2020 new Gardeners’ thread

[FoolsAssassin]

I think there will be a lot of people this year looking to grow veg and things generally. Thought I would be goof if those of us who have been growing for a bit could help those getting started,

I’m far from expert but a few allotments over the years and I know there are lots of people on here who are far more knowledgeable than me. So if anyone has any questions please feel free to ask and will see what we can do.

I can't believe that gardening groups (which presumably are there for advice and companionship) would be so nasty... seriously, what are people thinking?! I'm pleased now that our neighbours aren't even slightly interested in gardening!

@Caroian I love sweet peas! Sadly so do the DC, last year they spent a busy afternoon cutting them all off to make 'perfume' (flowers in water with added mud - sigh!)

I think there are a few groups that are a bit “this is a gardening group for serious gardening people only”. I don’t understand it myself as everyone has to learn from somewhere and personally I take joy in sharing knowledge of any subject where I have it so others can enjoy what I do! Fortunately there are plenty of others like that out there too. But when you are already the kind of person that worries too much about what people think, that kind of behaviour only deepens those feelings.

I fear I may have been a little on the late side with planting my sweet peas. Waiting impatiently for them to grow! Fortunately my son is pretty unlikely to want to make perfume (I’d have done that sort of thing as a child - I once tried to make my own version of George’s Marvellous Medicine) but he will probably knock the flowers off with a well aimed football!

Disclaimer; I haven't read any of this thread. Impulse Bought 2 aubergine plants yesterday. Heard they are actually tricky. I have put them in pots, read they need feeding. Is liquid tomato feed ok? On another note my main gardening this year has been clearing a section with lots of boride and brambles and saved the strawberries at the bottom and we've had a couple of strawberries for breakfast Pasy couple of days

Tomato feed is fine for aubergines.

Welcome, @Hellohello2020! Sounds like your garden wants to feed you, with brambles and strawberries!

We have a scruffy privet/holly/pyracantha hedge that I'm gradually taking out, to replace with a new fence that I can have cordon apples against. Neighbours are also happy with this plan as they are the manicured garden type. So far we have taken out about 8 metres of it (with probably twice as much to go!). It has ivy and bramble mixed up in it which not only knits the branches together, but the roots as well. It's very satisfying to get the whole lot out. I put up a greenhouse only 1m from this boundary though so that section will be tricky to dog out properly, when I get to it.

Thanks tynefilth. Sounds like tough work. It's been cooler today, good weather for gardening on my day off work but not feeling very motivated, did about half an hour. 2 years ago when we moved in we planted some heather in the rockery. Today They are looking sad and I read they to well eredactious compost so I weeded round them and dug out some chalk which we have lots of here and added soil. I'll try and add some pictures on this thread at some point.

@Caroian after I said that our neighbours weren't interested, one of them took it upon himself to peer over the fence and instruct me on improving my potatoes I just said "hmm, yes, I'll be sure to do that" and various other platitudes...

I'd love some apple trees but our garden is far too small (and they would be unlikely to grow with the DC climbing on them all the time!). Well done on the fence removal though @TyneFilth!

The thing in the centre of the first photo looks like a weed to me, but I'd wait till it flowers to be sure. "That's an interesting idea, I've not heard that before" (=you're batty and there's no way I'm trying that)

I'd love some apple trees but our garden is far too small You can get them on very dwarfing rootstocks - our neighbour's tree is still less than 4 ft high after 10 years. And there are "step-over" cordons - I little fence-like edging to your flower beds which produces apples.

Though apples are one of those readily available things like potatoes which seems little point in growing unless you can grow lots.

I also started my greenhouse journey in lockdown ! My latest issue, now that we are having some welcome rain, is that the second hand one I've got doesn't have any fittings to its gutters. I can't find the same style online at all. Wondering if I could make the fittings somehow, maybe with flexible thin metal?

Hope it's OK for me to join you :) very novice gardeners here. My 6 year old daughter has been planting and giving away sunflower seedlings since lockdown started so that's really been the extent of our gardening. People have started bringing plants to thank her and I want to look after them properly. We've had strawberry plants gifted to us which I feel relatively comfortable looking after, we've also been given butternut squashes. Are these relatively easy to look after? Is there anything I need to know about them? 😬

Butternut squashes - they're greedy! Lots of food. Slugs may be a problem if in the ground. I don't know if they're self fertile - best to assume not, and if there haven't been plenty of bees around, in the evening take a male flower from one plant, pull the petals back and insert it nose-to-nose in the female flower on the other plant. You can recognise the female flowers - they have an embryo squash behind them.

I'd love a tiny apple tree @MereDintofPandiculation - reminds me of my DF's allotment when I was growing up - but yes, apples are so readily available and cheap that in some ways it's a bit pointless! MIL has a massive apple tree in her garden and always gives us loads too. I've ordered an apple blossom plant and a honeysuckle instead, hopefully will attract plenty of bees

I've got 8 apple trees, and with the exception of the Worcester, they're all ones not available in the shops Ashmead's Kernel, Cornish Aromatic, King of the Pippins, Forge, Allington's Pippin, Herrings Pippin, and Brownlees Russet. They all have different taste, some of them wonderfully spicy, and 8 trees gives me enough apples from August to March.

But if you only have room for one tree, and remembering you need more than one variety because they don't fertilise themselves, you could look at a family tree - 3 different varieties grafted on to one tree. Of course you won't have the same choice of varieties.

The final option (and I'm not recommending this) is to learn how to graft, and create your own family tree

Wonder if someone can help... I am a 'lock-down' gardener with 9 courgette plants in great health and lots of flowers.

But all the flowers seem to be male - so no courgettes yet. I am still happy with my produce as i am frying a lot of battered flowers but maybe there's something I need to do to actually grow some courgettes?

Don't worry, it's the plant's way of making sure there is at least some cross-pollination - it has a period of male flowers only (so that the pollen will be taken to a different plant) before starting to produce female flowers. Female flowers will start appearing soon.

The flowers are also nice raw - the bases are very sweet.

How do you know if your flowers are male or female? I’ve had plenty of flowers too.
I heard someone tickling them with a paintbrush but not sure what to tickle and when.

The female ones should have a tiny little courgette shaped bump at the base of the flower. The male ones are just flower and stalk.

If you have both you could brush pollen from the male ones on to the female flowers.

Thanks MereDintofPandiculation. I'll just wait. Hopefully some will come.

I wait till the evening (giving the bees a chance), then pick a male flower, bend the petals back, and insert it into the female flower so that the pollen is in contact with the sticky stigma in the centre of the female flower, and just leave it there.

The female ones should have a tiny little courgette shaped bump at the base of the flower. Behind the flower, rather than inside the flower. Obvious once you've seen it, so if you're not seeing it, you're probably still at the early stage of male flowers only.

Brilliant, I get it, thank you, just been out for an inspection and yes, most are just flowers on the end of a stalk but some have tiny courgette shapes between the stalk and the flower.
So will those ones grow into a full courgette or do they need pollinating by a male one to grow to full size?

(I took a picture but whenever I try to add a pic, MN just seizes up on me).

I think they need pollinating or they won't grow. But I'm not there yet so I may be talking rubbish.

Pictures working again! This clearly shows the one with a courgette v the one without.
How do I make sure it is pollinated then? It's in a greenhouse so not seeing as many bees as it might usually do so I am happy to help it along! (Greenhouse door open all day).