First harvest

[ideasguy]

Phil will be pleased to know - the lettuce grown from seed he supplied are now ready for use as of last week (a bit late reporting this due to the World Cup football from South Africa)
Strawberries and Raspberries are also ripe, and Gooseberries are about ready - great refreshment as I mow the lawn - the best bush is right at the edge of the upper garden.
The Cabbage and Cauliflower are being absolutely devoured by caterpillars and slugs. Ive been picking them from the leaves and feel like some kind of mass destroyer. Perhaps our Veggy experts can advise how to grow these things organically ( I dont want to spray something we are going to eat)
Peas and Beans are growing well. Ive been watering them during this dry spell - not nearly as effective as the rain. The rain yesterday has already made a big difference.

[Eric Hardy]

.The Cabbage and Cauliflower are being absolutely devoured by caterpillars and slugs.

We gave up growing these years ago for this very reason. However courgettes, squashes, cucumbers pumpkins and tomatoes are all progressing well (all grown from seed collected from last year.) Runner beans are beyond the top of their 8 ft canes and waving about with nowhere else to go and flowering - well I suppose 7 ft canes allowing for them being 1 ft in the ground. We have been eating our lettuce and rocket for some time now. Leeks are doing well and we have picked our first punnet of gooseberries. Rhubarb is over but we have enjoyed some fine dishes, especially rhubarb fool which is my favourite. Rasberries and currants are not ready yet. Apples and victoria plums are looking very promising this year. We do grow lots of different herbs.

That about sums up our fruit and veg gardening I am afraid. We gave up greens and root crops years ago, but we do have a very good fruit and veg stall on our market which we visit every Friday  Here is Anthea with her trolley about 4 years ago being served by David in the white shirt - not the same as growing your own I know  !



PS We have been watering like mad for ages!

[roiphil]

for my veg i have spuds outside and in my polytunnel down one side a couple tomato plants, lettuce, carrots, salad onions and main crop onions (lots of onions), and some peas outside aswell

[newplantguy]

Well I do not have any veg at all at the moment, may do a rasied bed next year.

[roiphil]

Yesterday we had a lettuce and spring onions, the spring onions certainly have kick to them (whatch out george dont bite off to much in one go  ) cant wait for the maincrop onions to see how strong they are

[diegartenfrau]

Hello everyone,
I haven't checked in for a long time, just had a few minutes before I go back outside. I can see on the amount of unread messages everyone else is real busy playing in their gardens themselves.
We had a real bad slug problem this year also, due to the never-ending rains we had this year. It was even still raining in late June. Never seen so much rain since we moved here.
My first crops had also been eaten by the snails and slugs. Unfortunately even the chickens won't touch the slugs, they must taste really nasty>lol
I reseeded my Beans twice and still don't have the same amount then I usually do, I haven't even picked one yet.

One thing lots of people swear by around Oregon is copper strips, I haven't done it yet since I have so many beds and copper is not really a cheap material.
One thing I found that works really well,  is non toxic and dries up the snails when they eat it is 'Sluggo' (probably named differently in Europe I guess), it even turns into fertilizer. It also is not cheap but you don't really need to apply much. It needs to be reapplied in the rain frequently, which I didn't do since I my yard was such a wet, mud hole and I don't enjoy working outside in the downpours. >sigh< it would have helped keeping the population down, I regret it now.

Even after one application you see a big reduction in the amount of slugs and snails. It really helps to put it out right before they lay their eggs. You start seeing all the dried up snails laying in their beds. I have been using it for 2 years and it has improved my snail problem, that means if I am good about it and actually do use it.

George, you can read about it here, http://www.amazon.com/Monterey-Sluggo-Control-Organic-Gardening/dp/B000BWZ89K
maybe you can find it. I remember it was developed somewhere in Europe, so you should be able to get it.

