Green thumbs ITP 2

[Juggling Goth]

I searched the forums for a gardening thread and the only one I could find was last September. And I'm not an evil threadomancer. So.

I have the worst allotment on the site. I was the only one (of the six of us who went to pick them out) who'd go near it. My weeds could kill O-Chul in a few rounds. Name a hard-to-eradicate perennial weed (that grows in Britain), and I've got it - bindweed, horsetail, brambles, dock, dandelions, couch grass. I resorted to eating the nettles and pretending I wanted them in the first place. After a year's work I have to show... a third of it has head-height brambles, whereas previously it was two thirds. Go me!

Digging my beds for the first time, I found loads of roots, and thought "with clay soil*, these roots will give much-needed organic matter." WRONG**. Those roots sprouted bindweed all over the damn place. This year I'm digging very slowly and with extreme prejudice. Everything's coming out apart from the worms. The worms are my friends.

Still. Last year I managed to grow and eat strawberries (there when I got it), blackberries (ditto), nettles (ditto), beans, peas, potatoes, garlic, onions, shallots and parsnips (after a long and terrifying period where I made absolutely bloody sure they weren't hemlock).

This year I've added kiwi, cranberry and blueberry plants, and hopefully my two-year-old raspberries and gooseberries will fruit. Also I bought a self-fertile dwarf apple tree.

My ultimate plan includes beehives, and a nice retirement aviary for some rescued battery hens.

* It's more clay with a slight dusting of soil. It comes out in orange slices.

** Imagine Chris Rock saying this like when he's narrating Everybody Hates Chris. Yeah. That wrong.

[Aidan305]

Digging my beds for the first time, I found loads of roots, and thought "with clay soil*, these roots will give much-needed organic matter." WRONG**. Those roots sprouted bindweed all over the damn place. This year I'm digging very slowly and with extreme prejudice. Everything's coming out apart from the worms. The worms are my friends.

Bindweed roots are compostable, but you need a decent, and large, layered heap. those things'll kill off anything.
Without composting, however, it's best to just be rid of them. Like scutch they have a habit of growing everywhere if you give them half the chance.

Do you use raised beds? Or do you just have them level with the ground?

[Juggling Goth]

"Scutch" is a new one. Couch grass/twitch, I take it? The bugger that creeps underground everywhere?

Bad: I found some completely entangled around a raspberry plant I wanted to rescue.

Worse: When I started untangling it with my bare hands, I found the nest of red ants in there.

Yeah, the bindweed is going into bags with the horsetail and the couch grass for later burning. I cannot possibly comment on whether I'll dance around the flames yelling "die and go to hell!" I can build a compost heap that does the job, in terms of making rich soil, but I wouldn't trust it to kill off something like bindweed.

At the moment if anything they're down from ground level, given the sheer number of roots, rhizomes and rocks (hey, that alliterates!) I've had to pull out. They'll probably end up raised one day, if only because this soil desperately needs some good compost in it. Ah well. I work with birds, so at least chicken poop is easily available.

[Aidan305]

"Scutch" is a new one. Couch grass/twitch, I take it? The bugger that creeps underground everywhere? I think it also goes by Yorkshire Fog, but don't quote me on that.

Bad: I found some completely entangled around a raspberry plant I wanted to rescue.

Worse: When I started untangling it with my bare hands, I found the nest of red ants in there.
Now that's annoying. Nothing like an ants nest for making it difficult to get to the root of the problem.

At the moment if anything they're down from ground level, given the sheer number of roots, rhizomes and rocks (hey, that alliterates!) I've had to pull out. They'll probably end up raised one day, if only because this soil desperately needs some good compost in it. Ah well. I work with birds, so at least chicken poop is easily available.

Huzzah for fertiliser. Gotta love those nice kind chickens for providing so much of it.

[Trog]

I somehow managed to kill a bamboo plant I've had for years just last week. It was the last living plant in my place. I need to go out and but new plants to freshen up the place once it gets a little warmer out. I don't have a green thumb but I wish I did.

[druid91]

The only plants that I have possessed that didn't die in my care, were the plastic tree, and the jar of dead dried out flowers.

I have a grey thumb.

[Juggling Goth]

I somehow managed to kill a bamboo plant I've had for years just last week. It was the last living plant in my place. I need to go out and but new plants to freshen up the place once it gets a little warmer out. I don't have a green thumb but I wish I did.

Aw.

My landlady's coming back from Forn Parts (well, Canada) in a couple of months, and I'm a bit nervous about what we've done to the houseplants and her garden in the meantime. I'm sort of doing some last-minute flower-growing.

Also, I managed to kill an entire windowsill of cacti and succulents. Well, it was the mealybug infestation that finished them off. But my total-lack-of-care while suddenly moving into a house with central heating certainly didn't help.

I think it also goes by Yorkshire Fog, but don't quote me on that.

*looks it up* Nah, though that's an invasive grass too, and I've probably got it. Different species though. Easier to kill than sodding couch grass :)

Now that's annoying. Nothing like an ants nest for making it difficult to get to the root of the problem.

*Heartfelt groan*