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The Green Thumb Thread!
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Rosemary (grooving with the Picts)
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Jun 22, 2016 01:12PM
Peppery. Quite tasty. I wouldn't bother with other edible flowers (violas, marigolds) for their flavour, although they do look pretty in a salad. Borage flowers are nice frozen in an ice cube and floated in drinks, they are vaguely cucumbery.
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I didn't know there were edible ferns.Learn something new everyday!
I'm gonna get a bagful next week, now. Maybe. Don't know if anyone else in my family likes them and I couldn't eat a whole bag in a week.I wonder if they sell single servings nowadays.
'Nowadays'
It's shocking how my canadianisms are creeping back into my speech.
Gingerlily - Mistress Lantern wrote: "T4bsF (Call me Flo) wrote: "Triffids !!!!"LOL!
I used to love that book."
I preferred The Chrysalids. There was just something about the image of wet human footprint with six toes showing briefly on a rock, before the sun dried it up and made the evidence disappear.
My pakchoi has been consigned to the council's compost bin for sterilisation. Wet and heat = a fatal attack of mildew.
Patti (baconater) wrote: "I'm gonna get a bagful next week, now. Maybe. Don't know if anyone else in my family likes them and I couldn't eat a whole bag in a week.I wonder if they sell single servings nowadays.
'Nowadays'..."
Nowadays is used a lot in NZ as well.
I use it far to often.
Patti (baconater) wrote: "I'm gonna get a bagful next week, now. Maybe. Don't know if anyone else in my family likes them and I couldn't eat a whole bag in a week.I wonder if they sell single servings nowadays.
'Nowadays'..."
I've always used "nowadays" too - so maybe not as colloquial as you'd thought Patti.
(sings)It's good, Isn't it grand? Isn't it great?
Isn't it swell? Isn't it fun? Isn't it?
Nowaaaaadaaaaays . . . . .
Ahem. I apologise for my somewhat dodgy voice!
I rather like some edible flowers. Nasturtium flowers and leaves are great on a salad and I love the big day-lily petals which are almost meaty (if you have a good imagination). I sprinkle the blue borage flowers over salads and the leaves, though a bit rough, are slightly cucumbery.
I grew nasturtiums way back when I was in Canada especially for eating.Gave up when I couldn't get the neighbour's cat to stop pissing on them.
Wow, I didn't realise 'nowadays' was so global.
Very cool.
I think you've got cinnamon whirl stuck to the roof of your mouth, Timmy.
Yeah, and if my mum is to believed, there'll be a cinnamon bun tree growing out of the top of my head before too long!
I'm coming round to pick you.
Patti (baconater) wrote: "I'm coming round to pick you."......are you really sure you want to do that Patti?
Yep.I've met Tim in person. If he sits down, I won't even need a ladder to get to his buns.
We have a ficus plant (it was this group that identified it for me!) but it seems to be dwindling a little, I've moved it outside our front door in the hope that the natural weather will help it a little, it was really sunny yesterday and then rained last night and is dull today. Ficus likes bright sunlight, doesn't it? I wonder if it is too shady where we keep it.
Yes, figs like sun and, like me, they enjoy lots of food and drink. They tend to be vigorous growers and soon become pot-bound if they aren't re-potted regularly. Once you've reached the largest size of pot you can cope with, you'll still need to re-pot it, cutting off the biggest roots and replacing much of the compost.That's my experience of them in the south-west, but Scots figs may be different. Rosie may be along to tell us that they need porridge and Irn Bru.
Oh, I have never repotted... It is really scrawny looking these days!
Sounds as if it may be begging for a nice new pot and lots of lovely new compost to feed on.
After a morning in the garden picking gooseberries my hands look like raw meat, but I have an astonishing quantity of fruit - 4 kg off one bush alone. It's an amazing year for soft fruit. The branches of the currant bushes are bent to the ground by the weight of big fat juicy berries.I have no idea what I'm going to do with it all.
Gooseberry wine :DActually gooseberry gin is delicious too, I was given a bottle for my birthday. Although 4kg of gooseberries is enough for 8 litres of gin, which may be a little excessive...
