniums, and ivy geraniums to climb the acres of fence. The trick is to keep the soil poor for the natives, who turn up their toes at merest hint of fertiliser.

We have a carport part of the way down the drive, so are going to plant a grapevine to soften it, and feed every sodding possum in the neighbourhood.:o Because it likes richer soil, it gets its own bed.

Eventually we'll have chairs and a table there so we can sit out when it rains. When I first came to Australia, I never understood why they had tables and chairs in various bits of the the property, but we do now: to move round with the varying seasons. We have two settings and ambitions for three. We are enthusiasts of the hard rubbish collection and have picked up garden furniture there. Recycling is the way forward.

In the veggie bed, the broad beans are leaping away, and I've rather brutally espaliered a lemon tree, who has taken it like a man, i.e. like a woman, gracefully and no whinging.

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