BobTheGardener

GardenIng jokes

A man walks into the doctors with a parsnip in one ear, a carrot in the other and his nostrils blocked with broadbeans.

"What's wrong with me, Doctor?"

"You need to eat more sensibly!"

Can you paint a silver aluminum greenhouse - green?

Have to agree with Geoff and marshmello.  The green coloured ones are powder-coated which is baked on in an oven and chemically bonds to the surface.  Ordinary paint has a tendency to flake from aluminium over time and if you had to touch it up in a few years, you'd need to take the glass out - a horrible and dangerous job.

GardenIng jokes

TinaTurner wrote (see)

Gardener to friend: ‘Do you know where I could get some slug pellets round here?’

Friend: ‘Have you tried Boots?’

Gardener: ‘ I want to poison them, not kick them to death.’

I bet that gardener wasn't our friend ManicSlugHunter who would probably prefer the boots!

bird box

I keep adding new home-made boxes each year with various hole sizes suitable for different birds.  Most don't seem to get regularly nested in, but they could be used for overnight roosting and I'd be none the wiser, so they'll all stay in position.  I think territorialism is the main reason - many birds simply won't tolerate another nesting pair in their area.  I know birds don't like nesting in boxes anywhere near bird tables or other feeding stations.

Bee spotting

Hi all, as most of you will already be aware, bees of all types are generally down in numbers so I thought I'd start a bee-spotting thread for 2013.  Have you seen any yet and if so, whereabouts, on what flowers and could you identify the species?

I'll kick-off by saying I saw my first bumble bee of the year yesterday, but couldn't get close enough to check what type it was.  I'm really glad as my "Lizzie" early fruiting plum tree is absolutely covered in flower buds which are just starting to open.  Last year it flowered in the early warm spell we had but there were no bees about and I got a total of 3 plums - the year before it had literally hundreds!

Lupins

The one I planted last year is up and showing about a dozen leaves (and looks like it has expanded nicely) but no sign of the other two yet, although that pair are about 3yo so could either be a bit late as it's colder where they are planted, or may have turned into worm food over the winter - many varieties are quite short-lived perennials, as Verdun says.

Greenhouse cooling

Hi blackest, I use a 12V, 20W solar panel to power four 12V 120mm computer type fans, two blowing cool air in at the bottom of one end of the greenhouse and two extracting hot air at the top of the other end.  This works great as the fans only blow when the sun is shining (no thermostat needed), and it keeps a nice gentle breeze of fresh air flowing through the greenhouse, which I'm sure helps prevent fungal diseases.  You can easily get all the bits from ebay.

Strong Wire Trellis

Hi Giles, that sounds like a plan!  You can buy all you need from hardware suppliers likes wickes or screwfix etc.  If using site searches, the tensioners are known as "turnbuckles", hoops are "vine eyes" and for the wire try "galvanised garden wire".  Best get nice long, strong vine eyes as they will be taking a lot of weight.  I would recommend using rawlbolt hook anchors at the wire ends as those will not be pulled out in strong winds.

FORKERS Sheds

Mine gets cleared out once a year in the spring, but is again full of stuff before I know it, so there's usualy only about a square yard of floorspace to work with!

Using the back button

If it happens again, you can go to this Microsoft page and click the big blue 'Block third-party Google site tracking' square.  This should stop the 'tracking' in any adverts which is what causes the problem:

http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/browser/p3p/

Bee spotting

New deliveries

Flower ID

Oh no, lily beetles are back!