Gardening Grandma

MORNING FORKERS

FG, your response made me laugh! Another thought - can't you wave your wand and just make the food appear?

Visitors, OH and dogs walked the edge of the beach at Ogmore this morning, Gilly. I sat in the garden and am still convinced I had a better time!

I am considering changing my name to Gangsta Granny.

MORNING FORKERS

How did you know, FG?   You must have spies in this part of the world!

MORNING FORKERS

Not so much a 'proper' gardener,  in my case, as a hard-up one with a fair bit of space to fill, TT. I've enjoyed it, though, especially as nearly everything I've grown has been perennial and won't have to be grown again next year. Sorry your hands are so bad. Tendonitis has flared up in my ankles again, but anti-inflammatory ointment helps quite a bit.

Still doing all the cooking but am letting them go out by themselves so I'm not having to turn to when I'm already shattered, and I'm doing fairly simple meals. No showing off involved, just getting by. Had a quiet cup of tea in the garden this morning and enjoyed the peace, but it is belting with rain this afternoon.

Should have realised it was gangsta, not gangster. I looked up a definition of this word. Here it is.

'A sociopathic member of the inner-city underclass, known primarily for being antisocial and uneducated. Also known for ready access to illegal drugs and weapons, and staggeringly poor marksmanship.'  

And I was flattered!!!

MORNING FORKERS

TT. Haven't actually brushed it today, though - what a slut!

is plant food the same as fertiliser? and how can you make plant food?

You can use cold,  diluted coffee and tea to water plants, as well as the water you boiled vegetables in. People make fertiliser from nettles, too. Here's a link.

http://www.nettles.org.uk/nettles/activities/nettlemanure.asp

I may be wrong, but I think it is upasteurised milk that makes a good fertiliser. Either fertiliser will be pretty smelly.

The main elements of fertiliser are nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus and all plats need all of them, but in slightly different proportions. The proportion betwen them is the basic difference between fertilisers for different plants.

Fuchsia cuttings

Fuchsias are among the later plants to put out leaves, so they may still be OK. Other than that, cuttings of fuchsias are very easy to take and root quickly, so you could take some more as soon as you can get reasonable ripe cuttings.

Slugs may destroy my life

The trouble with being reverent towards all life is that you have to draw the line somewhere - rats? germs? household mice? I kill slugs by chopping them in half with garden scissors and putting the halves out for the birds. After years of seeing no birds in the garden, I've begun to see small tits and yesterday, even a robin. I've been trying to create a habitat for them - thick shrubs, well-turned soil where it is easy to catch worms, a feeder and the aforementioned slugs. Actually, I think it could be kinder than being eaten by a bird and dying slowly in its gut. Unfortunately, as Barneyb points out, snails have to be crushed. I've tried turning them on their backs and leaving the rest to the birds, but - apart from the cruelty of that -  they are talented at turning over again. So I conclude that a quick death beats a slow one.

MOB rants

The thing with all this emphasis on electronic things, too, is that they don't get the reading habit. This is so important for their education, especially in secondary school. I taught many kids who were not fully literate because they watched screens in their leisure time and never read books. It puts them at a great disadvantage when they get to GCSE level. I don't know enough about junior schools to be able to comment on that. 

MORNING FORKERS

I've been lookking at T and M's new continual flowering montana in their catalogue, since I could still do with something growing over the pergola and the jasmines I put in aren't thriving. I'll bet it has drawbacks, either in vigour or number of flowers and I'd like to find out if anyone has tried it before I buy. It sounds a bit too good to be true.

MORNING FORKERS

Thannks KEF

Compost heaps and rats

Lady Banks rose

Jeyes fluid uses

Little Treasures

GW gardening clubs

The first Gardeners' World

MOB rants

MOB rants

Non-flowering dianthus

B******* Magpies

Can I train a rambling rose over an arch?

Early flowering white rose

getting on with the neighbours

Pruning pussy willow

What is your kind of garden?