General Gardening chat

And of course I will mention the winner and runners up on here as well!

For anybody who might be interested, I will be running a little competition on Saturday with some seeds to give away kindly donated by a friend!

Competition will be open to any of my followers on my Gardening blog at www.lamaisondesfleurs.com or/and my Gardening Facebook page http://on.fb.me/gOol1G. Come over and join. The 10 runner ups will get a plug mention on my site, which will also be tweeted!

Hi Steve,

I have loved your Tomato Blog for a while now, gives me such inspiration!

What is it about us British and our pots? I had a wonderful collection at home - iron rain collectors from old buildings, chimney pots and other odds and ends - they didn’t make it into the van, and I really regret it, as I have had to start from scratch - old sinks, and the like - half the fun is finding them! Love the newspaper idea - straight into the compost when the season is over - how easy!

I will try making these when I have run out of last years pots, thanks Jo! The great thing about them is that the pot will decompose in the soil so you can plant the plant without disturbing the roots.

TRY THIS!!
ORIGAMI NEWSPAPER PLANT POTS

it’s so easy…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNBHYrv4-Gw&NR=1

free,biodegradable plant pots, forever, in a fraction of the time it will take to get to the garden centre. Now that’s real gardening.

Hi again Jacqueline
Some varieties are more prone to BER, but I think you hit the nail on the head with your watering problems. Nutrient imbalance can also be a problem, so even plants out in the potager need some feed.
For anyone that wants to know a little more about it , this link explains it all. But 99% of the time it is just lack of water.

Now I must stop all this tomato talk, or everyone will start calling me Mr Tomato Head.

Thanks Steve - maybe we tried too early - always keen to get things going! We’ve only ever had blossom end rot on the plum variety, must have been the watering - all ours are out in the potager, but in dry years it is the two of us, a watering can each and about an hours walking from water but to plants - all good fun!

Hi Jacqueline
I had a problem with some plants last year, there is a lot of contaminated compost about, but also trying to grow to early in the season is also a problem, my older plants overtook the later ones.
Blossom end rot, should not really be a problem, with enough watering. This problem usually is when you try to grow in a pot or peat bags, and do not water often enough, as there is no reserve. I have covered it on the blog. I am hardly an expert, anymore, but I do know the basics , LOL.

Steve

Very jealous of all your swallow spottings - still looking for mine.

Steve, thanks for the blog link I will have a good read, love growing tomatoes, but have had the odd disaster, last year all seeds germinated really well, pricked them out into individual small pots and they stopped growing - they didn’t die, but they didn’t get any bigger either - compost I think may have been the culprit - it certainly slowed down our progress, and then there is good old blossom end rot. Glad we have an expert in our midst.

For my sin I was a commercial tomato grower, in my previous life!
After spending a little time on Grow Your Own Forum, giving out a little advice, and getting some, I might add. I found it easier to create a blog about tomato growing, rather than answer every single questions.
The blog has become quite popular, with followers from all over the globe, and someone even sent me some rare tomato seeds.
If like me you are a bit of a tomato freak, take a peak.
Mr Tomato King

I am sure going by the post on here that I can learn a little more about other crops, and not be just a one trick pony.

Steve

@Andy - I think they come back to their old nests. We have an outbuilding with an arch, which has doors one side. When they return, we leave the doors open to allow them to “swoop” through while building their nests. I was thinking about them yesterday as the bird activity has hotted up a bit here, but no sign of them yet - their young are really cute when you see them in their nests.
(ps factoid comes from OH who was a member of the Young Ornithologist’s Club - and still has the badge and certificate to prove it. True.)

I saw a single swallow fly into my barn last week when I was tidying the area under where they nest every year. it took me by surprise as it fly round my head and I think it was as well as I haven’t seen it since.

Saw my first swallow today on a damp, cold grey French afternoon - hope it’s a sign of better days to come - SOON!!

I haven’t seen a swallow here yet Lorraine (Deux Sevres, Poitou-Charentes), but I keep checking and am hoping it won’t be too much longer as last year it was 20th March.

Thanks for the welcome. We live in dept 64 Pyrenenees Atlantique near Oloron St Marie. I’m enjoying the milder weather and seeing the perrenials making their presence known. The first of the swallows arrived today

Welcome to our new members, don’t forget we would love a picture or two of your garden in Jilly’s discussion ‘Where do all you gardeners live and which dept?’ It’s been a bit quiet here recently, I for one have been spending a bit more time in the garden than at the computer :slight_smile: and hopefully you have all been doing the same. The spring bulbs are looking good in my garden, but more exciting is my first courgette seedlings are now a couple of inches high and the onions and shallots in the potager are looking very green. What is hot with you at the moment?

Hi James,
Yes I’ve been a few years ago, and yes I agree it’s spectacular, just a mass of colour in front of you is really something!

Has anyone been to Keuckenhof Gardens in Holland. If not, it’s a spectacular site well worth the trip and sometime in late March and early Apri, it would be at it’s peak form. http://www.keukenhof.nl/. I have a couple PowerPoint files by I don’t see the attach function to this post.

We can’t wait. Gardener’s World Rocks!!
It’s great to have a better climate than the UK,as things seem to flourish here so easily.