Does anyone know anything about gardening?

My son has been given some watermelon seeds and a tiny windowsill greenhouse as a birthday present, which is happily now 12 watermelon seedlings.
What am I going to do with them now? Will they die outside? I presume they're too big for inside pots?

bit late in the season possibly
they probably won't die outside ... unless it's due to lack of sunshine
get 1/2 of them outside in some decent sized pots and some in the soil and see how they go

Great work. Looks gorgeous.
Best thing about growing your own is all the varieties you can chose from.

More on the way

1 Attachment

I was dead excited to put some figs from my (neighbour's) tree a few weeks back. Then discovered that they set off my Oral Allergy Syndrome something chronic.

In other news, I found an enemy base.

1 Attachment

hmmm caviar

I collected some seeds recently from various things. Is it ok to scatter them now? That's what they're doing left to their own devices anyway, or is it better to wait until spring?

Lots of forget me not and love in a mist coming up again, are they likely to flower before autumn? Quite a few of the early spring flowers seem to be having a second go... My wildflowerish patch went to seed weeks ago and has been chopped down, it's looking a bit dry and stubbly now.

We're gonna have to do this after Brexit (when the cost of importing food goes through the roof). Perhaps this is what the old people wanted all along anyway i.e. something to bring back the Dunkirk spirit (as they fill their retired hours tending to veg)?

We'll just turn the back gardens back into allotments. We just had austerity, might as well have the whole post-war period thing, let's dig for victory.

I have some planting to do. Got some ideas but everyone I speak to has better ones. Picture is looking North so the left gets full sun in the morning, the right gets it afternoon onwards (hence the seat). Size wise, borders are 30" deep, fence panels are standard 6ft long.

Thinking of doing some espallier fronted by one bed of scented and herbs, one bed of pretty and floral, one wildflower bed and god knows what else.

There's a fence going along the middle with a rose arch and the gazebo is going next year or the year after when I build the pergola sex den.

1 Attachment

My tomato plants have surprisingly not died and are now full of tomatoes. How do you tell when they are ready to eat? Do you pick them before they are ripe and allow to ripen after or just when they're red and ready?

The sooner you eat them after picking, the better they taste. So pick the ripe ones when you need them, leave the unripened ones to ripen.

They'll continue to crop as long as it stays warm enough, but keep an eye out for blight, which will kill the plants. Any green ones left can be ripened on a windowsill or made into green tomato chutney.

can anything stop the blight?
I've been spraying diluted milk on various things as a mild anti-fungal, but read somewhere it can cause other problems in tomatoes. the garden really does seem riddled with fungal spores of all kinds but the milk seems to be helping a little.

Liberal application of Bordeaux mixture.

had to look it up - wiki tells me that it can harm earthworms, and that when used by the United Fruit Company in the twenties "Many workers would get sick or die of poisoning due to the toxic chemical."

Holy feck!

The head gardener uses it liberally, and she's organic to her core, so I don't think the stuff you buy here is toxic.

yeah, it does also say it's approved for organic. probably best not to get covered in it though.

If you want a rampant scrambling rose climber for the shed I've got plenty of cuttings, this one:

Where are you based?

Cheers. They're on a windowsill so appear to have avoided the blight.

Come Autumn you could be the recipient of redcurrant and fig prunings.

Norwich but they're small & could probably be posted wrapped in damp newspaper or something. It only looks like that for a month and it's a rampant blighter once it gets going.

Thanks but I'll pass. Sounds like they could have inbreeding issues.

Racist.