Growing stuff

We need a map of wild foods to be had from public places, gardens, universities etc. I know there are Bay trees down in the UCC at the back heading towards Fitzgeralds Park. I wil NEVER pay 110 euros for a damn tree I can pick off the side of the road. What absorbetent prices! Absorbs all your wad.

What's sprouts - brussels? Their winter yokes aren't they? Can you grow stuff all year round in this country? I need to know this while Brian Cowen is still Taoiseach - I do not want to starve.

Just a general plea. If anyone is thinking of planting an ornamental flowering tree like ornamental cherries consider instead the fruiting varieties, or apples, plums or pears. The flowers may not be as abundant but are still a joy to behold and you get fruit as well. If you don't eat the fruit as likely as not the birds will. They love cherries and many tits and smaller birds enjoy the buds in spring.

I think the likes of red currants are fairly attractive plants and blackbirds love them.

Remember the bees too, they're all going to die, and then we'll die too! They like purples and blues, for some reason...

cactus flower wrote:

I've grown bay trees from suckers at the base of my bay tree for presents for people. I cut them out with some root with a good sharp kitchen knife and planted them in flower pots.

Still picking last year's sprouts here. Planted the seeds in pots and transplanted them which they were big enough.

I have a few of those suckers myself - I'll have a go at rooting them.

Quote :

Just a general plea. If anyone is thinking of planting an ornamental flowering tree like ornamental cherries consider instead the fruiting varieties, or apples, plums or pears. The flowers may not be as abundant but are still a joy to behold and you get fruit as well. If you don't eat the fruit as likely as not the birds will. They love cherries and many tits and smaller birds enjoy the buds in spring.

I think the likes of red currants are fairly attractive plants and blackbirds love them.

We have two cherry trees in the orchard and the birds decimate them. I don't think the fruit gets enough sun to make them sweet enough for us to eat - at least it hasn't in the last two years.

Squire wrote:

Just a general plea. If anyone is thinking of
planting an ornamental flowering tree like ornamental cherries consider
instead the fruiting varieties, or apples, plums or pears. The flowers
may not be as abundant but are still a joy to behold and you get fruit
as well. If you don't eat the fruit as likely as not the birds will.
They love cherries and many tits and smaller birds enjoy the buds in
spring.

I think the likes of red currants are fairly attractive plants and blackbirds love them.

A previous post from you about this prompted me to plant red currants along with my raspberries. Let's hope they have an ok crop this summer.

Red Currents are quite attractive and if you feel possessed can be used for jam etc. I think they are nice to look at and the birds really do like them. Fairly easy to grow and I am sure you will have a good crop.

Birds are also fond of raspberries. With different varieties you can have a fairly long croping season.

Water your fruit producing greenery with your left over dish water, even if from a dishwasher, I am told it works a treat.

I've heard that using sudsy water is good for clearing greenfly, but not for watering fruit - what's the benefit, tonys?

Kate P wrote:

I've heard that using sudsy water is good for clearing greenfly, but not for watering fruit - what's the benefit, tonys?

I know next to nothing about this but I’ve read that it’s a combination of the food particles & the diluted phosphate from the washing up liquid which acts as a fertiliser and that it should be applied to the soil rather than directly to the plant.

My grandmother swore by washing up water chucked over aphids. I think it was the detergent.

How do you get the water out of your dishwasher tonys?

Throw your used tealeaves, or a solution from steeping old teabags in water, over your acid-loving plants, they seem to like it...

toxic avenger wrote:

Throw your used tealeaves, or a solution from steeping old teabags in water, over your acid-loving plants, they seem to like it...

Which of my plants like Aceeeeedd!!!

cactus flower wrote:

toxic avenger wrote:

Throw your used tealeaves, or a solution from steeping old teabags in water, over your acid-loving plants, they seem to like it...

