In the Garden

[Brodlach]

IMO the only way to get rid of clover properly is to remove it by hand.

[dedja]

IMO the only way to get rid of clover properly is to remove it by hand.

That’s generally what we do, looking for a lazy option.

[Lightning McQueen]

My tomatoes, chillis, strawberries and cucumbers are going nuts!

Got some new chickens 8 days ago, tripled in size already.

I have 4 varieties of cherry tomatoes, a mini roma and cueys, all going berserk and had my first pick yesterday, all tasted on point.

[Password Please]

Has anyone successfully used a clover weed killer on a couch lawn that’s pet friendly, or is it a unicorn?

Hi Dedja,

There are a lot of selected weed controllers, this is what you need, works great.

Google Amgrow Kleen Lawn Selective Lawn Weeder, controls clover and broad leaf in couch grass, wont effect the lawn at all.

[LaughingKookaburra]

I did spray Seasol after cutting on Saturday, I will now do it every fortnight until April. Haven’t used that one before, I’ll search it up. It’s quite green already

Why would you spray it in a good t shirt l?

Smart man. If you drown your plants and lawn in seasol throughout summer you won’t have any issues with plants and lawn burning from the heat.

Applying any fertilizer over 30° is crazy.

Seasol isn’t fertiliser, it conditions the soil and that’s an enormous difference.

[mots02]

Working from home today and watching the grass grow before my eyes from the rain.

Concur with above... seasol isn't fertiliser, but applied every couple of weeks at this time of year and you will stand proudly looking over your lush green lawn.

[DOC]

Just finished putting in the last of the tomatoes this morning. Already got fruit setting on the Princepe Borghese plants.

Cucumbers flowering very well and should be picking in a week.

Beans going well. Neighbours happy.

Sweetcorn already starting to set. Last chance this year. Watering heaps, trying to avoid the poor set I have had for the last few years.

Capsicums kept from last year, pruned back, fertilised and mulched heavily are flowering and fruiting well.

Spring onions not planted out yet. Basil galore. Home made pesto is a joy. So is giving bags of fresh basil to those who like it.

[Brodlach]

Great work Doc.

I have a strawberry plant that somehow survived from last year, it has gone nuts and would be a metre in circumference. I have not had one like that before

Only planted 6 tomatoes this year, ridiculous amount of fruit growing already. Large but very green at present. One of my stakes snapped which injured the plant, was the biggest one.

Two cucumber plants, they have flowers all over them but no fruit yet

Chilli bush took a beating over the weekend, a lot of the leaves and fruit are black.

Carrots, well who knows with them, were ordinary last year so may not do them again if the same. Short, bent and wooden.

[Brodlach]

I like talking about our veggie patches lol

[Booney]

Absolutely! After work in summer a swim, tend to the crops, swim, beer....washes the day at work away perfectly.

Tomatoes are roaring up and out, feel like I'm tying them off every second day. I grow my strawberries in small hanging pots, I've got three on the go and only on Sunday counted 22 flowers that have set.

I've given up on corn, found I was pumping them* with water relentlessly and they barely gave me any real return.

[mighty_tiger_79]

I hope the zip tie keeps neighbours out that are wanting to get to your *crops

[Brodlach]

I would have a conservative 50 set strawberries ATM, see how many I end up with though, there wasn’t a great conversion rate last year

I tried corn last year, I didn’t think it was worth the space considering what it costs at the shop, 50c an ear at times.


Tomatoes are growing everywhere in the patch, I too thought about trimming or tying back but decided not to. I use to make circles out of thick mesh to keep them growing up rather than spread (this was a suggestion by my wife’s grandfather who grew tomatoes his whole life) but I found that they had mildew on them if I didn’t tend to them daily and water from below (ie hose) rather than a sprinkler

[Booney]

I train the tomatoes like a star fish sort of arrangement. As a new arm grows out of the main stem I put a stake in the direction and when the plant reaches I tie off and train it up the stake. I end up with 4, 5, or 6 stems reaching for the sun.

[mots02]

We've just revamped our veg gardens after letting them relax for a season or 2.

A couple of years ago we planted an orchard of mini fruit trees - 15 of different types and we are starting to get that pay back which is nice.

Our original cherry tree that has produced upwards of 30kgs of cherries in previous years go hammered by a new local possum population this year and we have none...

In the veg garden we have a tonne of greens, tomatoes coming on nicely, rhubarb going beserk, raspberries being as prolific as always. Beetroot, zucchini, cucumber doing their usual thing and some pumpkin and watermelons starting to take off and invade can space they can find.

Hope to have a fair bit of our own stuff on the table on xmas day... fingers crossed!

[Brodlach]

Possums suck, I have a huge plum tree that they love . Neighbors have a pear tree maybe 25 metres tall that they live in and the parrots feast on the pears and consume my plums.

Never known someone to grow beetroot

You must have a large backyard or little grass mots

[Lightning McQueen]

We've just revamped our veg gardens after letting them relax for a season or 2.

A couple of years ago we planted an orchard of mini fruit trees - 15 of different types and we are starting to get that pay back which is nice.

Our original cherry tree that has produced upwards of 30kgs of cherries in previous years go hammered by a new local possum population this year and we have none...

In the veg garden we have a tonne of greens, tomatoes coming on nicely, rhubarb going beserk, raspberries being as prolific as always. Beetroot, zucchini, cucumber doing their usual thing and some pumpkin and watermelons starting to take off and invade can space they can find.

Hope to have a fair bit of our own stuff on the table on xmas day... fingers crossed!

Are raspberries easy to maintain? I've heard blueberries are like a weed, I'm gonna give them a crack next year.

[mots02]

We've just revamped our veg gardens after letting them relax for a season or 2.

A couple of years ago we planted an orchard of mini fruit trees - 15 of different types and we are starting to get that pay back which is nice.

Our original cherry tree that has produced upwards of 30kgs of cherries in previous years go hammered by a new local possum population this year and we have none...

In the veg garden we have a tonne of greens, tomatoes coming on nicely, rhubarb going beserk, raspberries being as prolific as always. Beetroot, zucchini, cucumber doing their usual thing and some pumpkin and watermelons starting to take off and invade can space they can find.

Hope to have a fair bit of our own stuff on the table on xmas day... fingers crossed!

Are raspberries easy to maintain? I've heard blueberries are like a weed, I'm gonna give them a crack next year.

We always had way more luck with raspberries than blueberries... might have been dumb luck... but massively productive. They grow on canes, just need something to tie them up and away they go.... cut down to pretty much nothing at the end of the cycle and they will come again.

[mots02]

Possums suck, I have a huge plum tree that they love . Neighbors have a pear tree maybe 25 metres tall that they live in and the parrots feast on the pears and consume my plums.

Never known someone to grow beetroot

You must have a large backyard or little grass mots

We've always grown beetroot... really easy and great to add to the weekend roast.

Not a particularly big backyard but decent, and definitely have prioritised growing areas over lawn.

[Brodlach]

Tomatoes were not very happy when I came home tonight

[Psyber]

My 3/4 acre garden in a semi-rural area is full of traversing rabbits and occasionally a fox drops by - I just found a half-eaten rabbit near my back door. We have two apple trees and a plum tree as well but at my age I can't be bothered netting them so the birds clean them up as they ripen...

Mind you I've never been a keen gardener, and I've just turned 81 - still driving a 6 speed manual Renault Megane RS 265 though..