Nettles

Qualitymark

Hadn't much time (or weather) to go into the garden this year, so the nettles were six feet high and nearly everything else was swamped and dead. Today, finally I got out, and my neighbours took their children inside as my language unconsciously deteriorated as the nettles stung my forearms and (ouch!) belly with every pull. Swines!

The plant I was worrying most about, a little prostrate juniper I got in Galway market, survived under the nettles, though damp and yellow. Now to go for the kerria japonica. If the weather keeps up.

I'd love to put a few beans in. Someone told me that if you soak the beans in diesel before sowing the mice will keep away from them; I don't have any other use for diesel but am going to try it with petrol.

Cardinal Richelieu

Qualitymark wrote: »

Hadn't much time (or weather) to go into the garden this year, so the nettles were six feet high and nearly everything else was swamped and dead. Today, finally I got out, and my neighbours took their children inside as my language unconsciously deteriorated as the nettles stung my forearms and (ouch!) belly with every pull. Swines!

The plant I was worrying most about, a little prostrate juniper I got in Galway market, survived under the nettles, though damp and yellow. Now to go for the kerria japonica. If the weather keeps up.

I'd love to put a few beans in. Someone told me that if you soak the beans in diesel before sowing the mice will keep away from them; I don't have any other use for diesel but am going to try it with petrol.

Save yourself some money and just sow them direct without the petrol chemical mix to your soil or better still sow them in some pots and cover with wetted newspaper and place them near the window in your house.

Qualitymark

Cardinal Richelieu wrote: »

Save yourself some money and just sow them direct without the petrol chemical mix to your soil or better still sow them in some pots and cover with wetted newspaper and place them near the window in your house.

Every year I sow them direct and the mice get them, or sow them in pots, and the mice get them.

Cardinal Richelieu

Qualitymark wrote: »

Every year I sow them direct and the mice get them, or sow them in pots, and the mice get them.

How big are the plants when you planted them out?

Oldtree

Sow in pots in a tray full of water and raise the tray up on inverted small pots up on a table or windowsill and plant out when ready, the mice cant get up to them.

I do this in a polytunnel

dharma200

my mother, an avid gardener, swears that since she has been drinking nettle tea, nettles no longer sting her. I have seen her pull them up with bare hands...

redser7

I soak mine in a glass of water for a few hours, then chit them by placing them on some damp kitchen paper on a saucer with cling film over the top. The radical will show in about 3 days. Then pop them in some pots of compost and let them grow on to a good size (6 inches??) before you plant them out. Root trainers are great for potting them into. Get a great healthy root ball and they can grow pretty big before you pot them outside. All of this can be done on your window sill. Works a treat for me. Only takes about a week to have first shoots coming up. No rotting and no mice

Qualitymark

dharma200 wrote: »

my mother, an avid gardener, swears that since she has been drinking nettle tea, nettles no longer sting her. I have seen her pull them up with bare hands...

Interesting! I eat nettle soup in springtime, but don't like the taste once spring passes.

Some hard-edge survivalists farmers in the US say that if you set goats to graze on poison ivy (which the goats gollish up) and give your kids the goats' milk to drink, the kids become immune to the poison ivy.

magicbastarder

i suspect mice keep away from diesel soaked beans because they're bloody toxic and sterile after being soaked in a hydrocarbon which is poisonous to 99.99% of life.

Qualitymark

magicbastarder wrote: »

i suspect mice keep away from diesel soaked beans because they're bloody toxic and sterile after being soaked in a hydrocarbon which is poisonous to 99.99% of life.

Not according to the farmer whose tip this was, a big bean grower.

I don't know about you, but I use petrochemicals all the time. The doors of this room are painted with gloss paint, I'm typing on a plastic keyboard, my socks are held up with plastic-derived elastic, there's a book beside me with a glossy petrochemical-based cover; earlier on I drank milk from a plastic bottle, and ate pizzas that had been in plastic cases. It's everywhere!

Cardinal Richelieu

Qualitymark wrote: »

Not according to the farmer whose tip this was, a big bean grower.

I don't know about you, but I use petrochemicals all the time. The doors of this room are painted with gloss paint, I'm typing on a plastic keyboard, my socks are held up with plastic-derived elastic, there's a book beside me with a glossy petrochemical-based cover; earlier on I drank milk from a plastic bottle, and ate pizzas that had been in plastic cases. It's everywhere!

Where does he grow beans? Guessing not Ireland.

redser7

Qualitymark wrote: »

Not according to the farmer whose tip this was, a big bean grower.

