RE: Tales From the Plant Front

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barge in HiveGarden • 3 years ago (edited)

The plums look great, the tatties look scary and chilli looks HOT!

I so often think how great it would be to have the kind of heat that would let me grow a lot more here in Scotland, but then I forget that it also comes at a price - more insect predators, disease, poss. water issues, too much sun etc. I'm coming to understand just how good the folk in places like the Portuguese hills where I was, have it!

I'd defo encourage you to try coriander/lettuce indoors btw.

I've got my seeds now (carrot, parsnip, kale, cabbage, beetroot, radish, spinach, lettuce, chard, basil, corriander) and some egg-trays in which to get them started. I'd love to have fruit but then I can forage when the time comes :)

3 years ago in HiveGarden by barge

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minismallholding 3 years ago

There are always cons to go with the pros, aren't there! We can grow something year round, but it's so hard to keep the soil good in summer. Being something of an oasis in an arid area where few grow much, we also seem to attract all the wildlife. With some it's good, as they'll eat the pests, but others would rather eat the food we're trying to grow.

I have to concede that growing in England was so much easier in many ways. Just put them in the ground and let nature do her thing. Maybe water if the rain holds off for a bit longer than usual. I rarely added manure or compost, even!

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barge 3 years ago

Ha for sure, the only 'issue' I ever have with water is the hassle of unrolling/rolling out the hose :). The soil here has quite a bit of clay so I've been removing the lumps and replacing with compost.

Snails can be devastating too but so far I've not had to deal with hordes of them. The 'wildlife' to keep away over here consists of the two dogs and the nocturnal foxes 😂.

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minismallholding 3 years ago

Dogs I don't have a problem with and we've only had one fox visit for a while, but slugs and snails, we get them! I wouldn't have expected it with such a hot dry climate, but as soon as we get the cooler weather and rains, they're in there! When we first bought the house, the lawn at night would be smothered in snails when it rained. I would be treading on them, RTB was putting them in buckets then emptying them into the bin (not sure why, other than he can't abide the crunch). Eventually it got them to numbers our plants could survive.

Then the slugs... let's just say that they can hold their beer here. I've never been able to get them to manageable levels. We get this nighttime rotation of bugs that eat the veggies. Winter is slugs, spring is earwigs, summer is weevils. I correct the latter two for chickens and they stop for a bit, until the following year when it starts again. The slugs I go out with a pair of snips on...

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barge 3 years ago

Goodness, I wouldn't have expected there to be so many snails and slugs in South Australia...snips for the slugs eh - fun pastimes :D.

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minismallholding 3 years ago

Squishy, slimey things freak me out as well. Fun if you're into horror and creeping yourself out, I guess. 😅

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