Gardening thread 2020



Flared Hicks said:
I want one!!
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Cook billy the badger!!!! :lol:
Big Jeff said:
Top work that - mines a margherita
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Might not work yet! :(
gasman said:
That sounds an ideal project to get into at the minute as I’m climbing the walls! What do you reckon the weight of it is fully constructed? I might send you a PM after the weekend for a bit more info. Cheers 👍🏼👍🏼
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It’s got two 3x2 paving slabs on for the base and 16 firebricks. It will be over a 100kgs.
the oven itself is only about 15kgs.
 
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Update: the horrible cypress leylandii hedge which we inherited and which ran the length of the front garden parallel with the house has GONE. The difference is unbelievable. We now look out onto a lovely embankment on the other side of the path (which in turn is the other side of our front garden, also parallel to the front of the house). This embankment is brim with wild flowers - dandelions, bluebells coming, brambles (all common as muck native species but this is what I want and it's lovely to look at). This view was previously blocked by the hedge. The front garden feels twice as big. Light floods into it and into our west-facing front room. We have a new front border to plant, which is my weekend task. My plan for this border, as part of the rewilding project, is to chuck wildflower seeds in it. Because the leylandii was there, the soil condition is poor which is what native wildflower species love. Mr P has done a fine job sieving it all to a fine tilth. Our neighbours also have a leylandii at the front of their garden (so that it looked like one solid hedge running across both gardens) - we took ours down only after consulting with them, and they were OK with it. They now love ours so much they're going to get theirs done as well and we're discussing plans for how to guerilla garden the embankment. We don't own this, but nobody knows who does. Nobody comes down the little path which runs between our front gardens and the embankment apart from us and the postie, so we've got a pretty free hand with the embankment. My idea is blackberries and sloes (both native species) to have a good, private supply for jam and gin. But we'll see what they say.

We were going to replant where the leylandii was with a native species hedge - hawthorn, dog rose, field maple etc - but will give it this year at least to think about this before deciding.

Who would build an eight foot high, three foot wide brick wall and paint it green on their front boundary? No one. Leylandii are the devil's work.
VEG NEWS. In the teeny tiny growhouse we have sweetcorn, spring broc and caulis all sprouting nicely. The aubergines and tomatoes are sluggish and yet to show. The neighbour gave me a tray of young lettuces yesterday. We are eating the spring brocc I planted last year (MOUNTAINS of it) and also I let my brussels sprouts run over the winter because in the spring they always burst into stalks with lots of leaves and flower heads just like spring brocc - all edible, all delicious.
 
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Butcher's Coat said:
A garden fork will do the trick for aerating the lawn. Go in about 3" and gently lift the turf a touch. Move about 4" forward, and repeat. The earthworms will like this.
You will need a good metal lawn rake for the scarifying mind.
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This is my next task, amongst other things I’ve laid some additional turf out the back, the borders were a metre wide in parts and they were a nightmare for weeds etc.

The turf has taken champion but it’s making the rest of the grass look shite so it needs some TLC, garden has never had this much attention but I am starting to enjoy it finally.
 
Anyone an expert on grass / lawns?

My grass is all limp (wahey), rather than the individual blade pointing up to the sky, they're all flattened down.
Gave it a dose of dissolveable fertiliser and a low dose of iron (both from the lawnsmith) a few days ago, but no improvement so far
 
PTR said:
Anyone an expert on grass / lawns?

My grass is all limp (wahey), rather than the individual blade pointing up to the sky, they're all flattened down.
Gave it a dose of dissolveable fertiliser and a low dose of iron (both from the lawnsmith) a few days ago, but no improvement so far
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Were the fertiliser and the iron meant to be done at the same time?
 
Butcher's Coat said:
Aaah right.
And when can you water the lawn after this treatment?
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doesn't matter as long as the ground's not dry / its going to be dry for ages. You mix it with water and it dissolves anyway. Its a liquid treatment.

The grass didn't go limp after the treatment by the way. Its what prompted me to treat it.
 
Butcher's Coat said:
Gotcha.
Have you aerated the lawn then?
And got rid of any old grass (thatch), -that mIght be stopping water getting down into the roots.
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I put weedkiller on (weedol) and then 3 weeks later deeply scarified in spring (turns out this is a bad idea, but too late now) and then overseeded. Then we had the 6 weeks of zero rain.

Then it came through ok. But its just flat, almost growing sideways.

What I haven't done is aerate. I really cba with one of those manual thingies, they look like a nightmare. There's liquid aeration treatments now apparently, maybe I should try one?

Its quite heavy clay soil and my guess is that it is compacted to fuck
 
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PTR said:
I put weedkiller on (weedol) and then 3 weeks later deeply scarified in spring (turns out this is a bad idea, but too late now) and then overseeded. Then we had the 6 weeks of zero rain.

Then it came through ok. But its just flat, almost growing sideways.

What I haven't done is aerate. I really cba with one of those manual thingies, they look like a nightmare. There's liquid aeration treatments now apparently, maybe I should try one?
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An ordinary garden fork will do the job marra.
Just thinking that it might help the rain/water get down into the turf better, and replenish the roots.
 
Butcher's Coat said:
An ordinary garden fork will do the job marra.
Just thinking that it might help the rain/water get down into the turf better, and replenish the roots.
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can't help but think that a fork just punches a hole, and that makes the compaction even worse everywhere that I havent punched a hole?

I tried some of those spikey shoes, but the fuckers just kept coming off, they were a nightmare!
 

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