Gardening 2009

[gemarriott]

I put a pellet up their arses with my trusty air rifle. Hit em once and they never come back.

 

[Tin basher]

Tomatoes

Tomatoes

Things are going reasonably well with my tomatoes they have reached the required height in the green house and having had the tops pinched out are forming fruits in all the right places BUT. The foliage is going yellow from the bottom up, they are getting fed with tomrite once a week and are well watered and generally looked after so what's making the leaves go yellow?? and how can I stop it??

 

[needsabiggerfuse]

Things are going reasonably well with my tomatoes they have reached the required height in the green house and having had the tops pinched out are forming fruits in all the right places BUT. The foliage is going yellow from the bottom up, they are getting fed with tomrite once a week and are well watered and generally looked after so what's making the leaves go yellow?? and how can I stop it??

Magnesium deficiency. Give 'em a dose of Epsom salts. Mind you, you should be thinking about stripping out the lower leaves by now anyway.

 

[Tin basher]

you should be thinking about stripping out the lower leaves by now anyway.

I had already started to do that but only to a limited degree, I was a tad reluctant to just get rid of the all the yellow leaves this early. How much of the lower leaves do you strip out? Next thing is how much Epsom salt and how often?

 

[gemarriott]

I had already started to do that but only to a limited degree, I was a tad reluctant to just get rid of the all the yellow leaves this early. How much of the lower leaves do you strip out? Next thing is how much Epsom salt and how often?

2 dessert spoons per standard watering can, about half a can per plant administered as a foliar feed, repeat weekly as required. And yes start stripping lower leaves belowfirst trusses to aid ripening.

 

[needsabiggerfuse]

I have 5 trusses per plant and only ever have the leaves above the 4th truss left on the plant. It lets the light and air get to the fruit and prevents mildew. The plants don't look very pretty, but it ain't a beauty contest.

Hard to say about the dosage for the Epsom salts. The instructions on the box are about human consumption, so I put a couple of tablespoonfuls to a watering can and doused the plants once a week. Not very scientific, but it seemed to do the trick.

I was stripping the leaves out last weekend. The was a bit of movement under the pile and lo and behold what should hop out but a little toad. I spent a good half hour watching him tuck into a feast of various bugs. Nice!

 

[firestorm]

Things that are good this year? Well my lawn is the best its ever been, I suppose keeping the dog off it is paying dividends. My strawberries and blackberries are coming on a treat. I've even found a self seeded wild strawberry plant at the bottom of the garden.
Jasmine has covered the fence bordering the patio and the smell of an evening is great.
Not a great year for my beans though.

 

[Stevienics]

Things that are good this year? Well my lawn is the best its ever been, I suppose keeping the dog off it is paying dividends. .

It must do. Previous owner owned an outside dog and the lawn looked like the Somme. Treating it with all sorts of stuff but in some places it just wont re-grow. In other areas it's a green of the most wonderful hue I have ever seen. If I ever get a dog it's goign nowhere near the lawn.

 

[scaleywife]

I am reliably informed that it is female dog urine that wrecks your lawn... a couple of spoons of tommy K mixed into their food at every meal amends the chemical content to acceptable levels and reduces the destruction to your grass.

(Not a problem for me as I only see grass for one month of the year and my dog is male!!)

 

[firestorm]

Cheers for that SW. It wasn't so much the dog pee (he's a male) more the scraping of the grass post dump that was wrecking the lawn. plus the fact he used to run round like a lunatic on it.

 

[scaleywife]

My dogs have always been too lazy to do much damage in that manner...LOL

Nevertheless, the advice is there for general edification!

 

[needsabiggerfuse]

A worthy cause here. Everyone get a pack of 40 seeds. Plant 'em up and sell 'em on at say 50p a pot. £20 to H4H. Plus the £1 from the seed merchant.

http://www.edp24.co.uk/content/edp2...=xDefault&itemid=NOED24 Jul 2009 20:54:15:880

http://www.simplysweetpeas.co.uk/?gclid=COC4ray9-psCFWIB4wodGCgXAQ

 

[needsabiggerfuse]

In the spirit of 'That's Life', I give you a tomato that looks like ... ?

View attachment 8577

 

[grumpyoldb]

Gald you got some ripe ones..............! My outdoor toms are just going rusty! DT_Xtremez_35:

 

[Downsizer]

Can anybody suggest a method of smashing the catipillars that are decimating my brussells and the remainder of my cabbages?

 

[gemarriott]

just pick them off by hand, time consuming but the best way then spray with pravado.

 

[Downsizer]

just pick them off by hand, time consuming but the best way then spray with pravado.

Thousands of them, far too many to do by hand...also already sprayed with pravado and the little b@stards keep coming back...

 

[Tin basher]

Can anybody suggest a method of smashing the catipillars that are decimating my brussells and the remainder of my cabbages?

Same here all mine look like pieces of green lace. The only way I try to keep on top of the problem is to check daily then mash any egg clusters I find (Bright yellow about 5mm across per clutch) or squash each indiviual caterpillar I come across. Seems to be two sorts of caterpillar ruining my crop one are about 25 mm long and very green they blend in very well and are a sod to spot, the others are easy to see there's just fousands of 'em little striped things with black heads going around in huge gang eating everything in their path. The only way to stop them I reckon is a physical barrier like horticultural netting. I used netting over my carrots this year to stop carrot root fly and it has been a complete success. Netting for brassicas next year.

 

[gemarriott]

Enviromesh works great for carrot fly because they only fly 18 inches max from the ground. Caterpillers are different they can parachute in the little buggers since butterflies fly as high as a house. You'll need to cage the whole plot in like a fruit cage thing. Could get expensive. The little green caterpillars are Cabbage white butterfly lavae I think.

 

[Tin basher]

You'll need to cage the whole plot in like a fruit cage thing. Could get expensive. The little green caterpillars are Cabbage white butterfly lavae I think.

That's what I did for my carrots made a cage thingy. Luckily due to a c0ck up on the ordering front I have enough enviromesh left over to make a small cage sufficent to cover my few brassicsas for next year. Agree the green caterpillars probably are cabbage white