nadiamaz

no apples!

In Lancs, my apple trees "swim" pretty well. No late frost affected my garden but lots of rain. I see also that bees don't seem to be bothered by the rain. After a first "fear" (thanks for your support and advice to all!), I am happy to report that Nature is great and has an amazing selfhealing power: in addition to the rain, we had gusty winds last week that lasted a few days and still all the fruitlets are proudly on their branches, and the branches retook their original shape after visible distorsion (wind60mph). Funny enough, it is the first year that my Cox (after 4 fruitless years) is bearing lots of fruit, same for my 3 years old Braeburn, Russet and Spurs. I cross fingers for these healthy dispositions to last until fruits are ripe!

pruning damaged plants in wet conditions?

Would you advise pruning damaged plants in wet conditions? My problem is that as most of the country, all living in my garden suffered from the past few days with continuous gale force winds and pouring rain (Lancs). Some branches of my young trees (all 2-5 years old) have been broken, other not broken but looking poorly, turned upside-down. Vegs, flowers and all the rest too suffered. Now, my question is: should I prune the damaged bits now, despite the still wet soil and plants? or should I rather wait and see if and which parts of a plant recover on their own before going ahead with the big means? If I should prune now, how far back for apple, pear, plum, cherry and soft fruit (blueberries, red and black currants, raspberries)? and what about beans and peas? Thanks for any piece of advice!

Get thrifty

To protect soft fruit in pots (e.g. strawberries): I had to discard a growhouse, so I brought the rusted metallic frame to the tip and kept the staging grids. I Re-used them as support for a frame to protect my few pots of strawberries, fixing them at the edges with some garden wire and lined it with a thinner netting appropriate for bird protection. The frame is 3sides, and the top is only the netting, so that it's handy to lift the "cage", pick the ripe fruits, and put it back very easily. Oh, and I leaned it against a south facing fence, securing the netting with hooks to deal with the few gaps left. All this for free and freeing my conscience for discarding non-recyclable material.

PS: thanks to all of you above for contributing with your thrifty tips!

New site - is it easy to use?

The site is fairly easy to use, at least with firefox browser. Just a few things that could be improved:

1. in the project section, it would be neat to know before following a link whether there is a video or a simple text page at the other end. Reason being of the capped monthly allowance of broadband providers (I almost went over it when surfing through the projects' pages for sth I needed, and for which a simple text page would have been enough)

2. About the forum: it looks like a jungle because it is not obvious at first that it may be worth looking through previous threads using the "Search" facility on top, instead of launching a new thread which will overlap with others. It may be useful to have a brief intro to the forum making this explicit to all users, and suggest also that concise headers are handier than "expanded-explanatory-narrative" ones.

Thanks for asking and responding to users' feedback!

Lupin problems

Hi Yellow Daisy,

Sorry, no answer, but I have the same unsolved problem with lupins leaves and flower bud eaten by some pest, and would hope there is an organic way of solving it. (Relaunching the debate on the forum may bring it to the attention of a problem-solver expert...)

Gardeners told 'wash off compost'

Many thanks for the information! (Yarrow2) and for the url (Figrat)!

...there are still novice gardeners (like me) who never heard of such mishaps, and would never have looked on the BBC Scotland website for getting gardening advice/news!

twine + tits = damage to plants

Thanks "figrat"! I'll try and find some flexi tie. Unfortunately, the beans are still too short to be self-supportive, and the cold Lancs weather doesn't stimulate their growth.

twine + tits = damage to plants

I tied runner beans on their support, as I believe I should do. Now, I used twine (natural colour beige) and tits always come and try to pick them loose, damaging the plants. Except putting plastic ties to support plants, does anyone have an alternative solution?

Tomato plants/unheated greenhouse

Hi, I live in Lancaster and put my tomatoes in a plastic growhouse in my back garden already a few weeks back. Here's how they looked 2 weeks ago and since then, they grew a bit more. Just covered them with fleece on cold nights and they seem to be doing very good indeed!.

clematis leaves trouble

Hi, I've got a trouble with a clematis (multiblue): the leaves of clematis turn grey-silver, though the plant looks healthy. I went to my local garden centre, and they never saw this, don't know what it is. They advised to feed the plant with general fertiliser (777), which I am doing and its shape is ok, but the leaves still grey-silver. Below is a picture taken on Monday (with some tulips "remains" on the ground... oops). Last "detail": my location is Lancaster, and the spot is my front garden, facing West. I bought the clematis less than 1 month ago (Wilko).

rainharvest on polytunnel

moving blackcurrant bush

advice need for incinerator

swede or weeds?

late apple drop?

Beetroot cyclindra

pruning damaged plants in wet conditions?

twine + tits = damage to plants

clematis leaves trouble