In the Garden

[Ditto]

That Sunflower was the best of all the seeds sown and was doing great till the rotten critters chomped it! They chomped all the others too in the front garden and all the Salvias. Dastardly fiends. I might have to put out some beer for them. No I won't, I can't face killing things. I only kill houseflies, bluebottles, mosquitos, fleas and cockroaches. Snails get let off because they are cute with horns.

My daylily is out. 🙂

 

[Ditto]

Apologies for the double post.

What can I do about my snail and slug problem? Do you lot have fauna eating your flora?

 

[Goldiebrowse]

Apologies for the double post.

What can I do about my snail and slug problem? Do you lot have fauna eating your flora?
View attachment 14888

Beer traps are great for dealing with slugs and snails or if you have a resident hedgehog like us. Beer traps are quick and simple, place small container in the ground near affected plant then top up with beer. Slugs crawl in and die happy 😉

 

[Goldiebrowse]

View of garden, we have gone large and architectural plants to accompany the Koi pond

 

[Goldiebrowse]

That Sunflower was the best of all the seeds sown and was doing great till the rotten critters chomped it! They chomped all the others too in the front garden and all the Salvias. Dastardly fiends. I might have to put out some beer for them. No I won't, I can't face killing things. I only kill houseflies, bluebottles, mosquitos, fleas and cockroaches. Snails get let off because they are cute with horns.

My daylily is out. 🙂
View attachment 14868

Love hemerocallis.🙂

 

[chaoticcar]

Beer traps are great for dealing with slugs and snails or if you have a resident hedgehog like us. Beer traps are quick and simple, place small container in the ground near affected plant then top up with beer. Slugs crawl in and die happy 😉

I put beer traps out only to watch our resident blackbird feeding beer soaked small slugs to their babies !!
Carol

 

[Ditto]

Good grief, drunk babies! Would they be okay? They might fall out of the nest.

Wow at the Koi, they are massive and gorgeous. I shall get some when I win the Lotto. 🙂

 

[Goldiebrowse]

Good grief, drunk babies! Would they be okay? They might fall out of the nest.

Wow at the Koi, they are massive and gorgeous. I shall get some when I win the Lotto. 🙂

@Ditto I’ve not seen any blackbirds feeding the deceased slugs to their young but thank you on the koi, the sturgeon are slightly bigger but very difficult to spot 🙂

 

[Robin]

My cyclamen are out! Both pink and white. Good in a way, I love them, but bad in another, because I always think of them as flowering at the end of summer /beginning of autumn!

 

[grovesy]

I have a pink one that has been in flower for a week or two.

 

[trophywench]

You to have a helluva lot of dead leaves under and around them, whereas everything is still a healthy green round about here ......

 

[Robin]

You to have a helluva lot of dead leaves under and around them, whereas everything is still a healthy green round about here ......

Ah, not as bad as it looks, the leaves are from our beech hedge. They stay on all winter, and finally drop in spring after the new leaves emerge, so they’ve been there since about April and haven’t rotted down yet. Not this year's, fortunately, we're not that Autumnal yet!

 

[Ditto]

My lillies are out but can't post a pic as my mobile back-up on Google is only up to 30th July. 🙄

I would like some Cyclamen but haven't had any luck with them up to now, will try again at some point. After the slugs ate all that herb I thought sack it and planted a creeping weed in that section of the herbwheel instead. The weed has popped off. Says it all really.

 

[grovesy]

My lillies are out but can't post a pic as my mobile back-up on Google is only up to 30th July. 🙄

I would like some Cyclamen but haven't had any luck with them up to now, will try again at some point. After the slugs ate all that herb I thought sack it and planted a creeping weed in that section of the herbwheel instead. The weed has popped off. Says it all really.

Up until last year I had no luck either, a new company took over my Garden Centre this time last year and the cyclemen were one of the first things I bought following the take over. All the ones I bought seem to have survived but not all flowered yet.

 

[Robin]

Cyclamen must like it round here. When we moved, which was just round the corner, we noticed there were loads of white cyclamen in the new garden, so we decided not to bring any of our pink ones from the old house, but some of them must have hitched a ride, because the first year we had a clump of pink, then we had more, and now it’s about half and half. They keep popping up in new areas of the garden.

 

[trophywench]

They propagate either from seed or leaves.

(Relieved to hear the dead leaves aren't 'this years' LOL)

 

[eggyg]

It’s been a bit quiet on here lately. Had a wander up the garden this morning and it’s starting to look very autumnal. Michaelmas daisy starting to flower. The butterflies love it. The tomatoes I grew from seed in the house are covered in little green ones. Goodness knows if they will ever turn red but if not, chutney will be made. Onions, red and white, shallots and garlic all harvested and hung up in the shed/summerhouse. Courgettes are still growing in front of my eyes! Only one plant this year but still too many. The cookers on the espalier are ready to pick, we didn’t get any at all last year. The turnips are doing better this year and are fabulous roasted. The grapes aren’t as big as they have been at this time of year before. We’ll pick them mid October hopefully and Mr Eggy will make some more undrinkable wine! The sunflower has just self seeded, no doubt from the bird seed, in one of the raised beds. I love it, it’s a horizontal sunflower. 🙂

 

[Robin]

Our onions are all drying off in the summerhouse/shed. (it’s not as posh as @eggyg's inside!) I got caught out yesterday, though, I needed an onion to cook with, and had to go down the garden in the pouring rain to retrieve one.
As for courgettes, I’ve managed to hide courgette in every meal I’ve cooked this week, including cake, and they’re still coming out of our ears. I tried to offload some on daughter, but her boss had got in before me and given her some spare from his allotment.They didn’t do well at all last year, so I made the mistake of putting more plants in this year, and there’s a local glut!

 

[silentsquirrel]

It’s been a bit quiet on here lately. Had a wander up the garden this morning and it’s starting to look very autumnal. Michaelmas daisy starting to flower. The butterflies love it. The tomatoes I grew from seed in the house are covered in little green ones. Goodness knows if they will ever turn red but if not, chutney will be made. Onions, red and white, shallots and garlic all harvested and hung up in the shed/summerhouse. View attachment 15076View attachment 15077View attachment 15078View attachment 15079View attachment 15080View attachment 15081View attachment 15082View attachment 15083 Courgettes are still growing in front of my eyes! Only one plant this year but still too many. The cookers on the espalier are ready to pick, we didn’t get any at all last year. The turnips are doing better this year and are fabulous roasted. The grapes aren’t as big as they have been at this time of year before. We’ll pick them mid October hopefully and Mr Eggy will make some more undrinkable wine! The sunflower has just self seeded, no doubt from the bird seed, in one of the raised beds. I love it, it’s a horizontal sunflower. 🙂

Looking good!
If you have surplus courgettes, especially if they turn into marrows, it's a good ingredient to bulk out your chutney.

 

[eggyg]

Looking good!
If you have surplus courgettes, especially if they turn into marrows, it's a good ingredient to bulk out your chutney.

We made spicy tomato and courgette chutney last year. We’ve still got three jars! I don’t eat chutney and Mr Eggy isn’t a massive courgette fan so he has said he’s not making it this year! He’s presently making ginger, apple and rhubarb chutney. Apples and rhubarb from garden, ginger courtesy of Tesco! He loves that so much he’s making double this year.