I'll have a look for a recipe. I was thinking about fruit vodkas, but mustn't forget the gin possibilities. Maybe this Christmas presents will be hampers of jams, chutneys and fruity booze.
Patti can give you tips on fruit vodkas - shes made quite a few.
.... do they ever get as far as the bottles though??
Somehow I'm not surprised. I'm beginning to think that all the scratches may have been well worthwhile.
Flavoured vodkas are dead easy. Just stick whatever into a jar then pour vodka over it and leave it in a dark cupboard.Leaving it in the cupboard is the challenge, you're right, Flo!
Oh yeah. Think I saw a neem tree yesterday. Must tag Rosemary on the photo in Facebook so she can identify it...
I have failed you Patti :(You'll need to add sugar to the gin & gooseberries BJ. I like a dry drink but there are limits!
Sugar syrup works best.Equal parts white sugar and water, heat just until dissolved. Sweeten to taste.
With our flavoured vodkas, we make vodka syrup inside of using water. Don't want to dilute the vodka, do we?
And you disappoint me, Nosemanny.
Rosemary what's that coming over the hill wrote: "I have failed you Patti :(You'll need to add sugar to the gin & gooseberries BJ. I like a dry drink but there are limits!"
The 4kg came off a red dessert gooseberry bush, so very little sugar needed - but I also have three of the green type where lots of alcoholic sugar syrup will be called for. Must head for a supermarket in pursuit of gin, vodka and sugar.
My tiny Acer grown since last year has suddenly shrivelled up.Surely can't be the one hot day we've had - it was fine a couple of days ago.
I'm away on hollingberries I bet my garden has shrivelled like an old gentleman's scrotum
Hollingberries? Is that an autocorrect for holiday?
More to the point can you make liqueur from them?
Has anybody got any good tips on getting rid of weeds in a gravel area? Every time I pull them up, they multiply!!
At this time of year seeds keep blowing in and germinating. A weedkiller like Pathclear should do it.
Does anyone else think it's a bit autumnal already. There's loads of leaves falling and quite a few turning colour, I've also seen quite a few starlings which I think is about a month too early
A hoe, Claire, on a dry day. A lot of weedkillers will be off the market soon I understand.Yes I think so too Lynne. Our 50 mile an hour winds yesterday were certainly autumnal (although it wasn't cold) and there is a touch of colour in some of the leaves. Meanwhile my dahlias don't even have flower buds developing yet!
It's only a thin layer of gravel over what appears to be a plastic layer, would a hoe still work or is it just dig them all out? :)
I'd carefully rake up the gravel, put down a thick layer of sand, then put down a thicker layer of gravel.Or learn to love the weeds.
I saw one of those 'helpful hints' on using apple cider vinegar diluted in a spray for weeds. I haven't tried it but it might work. My friend puts salt in boiling water and pours that on but I tried it and made holes in our concrete path. Ooooops. If I've only got a few on my patio I use my cooks blowtorch when other half isn't looking but you can't do that where there's a liner.
That's true, Rosie. Our local garden centre manager reckons we'll soon be back to having only salt as a weedkiller. Even the chemical ones still on the market aren't as effective as they used to be. I don't use weedkillers within the garden, but on the gravel drive/paths I find Pathclear works well. I apply it twice a year - and I've stocked up.
Yes BJ I agree we have to be careful as we have the spaniel so only use the minimum chemicals but salt is a real killer for concrete. Perhaps we should buy shares in it.
I know it's a real pain but I usually pull the weeds up - as carefully as poss, to get as many roots as I can. I've got our Bronwyn, two visiting dogs and our Eddy (the tortoise) to consider, so I avoid chemicals when I can.
Conker trees in particular always seem to start turning around the beginning of August.
I have tomatoes!!! I mean they're still green and not ripe yet but I've got some!! My neighbour gave me a couple of plants from their greenhouse as my original ones didn't stand a chance given it snowed a week later!!
The four plants I had last year produced one tomato between them. I didn't bother this year.Apples look like they might have done well (probably cos they didn't get pruned). If only I could fight my way to them through the brambles . . . (still, the blackberries are nice!)
