How does your garden grow?

[Onoff]

Someone suggested I "feed" my beans. Reluctant to use a fertiliser what with any run off etc. Is Miracle Gro Organic any good?

[saveasteading]

4 hours ago, Onoff said:

Reluctant to use a fertiliser what with any run off etc.

You shouldn't need any for a bit.

meanwhile make your own miracle mix.

Collect fleshy weeds, esp nettles, groundsel, dandelion.

You can add coffee grounds, banana skins etc if you want.

Put in a bucket with a lid. 

Cover with water and a weighted lid and wait 2 weeks. with it outdoors!

Drain off into a container and chuck the solids in the compost heap.

 

It really stinks, but seems to work very well, is gentle on the plants and the earth.

I add about 10% to watering can but perhaps should be more/less/

 

Then keep making more. It keeps ok for a decent while in a sealed container.

[Gone West]

5 hours ago, Onoff said:

Someone suggested I "feed" my beans.

You don't need nitrogen as beans are legumes. I tend to just use Tomorite.

[saveasteading]

12 minutes ago, Gone West said:

You don't need nitrogen as beans are legumes.

And if you leave the roots in the ground after your harvest, they leave nitrogen nodules in the ground.

 

I have grown the same beans in the same spot for many years, and there has been no loss of quality. Contrary to the usual rotation method requirement.

Just some compost heap mixed in before planting.

[Onoff]

My first go at slugging with beer traps!

 

Both traps inside the "Ring Of Ash":

 

The tuna tin scored 1:

 

 

The bean tin the other end though:

 

 

I've emptied the tins for the birds/badger/hedgehogs. Is that what you do, and refill?

Had to neck another God awful French beer mind!

[Onoff]

I see Lidl have Miracle-Gro & Tomorite on special this week:
 

https://www.lidl.co.uk/p/indoor-outdoor-plants/miracle-gro-plant-feed-tomorite/p52364

Then Aldi from the 9th:

 

 

 

[Onoff]

It's like magic! How do they know where to find the string?

 

 

[saveasteading]

Miracle Gro are owned by a huge US corporation that used to dig up our peat bogs until paid a fortune (of taxpayers money of course) to stop. 

Perhaps they have stopped doing terrible things now.

I like to make my own as described.

Garden compost is the best thing you can do, and it is immensely satisfying to get several barrowloads of free and better compost every spring.

Then the worms do most of the garden work for you.

[saveasteading]

10 minutes ago, Onoff said:

It's like magic!

These are just about safe from slugs and snails now. They don't eat the stems once they get woody, and seldom climb above the bottom leaves.

[saveasteading]

I will take reflected pleasure when your beans are being harvested and mine are still feeble. The problem is in going away for 2 weeks too often, so I blame the highland project which has to be priority. I come back to dried out or waterlogged (or eaten) seedlings.

[Onoff]

3 hours ago, saveasteading said:

I will take reflected pleasure when your beans are being harvested and mine are still feeble. The problem is in going away for 2 weeks too often, so I blame the highland project which has to be priority. I come back to dried out or waterlogged (or eaten) seedlings.

 

Tbh I've those shop bought runners in a pot and dwarf beans in another that SWMBO did and looking tonight they are pretty decimated! The copper band around each pot has done FA. Reckon in part as she used compost from the bin that wasn't that well rotted and imported the buggers with it. 

 

Can't remember which, (runner or dwarf pot) but I must have picked 10 slugs and snails off the plants. 

 

I've placed a beer trap in the centre of one pot, the worst affected. Whether they're salvageable I don't know. Pics tomorrow if there's anything left. 

 

So far the 50 runners from seed are doing ok and starting to climb. 

 

That pile of slugs above. Thought they were all dead but the pile I dumped on the ground, most seem to have come back to life. All spread out from where I dumped them.

Edited June 6, 2022 by Onoff

[Gone West]

9 hours ago, Onoff said:

Thought they were all dead but the pile I dumped on the ground, most seem to have come back to life. All spread out from where I dumped them.

They were just sleeping it off.

[Onoff]

DIY fertiliser then...

I don't know about young nettle tops but these buggers went in roots and all after stinging me umpteen times through rubber gloves! 

Topped off with water from a rain butt then weighted with a paver and plastic lid from somewhere.

Made a roof from a bit of old HV mat or does it want a "tight" cover / lid?

 

 

[saveasteading]

No that is fine. Roots and all doesn't matter tho I read that juicy leaves are best.

 

I opened up a gallon container from last year and it looks just like commercial stuff. Brown just like the seaweed stuff, or tomato feed. Doesn't smell horrible though, so has possibly lost a bit of potency.

 

When ready it makes your hands stink despite a couple of washes. Remember to allow extra time before meeting anyone.

[joe90]

Comfrey is supposed to be very good but stinks so I have heard!

[SteamyTea]

2 hours ago, saveasteading said:

Brown just like the seaweed stuff

How do you make your own.  Does it involve stripping Studland Bay of seagrass.

Or is it the seahorse tears that do the business.

[Onoff]

The potted runners:

 

 

& the dwarf beans tonight:

 

 

 

[SteamyTea]

Just now, Onoff said:

The potted runners:

If I remember, shall measure mine in the morning.

[SteamyTea]

At last I can slip the joke in about making it 12" long.

Fold it in half.

 

[Onoff]

Mine's actually longer than it looks but it curves at the end:

 

 

Yours looks healthier though possibly? 

[SteamyTea]

15 minutes ago, Onoff said:

Yours looks healthier though possibly

Combination of sea air and slug pellets.

Or, much more likely, just because it is a different bean type.

[Onoff]

Frame is up:

 

 

Still printing lots of PETG plastic bits to screw the base down:

 

 

 

Edited June 8, 2022 by Onoff

[Onoff]

Right then, tonight,  bloody great snail munching on the runners in pot! No snail trail up the side or over the rim. Where does it live, under the dirt in the pot during the day? 

 

Is it worth sprinkling wood ash over the soil?

[SteamyTea]

6 hours ago, Onoff said:

under the dirt in the pot during the day

Yes.

 

6 hours ago, Onoff said:

Is it worth sprinkling wood ash over the soil

Nothing to loose now.

[saveasteading]

Big snails can't hide in the soil, so it must be a ninja snail that swings in and out without a trail.

It wont be far away. Best solution is the 10.30pm  torch inspection. It and others will all be in situ by then.

The torch light doesn't phase them.

Next is also to give them some bricks etc to hide under in the daytime, and you can evict them at your leisure.

Ash, coffee grounds and sheeps' wool are all supposedly deterrents as the slime doesn't work.