For the first time this year I’ve had a net tunnel over half my brassica bed. They’ve all grown twice the height of the ones not covered. But none of the cabbages have hearted up. Have I used the wrong sort of netting? It was just some fabric I had in my sowing box. A stretchy fine hold netting. Would the colour of the fabric make a difference to what heat was produced within the tunnel or something. 
I don’t think they’re going to do much now, even though they look very healthy.

August is a good time to sow spinach - according to the books - but what Spinach?

Joy Larkcom says that several different plants are popularly termed spinach (and a rummage through my seed packets confirms this!).
1. True or ordinary spinach. Spinacia oleracea
2. Leaf beet Beta vulgaris subsp cicla.. This includes perpetual spinach also known as spinach beet, silver beet and Swiss chard, also know as seakale beet and silver chard.
3. New Zealand spinach - Tetragonia expansa
4. Mountain spinach - Atriplex hortensis aka Orache.

Another that I know -
5. Tree spinach - Magentaspreen, Chenopodium giganteum

I'm about to sow 1 and 2 but its not that simple.
There are 2 sorts of Ordinary spinach - heat tolerant "round seeded" types for summer crops and "prickly seeded" types for autumn/winter. I have Giant Winter spinach seeds so take that as a clue to them being prickly seeded. The rest I'm not so sure about!!

At this point I'm starting to realise why I rarely grow spinach and, if I do, have little success with it. Come to think of it, I'm not even sure that I like it!!

Maybe I'll stick to Swiss chard - its prettier than spinach.

Any spinach growers here who'd care to share their experiences?

I've never seen one of these before - the rotund disc snail, or the common button snail in French (bouton commun)!

       

Morning Folks

Again a planning question for next year...

So from what I'm reading I should avoid adding manure to the beds I plan for roots (and onions??) next year, is this correct?

If so the year after will roots (and onions) be ok in the previously manured beds?

For the first time I've grown  a CFB called Coco blanc á rames.  They say the beans can be dried, which I assume means leave them on the vine to ripen and go crispy and bring under cover.   I don't have much experience using dried beans so can you tell me whether when using should I follow the usual precautions to boil for 30 mins, like kidney beans, then use in whatever recipe?

Hi all,

I have some white crown-flowered peas drying right now. I have two questions (which may both be quite dumb...).

1. I believe a little pea moth grub crawled out of one of the drying peas when I opened the pod. Is this pea and/or whole pod destined for the bin? (Gross but almost weirdly cute as well...)

2. Can you use dried/drying seed from the same year to start a new plant?

Thanks

Humour me - I've been debating something with myself all day!

Many of us dream about self-sufficiency - made popular by John Seymour so many years ago in a book that is subtitled "The classic guide for realists and dreamers". Most of us can only dream of acres of grain, orchards and a cow and sheep, if indeed that is what you'd like! The realists set their sights a lot lower. Maybe self-sufficiency in courgettes, lettuce or beans.

John Seymour went the whole hog - his self-sufficiency was independence from the "system" in which most of us have to live.   

My inner debate has been about the difference between "sufficiency" and "sufficient". 

If we think about keeping hens for eggs - from experience the optimum number of hens for me is 3. Each hen will lay 4-5 eggs a week and a dozen eggs for me is ample. So 3 hens is sufficient and gives me self-sufficiency in eggs. When I've had 6 hens, I have had an over-sufficiency of eggs and given them away - but that isn't the aim, the more hens you have, the more the feed costs and the effort involved in keeping their housing clean. The issue is knowing what would be "sufficient" and what is not.

Trying to apply this to whatever you grow is more difficult. I was picking courgettes and beans when I starting having this debate. Am I growing too many courgette and bean plants or are they sufficient for my needs? Every year differs - weather, pests etc can affect productivity. This year has been good for courgettes and beans but poor for soft fruit because there have been so many birds and squirrels pinching them before me. The netted raspberries have done well though. So to have "sufficient" soft fruit I need to net the bushes. Every netted bush would give me more usable fruit than 10 un-netted ones.

I've cut back on tomato plants this year because I've been growing so many that I'd end up leaving them outside the gate for passersby to take. As nice as it to be generous, if I use the GH space to grow something different (DFBs and aubergines this year) I'm improving my chances of self-sufficiency. 

If "sufficient" means growing as much as you need and can use, not more, that is going to be my aim.

I'm not expecting anyone to reply to, or even follow my waffling - but writing it down helps me to understand my argument with myself.   Not sure which one of me won the argument though!!

Please remember that if you use weedkillers that they should only be used on still days. This reduces the likelihood of wind drift.


  Weedkillers-for-Home-Gardeners.pdf (Size: 387.99 KB / Downloads: 58)

To help new gardeners identify common perennial weeds, please post a picture and brief discription of weeds you encounter.

I took a short staycation to the west of Ireland last weekend. We were on the Wild Atlantic At, net stop east coast of USA.

 A lot of the trees in the area are permanently bent from the off shore Atlantic gale winds. I thought these ones just at the pier where we were staying were lovely and worth sharing so I took a few photos.