Gardening! (continued)

Glorious! I especially love that purple foliage (the spiderwort?) :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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I love the purple plant as well and your lovely collection of flower pots :slight_smile:

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The purple is a type of spiderwort, but it’s mostly called purple heart. It’s incredibly resilient, though it will basically burst during the first freeze. However, I planted it about 6 years ago, and it comes back every year like clockwork and I adore it.

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It took me a few iterations to find the German name. “Dreimasterblume” which translates to Three-Master Flower. Anyway it’s noted down :slight_smile:

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I am only calling it dreimasterblume from now on. Pronounced badly… with condescension…

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Today I planted out my beans and sweet peas. A potentially risky choice seeing as some of them suffered cold damage whilst inside the conservatory last week… I’m hoping that we’ve seen the last of the frost though.

And for your daily dose of irony: my carnivorous plants have an aphid infestation :thinking:

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I’m so glad this hasn’t only happened to me! I don’t remember how I got them off, but oh boy was it weird.

Good luck with the frost.

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I think it’s going to involve a toothpick…

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But will you feed them to the plant?

(Yes, very impractical I know…)

Here’s my contribution. So first here are the slightly raised planters I made from old pallets last year

This is a closer shot of the peas from the front bed, they’re really growing away now

Here are a few sunflowers and cosmos I’m starting off in troughs

Then in the back garden my blackcurrants are starting to fruit

And the gooseberries are nearly ready to pick in places

And while they’re not strictly gardening-related, my girls do a good job of keeping bugs and slugs away (and give me nice eggs)


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I’ll have a larger garden at some point in the forseeable future… I’ll be sure to come here and get everyone’s advice :slight_smile:

Chickens! :chicken:

I’d love to have space for some chickens :slight_smile:
Love the pea-growing setup too - do you get a good crop?

That’s all a bit ghetto for this year, the peas setup. Normally I use canes, but couldn’t get any, so I used an offcut of wood, string and some galvanized staples, so we’ll see how they go. The tendrils are already grabbing.

Yes, most years I get tons of peas. My absolute favourite thing is fresh peas boiled, some mint thrown in for the last 30 seconds, then blitzed up. Fish, chips and mint pea puree is amazing, but just doesn’t work with frozen peas.

The chickens are incredibly stupid, but good fun and have such strong little personalities. The eggs are amazing though, such big yolks. If I make pancakes or omelettes they’re really golden.

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Question for you gardeners please.

Our next but one neighbours have a huge Ash tree which they seem to have no interest in cutting.

Our problem is that loads of baby ashes are sprouting all over our property. Is there anything we can do to stop them, or do we have to just pull them up when we see them?

You can cut them if that’s easier than pulling them up (with a hoe or lawnmower). Other than that I think you’re stuck with serious weedkiller (e.g. glyphosate, which is pretty nasty) or waiting for ash dieback disease to get your neighbour’s tree…

Thanks. Does cutting them not just allow the roots to spread?

Although the kids aren’t little they play in the garden so would rather avoid nasty stuff.

Any way we can accelerate the die back :wink: I’d like some more afternoon sun.

I consulted the gardening oracle (aka my mum), and she thinks that they will keep coming back if you don’t pull them up. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news!

On a more delicious front, here is my first harvest of the year:

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Ooh crunchy!

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I’ve got the week off work, so I hope you’re all prepared for some gardening spam :grin:

We could really do with some rain at the moment, but most of the plants are managing to keep going. There’s a few things in flower now:


Clockwise from top left: clematis, rosa rugosa (mandatory Yorkshire colours), comfrey for fertiliser and bees, broad beans.

Some of the fruit and veg is starting to look good:


Clockwise from top left: blueberries, tromboncino squash, strawberries, raspberries.

Continued lockdown rules mean that garden bodging is an increasingly frequent occurrence. I’ve cobbled together this cucurbit climbing frame out of old storage cubes. Hopefully be planting these out later in the week:

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I’ve not been getting out to do much gardening myself of late but my wife has been getting busy this year. I’ve got some time off over the weekend so I’ll be getting out to give a hand with the fruit and veg in the polytunnel. The alliums are starting to look lovely though, I’m always amazed by them.

There’s rumours that we’ll get to see some more of this fabled “Sun” here in Ireland this week, but as I’ve taken Friday off work in anticipation, I’m sure our Cloudy Overlords will arrange something to punish my cheeky optimism! :slight_smile:

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