Which of my plants like Aceeeeedd!!!

the groovy ones

cactus flower wrote:

toxic avenger wrote:

Throw your used tealeaves, or a solution from steeping old teabags in water, over your acid-loving plants, they seem to like it...

Which of my plants like Aceeeeedd!!!

Wasn't quite that smiley face, but close...

toxic avenger wrote:

Throw your used tealeaves, or a solution from steeping old teabags in water, over your acid-loving plants, they seem to like it...

Tell us which plants like lysergic acid dietylamide then

Lysergic acid amide (LSA), a relative and precursor to
lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), is found in the seeds of the Hawaiian baby
woodrose (Argyreia nervosa) and morning glory (Ipomoea violacea),
which can be crushed, eaten, or soaked and drunk to provide a 4 to 8 hour
intoxication that is similar to that provided by LSD, though there are
reportedly consistent qualitative and quantitative differences (Schultes and
Hofmann, 1980)
http://www.clusterbusters.com/lsa.htm

What exactly do you grow in your garden....Toxic...?

cactus flower wrote:

What exactly do you grow in your garden....Toxic...?

I live not far from Cork city centre, so not exactly a huge garden, but I'm a crammer. It is mostly ornamental, though I grow grapes, blackcurrants, strawberries, apples (plus an indoor calamondin orange tree - bitter enough, but nice for marmalade). I eat the strawberries, I tend to leave the rest for the birds...

I also have a treasured Strawberry Tree (which I have opined about already), the fruits of which are mealy and lychee-like (nothing to do with strawberries), barely edible, but produce a very potent alcoholic drink, popular in Spain and Portugal...

Should we have a separate thread for discussing less 'worthy' growings than vegetables and fruit?

I've bought some gorgeous gladioli bulbs to grow in an old tin bath the exact same as the one below. It's quite battered and was used by my husband's grandmother to bath her two children in their thatched cottage (not them in pic, by the way).








I'm seeing a big colourful swathe of them in the sunshine...

Katie P wrote:

gladioli bulbs

Can you ate it ?

Aye - I'm sure a fellow with your constitution for canned cream should have no bother with a few inedible flower bulbs...

candide wrote:

I had a moment when I thought a wormery would be great for the garden but I heard about the smell and abandoned the idea. Is it true that they smell terrible?

At hell of a lot less than human faeces which the one of the farmers down the road spread out on the land today - like the smell of 1001 used nappies x 100 - a serious weapon of mass destruction - was very thankful for the change in Wind Direction today - tho the sudden torrential downpours will mean that all this stuff will be washed into the streams and into the rivers - not good - not good at all.

Human? Ye gods. I thought pig slurry was the worst. And somehow they choose the day I planned to eat out in the garden, not that close windows are any defence indoors either.

How do we tolerate this given recent alarms about wrapped loaves of bread getting in to the food chain? Far less worrying I would have thought.

Two entirely different things, I'd suggest candide.

You could ask however, why it's okay to pump tonnes and tonnes of the raw stuff into the sea.

The way the Nitrates Directive has been implemented here means that farmers have been gathering up slurries of all kinds from October 1 to January 15. Regardless of the weather they were prohibited from spreading it.

Farmers don't want slurry running into watercourses any more than the rest of us do.

But you have to wonder about the logic of
a) spreading slurry by date rather than by weather (try to fit that into Old Moore's almanac) which leads to
b) building of enormous tanks to store said waste for months and months which brings about
c) provision of grants for the building of such tanks - Farm Waste Management Scheme which is stymied by the
d) withholding of same grants from farmers who borrowed on the promise of receipt of that money from the Dept Ag, some of whom find themselves now with enormous bridging loans and a debt for interest and a severe interference with their cashflow and credit rating.

I hadn't realised there were such difficult restrictions. Some of my friends find themselves with a loan, effectively a mortgage, for the work they did (on time and in accord with regulations) on slatted housing at the end of last year so that element I do understand and sympathise with.

I still wonder about the chemistry of slurry on grazing land. How can it be ok?