Well, I have work to do outside, so I won't be able to chat long.
I am working on moving my favorite plants to my new garden (our second lot) since we will be building a new house on it in a couple of years, I decided I will make a new garden before we built and move into the new house. Lucky me I will have a garden ready to go in my next house. My vegetable garden and fruit trees are based on that lot, so don't need to change anything there.
Our neighbors Fir trees had to be chopped down (beetle infestation) and now my shade garden is too hot and dry for my shade plants, that really motivated me to start moving plants since I have some unique plants in there I got for a good deal and I hope I can save them before it all dies. This used to be my favorite 'Afternoon coffee' spot and now it is slowly disintegrating.
Real Bummer!
I am getting tired of working in that funny built rock-wall, the former owner built. I actually fell off my rock-wall two weeks ago (I knew that would happen one of those days), got good bruised but luckily nothing broken. So I want to retire that side of the garden, move my nice stuff and then I just put some nice flowering shrubbery in there, stuff which does not get to large and be done with it. It is just to hard to work in there and anyway just because you put in a lot of rocks, it does not make it a rock-wall. You hardly can plant anything which is intended for rock-walls since they never added grit and drainage, just the dirt from the yard. I improved it a lot over the years but rock-wall plants need much more drainage and what grows well in there well needs to much maintenance, which is hard to do because of the bad design.
Done with it, on to the new >lol<

Well, till later in the season
wishing everyone a great planting final

Isabell

[ideasguy]

Its really good to hear from you again Isabell. You have been very quiet, and I hoped it was indeed because you were very busy in the garden. From that account, you most certainly are!
Shocked to hear of that fall you had. You were very lucky indeed, and rather fortunate there weren't rocks where you fell (at least I hope there weren't!)
Laurie tried the copper rings in the past, with some success as I recall. Perhaps he will give us an update on how effective they are long term. If they work, it would certainly beat having to renew slug pellets around your (and their!) favourites.

I'm fairly happy with the common and cheap slug pellets which are readily available in most garden supply outlets. I find with flowers that if they get protection from slugs until they have grown a few inches then they grow away merrily. Seems the slugs like the new tender growth. Not a general statement of course - the leaves of some varieties of Hostas and other tasty plants are devoured to skeletons by slugs.

They are a big problem in my containers, and baskets which are fixed to walls - they chomp away at Surfinias and Petunias.

Nice to be building a new house Isabell. The good thing about that is that you can start with a clean sheet on the new garden. How many gardeners would like to roll back the years and redesign their garden? In my case, I would be VERY careful about planting anything fast growing, shrubs and trees would be very carefully selected.
Experience is a wonderful thing!

[NightHawk]

Laurie tried the copper rings in the past, with some success as I recall. Perhaps he will give us an update on how effective they are long term. If they work, it would certainly beat having to renew slug pellets around your (and their!) favourites.

Copper rings certainly were a success in our case.

You can read the full test results in the topic Kathy started about them in Copper rings and do they work?

Laurie.

[roiphil]

regarding slugs, ducks are meant be good for keeping slug and snail populations down thats if you have the space and time to keep a couple of ducks

[ideasguy]

Next time we go to the park, I'll bring them a special treat. The ducks and swans seem to be a bit tired of bread 

[Eric Hardy]

We seem to be the only part of the country, as far as I can tell, still not getting any rain to speak of. Or are Lynn and Malcolm are rain free too perhaps? I thought with the earth as dry as it is the slugs and snails might be a bit scarcer, but not a bit of it. Of course we are doing plenty of watering which gives the slugs a comfy route to our lettuces  . With a rather bad conscience we have had to resort to slug pellets but we try to use them sparingly. We don't like the thought of birds eating poisoned snails.

State of our crops: -  Runner beans doing well. had our first boiling on Sunday. Courgettes prolific. One hid itself away under the leaves and became an enormous marrow before we could stop it  . Cucumbers set but not very large yet. Squashes and pumpkins have a lot of leaves but nothing set as far as i can see. Lettuce and rocket and parsley have been providing plenty of salads for weeks. Tomatoes inside and out are growing well but all are still green. Leeks are growing well too.

The soft fruit is finished except a few gooseberries left on the bushes to ripen. They are all soft, juicy and delicious now and a treat to pop into our mouths, all warm from the sun  . The gooseberries and currents did well but the raspberries were not quite as prolific as usual -  probably the drought. The deep freeze has now been replenished with soft fruit.

The black cherries came and went (eaten by birds before we could get at them  ). The apple crop is going to be  bumper one making up for last year but our comice pear tree has produced one pear  To make up for that I have never seen so many Victoria plums, they are hanging like large bunches of grapes.

