2023 Gardening Thread

Anyone plant their spuds yet? Thinking of putting a few down this weekend

They had a range of tomato plants in Lidl today. (I was buying rhododendrons).

Clean your clippers and cut again just above where you cut before, clean up rubbish and keep clippers clean. You can bake compost in foil in the oven for half an hour (max) at 180 degrees C to sterilize it.

Or, contact the place you got them, send a pic of the one with a gall and tell them what happened. Hopefully they will replace them (though of course there is every chance they will be infected too). Were the dahlias separate tubers or were they packed in threes etc? They could easily have infected each other before you took the snippers to them.

I am far from being a dahlia expert, but I would dump the infected one - you will replace it eventually - and plant the others and hope for the best. If they come up affected remove and dump them. I have no idea about the wet, it seems a bit unlikely tbh. But I am guessing, I don't really know.

I thought about Jayes fluid and checked it up to come up with this gem:

Can Jeyes Fluid be used to sterilise the soil? Regrettably, as this product is now subject to Ministry regulations, we are unable at present, to confirm recommendations other than those printed on the latest can. Since EC Regulations in 2003, the product is no longer effective at sterilising soil.

Lol, it stopped working in 2003. However if you dispose of an affected tuber a dose of jayes fluid on the place it was planted might be no harm. Since it claims to kill almost all bacteria its not something you would throw around indiscriminately, most bacteria are harmless to good.

I wouldn’t be using those suppliers again. Something as obvious as gall should have been noticed.when dispatching the plants. Were they imported or is it an Irish supplier. We are so careless of importing every kind of disease and bug.

Keep an eye on the developing plants and discard any that show signs of haphazard growth. You have effectively quarantined them in the pots.

I think you have been extremely unlucky, I’ve never come across dahlia gall in over forty years of growing them.

They’ll be fine in the greenhouse and will benefit from more light. Just be sure to cover them at night if the outside temperature falls below 4 degrees. It might be as well to cover for the first few nights to harden them off.

Any tips for planting tall flowers and keeping them upright?

Delphinium, rudbeckia and gladioli…. I take it some kind of staking or structure is needed when planting out in the open? There’s a hedge about eight foot behind, and a mesh fence directly behind where they’ll be planted but they won’t be hugely sheltered.

Cheers. We had a few circular wire frames, about 5ft tall that met at the top in a dome shape but they don't look great.

We've another more expensive one that is like cast iron and it stakes into the ground and forms a circle about a foot off the ground, I'm not sure if its suitable. I gather these types of flowers get quite bushy at the base so maybe it would work to an extent. Maybe need to use it with individual canes as you say.

I do have a wall but they’d get no sun there unfortunately.

The bank is nice and sunny and I’ve been wanting to plant rudbeckia there for some time.

I could try being creative with the fence behind it but I’m not coming up with too many ideas really.

As the picture above shows, I'm attempting to grow a load of heather on this slope. The recent rain has semi buried a few in mini mudslides :(

Is it worth digging them up and replanting when weather improves? Some are in since last autumn and others since last week (I got a bit carried away with trying to get stuff done over Easter break last week and didn't look at the forecast)

Any other heather advice welcome. We have a huge sloped bank on three sides surrounding the house that I want to cover in different coloured heather. Thanks

I have my courgettes (grown from seed) in the greenhouse and will probably keep them there to ensure they get enough heat, courgettes also need regular watering. It might be too cold just at the moment to grow them outside - I've also grown them outside but didn't put them out until June to avoid any chance of a late frost! I'm surprised you haven't found any in the garden centres, as they normally start selling them at the same time as tomato and cucumber plants.

I must have a look at our garden centre at the weekend and see what's available - it could be still a bit early unless there was a run on courgette plants!

Grow the courgettes from seed. They germinate quickly with a little heat and will grow fast enough if kept warm until established.