It's been a long time...
By fuzexi
3 comments
I’m not one for consistency, that’s for sure. My garden got abandoned and restarted several times since I last wrote. Happily most of the strongest things survived.
This year I am focusing on growing things for the kitchen, sort of, although I usually take pity on my plants and go out and buy stuff instead. I was hoping to get a huge coriander plantation going, but it doesn’t seem to have materialised.
Major additions to the garden: fig tree got moved into my main area of soil (4 square foot of it), which has been a good move because it provides some shade. When it rained a lot this spring the soil got really wet and the whole tree keeled over, so now I got some old washing line holding it upright.
Also got lots of mint of all kinds: regular garden mint, peppermint, chocolate mint, ginger mint, lime mint and now an exotic Vietnamese mint from Cambodia (?!) which survived being cut from a roadside, taken to somewhere for bagging, being flown across the world, warehoused and stored in a fridge in a Vietnamese supermarket for a week. I got it at half price, telling the lady I’m going to try to grow it (I know the lady, her kid is in my kid’s class). When I got it out the bag, (after being another day in my fridge) most of the leaves fell off and I chose a few stems that looked less traumatised and put them in a pot of vermiculite and put a bag over it
… about two weeks later and they are still alive, and looking happy. Only problem is, if you take the bag off, they start wilting within about 15 mins…! There was also this mould growing on some of the dead parts of the leaves. I sprayed one of the stems with Bayer mold killer (systemic) but mould returned within a few days. But the plants on the whole seem to be unaffected by it.
Ok, what else – read you can grow lemon grass really easily, and bought a few stalks from Tesco’s, yup they are responding to being stood in a cup with some water in it…. hopefully can plant outside soon! I love lemon grass and I’m really curious to see these grow… I had Indian lemongrass a few years ago, but that died in the winter.
I think the main theme of my garden is a sort of plant rescue from supermarkets – got basil cuttings growing under my tomatoes, got a celery plant in flower from a few stalks that I stuck in the ground in the winter, and I got loads of spring onions, because we use them all the time, and I cut the roots off and put them in water to grow…
Ok, finally down to why I wrote this post… I bought some Goji plants from ebay, (the seller was really good, with loads of advice and stuff) but now the leaves are going yellow…. I really want these to succeed, since I tried growing these from seeds several years on the trot, but they always got eaten by slugs. Wonder if anyone has any advice….? As you can see they are in pots, and I don’t water all the time because it hasn’t been consistently sunny this summer…. don’t but I don’t think I have left anything to dry out, and I think these things don’t like sitting in water too much…
19 Jun, 2014
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Comments
Thanks! It was quite funny at the beginning of the video when she says "I grow organically" and then she's standing in the middle of this huge wheat field as if she grew that too!
I think that "pot" might be needing some nutrients: it's filled with B&Q compost, but the it's been in there a few years.... (this stuff isn't like real soil, it's much lighter and has no real strength, which is why the fig tree just keeled over when there was a lot of rain).
Living in the city we don't have much access to things like soil!
20 Jun, 2014
The nutrients in bought potting compost only last about six weeks. After that its as well to feed. Use a general fertiliser such as miracle grow and then when its time for flowering change over to tomato fertiliser because the high potassium content helps flowers and fruits. You can extend the time before feeding when you repot by adding slow release granules to the compost when you plant up your containers.
For shrubs that are going to be in the same pot for a long time its often better to use a soil based compost such as one of the John Innes ones.
20 Jun, 2014
Recent posts by fuzexi
- Silk between figs
11 Aug, 2020
- Update - 5 years on!
16 May, 2019
- Science kicks in!
4 Jul, 2012
- Whether or not to pot?
3 Jul, 2012
- The Wildflower project
29 Jun, 2012
- Peters Garden Mix
29 Jun, 2012
There is a YouTube film on growing goji berries - have a look
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxWqfzOqcLc
The video talks about the pH of your compost. This is simply a measure of how acid it is. if you want to check you can buy cheap test kits at garden centres.
It might be a good idea to keep your pots free of weeds too, as they compete for nutrients.
19 Jun, 2014