The trouble is that we are taking Benji on his annual holiday to Cornwall next week and the one after. We try to encourage friends and neighbours to help themselves. The non gardeners always seem too shy and the gardeners have enough of their own produce. The result is we always find a large supply of huge marrows instead of courgettes and runner beans that have been left far too long. They are much better picked young. I am hoping we will be coming back to a big supply of ripe tomatoes.

I must remember to support some of the branches of the plum tree before we go to prevent them from snapping off with the weight of the fruit. When the tree was smaller I did this by tying a pole to the trunk with long strong  strings attached to a nail in the top of the pole. The strings all hung down and one by one I tied them to the branches. It looked a bit like an inverted umbrella. The tree has grown too much for this method now.

I know many of you do far more on the produce front but even our limited supply is a treat.

[roiphil]

Next time we go to the park, I'll bring them a special treat. The ducks and swans seem to be a bit tired of bread 

lovely a pick and mix bag of slugs and snails 

[ideasguy]

Yes, what a lovely treat for them Phil

RE:

The black cherries came and went (eaten by birds before we could get at them

AHA!!
Happened to me as well.
I have been waiting patiently to taste 'Stella'
Eventually some fruit set on the very small tree and got to a good size.
I'd been keeping an  eye on them, and I saw a dozen or so ripening.
Next inspection, there were two - ripe and ready!
I decided to wait until next day when James arrived (we pick him up from Nursery)
Next day? GONE
What birds take them Eric? They were BIG cherries, red variety.
What variety are your black ones?

Raspberries:
Mine were best ever this year.
A number of reasons, I guess.
One, I kept them very much weed free this year
Two, I fertilised them early in spring
Three, I mulched them
Four - very sunny and dry spell earlier, but the rain arrived at precisely the right time to help them grow really large berries.
Lots of pots of jam made already and freezer packed.

Thats a great idea for supporting the Plum tree branches, Eric - brilliant in fact. Thanks for imparting that precious knowledge .

[Eric Hardy]

What birds take them Eric? They were BIG cherries, red variety.
What variety are your black ones?

Well I blame the blackbirds, rightly or wrongly, George. There are a lot of them about. As to the variety, I can't be precise, I have always regarded them as morellos. They spend a lot of the time a red colour when they are ripening then at the end they turn black. At that stage they are beautifully sweet to eat picked straight from the tree (if you can beat the blackbirds). Some years I have protected some with netting but that is getting beyond me now.

In 1955 we built our house in what had been an old orchard and there were mature fruit trees on the site. One was a large prolific cherry tree. We came to the conclusion it was a Napoleon. The fruit was red on yellow, large, sweet and delicious. We had a lot of fruit for years without netting. It was so prolific that we could pick as many as we could eat and the birds could have the rest. One year we had a session picking. Anthea had a tall ladder leaning against a big branch and she had been putting her full weight on the branch to collect the fruit. (We were younger then!) We got a bit tired of picking so we decided to have a ten minutes walk round the common. When we got back this large branch and ladder were on the ground, narrowly missing the summer house. We were horrified by the thought that it could have happened when Anthea was on the branch. I decided to take the tree down but we still miss the fruit.

There is still a little mound in the grass where the stump was which is beloved by ants. Not so long ago we observed from the kitchen window a pair of green woodpeckers and a youngster standing in a row on the ground pecking at the ants. They were there for ages stuffing themselves.

[ideasguy]

Thanks Eric. When I bought my Cherry tree, I had hoped it produced black cherries. I bought it after my wife brought a little sample bag of the most beautiful black cherries I have ever tasted from Canada, picked from her brothers garden. He didn't know the variety either, but perhaps our forum friends from Canada or US can comment.

Ants! I have them everywhere! James used to be fascinated by them.
We used to go and lift a stone in one of the many spots they "lived" in my garden and watch them scurry around moving their eggs to safety. (are those little white things eggs?)
Then one managed to nip him on his hand. Now he gives them a wide berth.
 
I have never seen a woodpecker around these parts. If they like ants, they are in for a treat here!

That was a very close call with the ladder How did it manage to break the branch on its own? Perhaps you had a visitor in your absence?