I don't know about you, but I use petrochemicals all the time. The doors of this room are painted with gloss paint, I'm typing on a plastic keyboard, my socks are held up with plastic-derived elastic, there's a book beside me with a glossy petrochemical-based cover; earlier on I drank milk from a plastic bottle, and ate pizzas that had been in plastic cases. It's everywhere!

But you're not eating that stuff. Food containers are made from food grade plastic. Having said that I do see references to it after googling. Although those could be commercial practises where ultimately profits are the goal for the farmer. And where profit enters the equation ... well you know. I instinctively don't like the idea myself.

Cardinal Richelieu

redser7 wrote: »

But you're not eating that stuff. Food containers are made from food grade plastic. Having said that I do see references to it after googling. Although those could be commercial practises where ultimately profits are the goal for the farmer. And where profit enters the equation ... well you know. I instinctively don't like the idea myself.

Only references I found where on GIY type sites and not commercial growers. I seriously doubt this is practiced at a commercial level, seems like a trick from the early 1900s before people were aware of the consequences.

Qualitymark

Cardinal Richelieu wrote: »

Where does he grow beans? Guessing not Ireland.

Carlow.

kylith

From what I can see online the diesel is to stop rodents from taking the seed, so it sounds to me like not planting them out until they're sizeable would solve that.

Personally I'd be worried about eating something that had been soaked in fuel before planting. The plant could well pick up the contaminant from the soil, and I'd worry about ongoing contamination affecting the soil in the long run.

I'd be curious to know who this bean farmer is selling his crop to, and what their opinion of diesel being used on a food crop may be.

Cardinal Richelieu

Qualitymark wrote: »

Not according to the farmer whose tip this was, a big bean grower.

Qualitymark wrote: »

Carlow.

Lol not exactly a heartland of Irish Horticulture. Me thinks that the fellow prob just grows enough to supply a farmers market. I know and live near two large bean growers(french beans mainly). They would grow about 5000 plants or so and I know for a fact they don't resort to the dipping in oil of seeds.

The closest I heard to this was the practice of dipping flower bulbs in oil or formaldehyde mix but that was way back in the 1950s.

paddy147

Cardinal Richelieu wrote: »

Lol not exactly a heartland of Irish Horticulture. Me thinks that the fellow prob just grows enough to supply a farmers market. I know and live near two large bean growers(french beans mainly). They would grow about 5000 plants or so and I know for a fact they don't resort to the dipping in oil of seeds.

The closest I heard to this was the practice of dipping flower bulbs in oil or formaldehyde mix but that was way back in the 1950s.

You asked/said "where does he grow his beans"......"guessing not in Ireland"

You were then told "Carlow".

And your reply is now "laugh out loud" at Carlow more or less mock Carlow and also "you think".

Exactly..."you think" and not you know.


Why cant you just accept what the person said to you?

Sonnenblumen

paddy147 wrote: »

You asked/said "where does he grow his beans"......"guessing not in Ireland"

You were then told "Carlow".

And your reply is now "laugh out loud" at Carlow more or less mock Carlow and also "you think".

Exactly..."you think" and not you know.


Why cant you just accept what the person said to you?

Is this Molly the Mod?:o

Qualitymark

And the mockery and sneering and aggression begins...

Why is this so often the immature response on boards.ie? We're not six-year-old boys. Or at least I don't think we are, though of course you can't know on an online forum.

kylith

paddy147 wrote: »

You asked/said "where does he grow his beans"......"guessing not in Ireland"

You were then told "Carlow".

And your reply is now "laugh out loud" at Carlow more or less mock Carlow and also "you think".

Exactly..."you think" and not you know.


Why cant you just accept what the person said to you?

Because the idea that a commercial grower would taint their crop and poison their land with diesel is either laughable or terrifying. Diesel is a pollutant that destroys microbial life, and inhibits both soil fertility and crop germination - from Academicjournals.org: spent diesel fuel contamination has negative effect on the test agricultural crop seed germination and possibly the soil, microorganism and thus the environment.

Qualitymark

Hang on a sec. This is a farmer, but I don't know if he's growing beans commercially or for food for his family.

kylith

Your remark that he is a "big bean grower" kind of gave the impression that he's growing to sell, not for personal use.

Sonnenblumen

Qualitymark wrote: »

And the mockery and sneering and aggression begins...

Why is this so often the immature response on boards.ie? We're not six-year-old boys. Or at least I don't think we are, though of course you can't know on an online forum.

Did you sow your jelly beans?