wrote in message
...
mogga wrote:
My plot is stuffed with beans, courgettes and bits of stuff.
Son is fed up with beans already.

*grumble*grumble*

I don't know /what/ is going on. Even the plots full of 6' tall weeds
have
beans sticking out of the top of the weeds! But every single one of my
bean
plants has been munched to skeletal and dead. :'(
My only beans this year are the ones I put in hanging baskets, and of
course,
they don't get enough water to keep them happy.

I didn't know you could plant beans in hanging baskets. How does it work?

Tina

wrote in message ...
In article ,
Christina Websell wrote:
"kay" wrote in message
...


Ah - I don't think I phrased my question very well. I wasn't asking
about the amount of effort you put in, but more about the amount of
weeds.

Yes, weeding for three hours solid is a lot, whatever the weather. But
having enough weeds for it to take three hours if I were to get them all
out isn't, for my garden, a lot. My laughingly named "vegetable garden"
is a tiny fraction of an allotment in size, but I'd expect a good
afternoon's weeding just to get that small space clear.

So I was wondering whether going to the allotment and finding there was
3 hours worth of weeds was a lot, because normally you'd only expect
half an hours worth of weeds.

Yes, I thought it was a lot. I expected maybe an hour.
The thing is we've reclaimed it from my goat paddock and every weed in the
world is trying to establish itself in the bare soil now and they are very
successful.
Spurge is the worst, it gets a foot high in no time. Also mallow.

I spent about 5 hours on Sunday, and did only about 2/3 of the area
(and most of that fairly roughly). But I had let it get a little
overgrown. I find that lawn grass is the worst, followed by hairy
bittercress, though the bulk of my weeds were chickweed, spurges
and shepherd' purse.


Although I find it a pain in the a*** to have to weed, I am interested about
what weeds are there. I have a lot of Fool's Parsley. Evening primrose has
appeared. Opium poppies too.
Something that looks like a potato when it comes up, one of the nightshades.
Spurge is the worst thing on my veg patch. It's not like the small type I
have in my garden, it gets to 2 foot high and branching.
It was a bad moment when I pulled up the poppies to give my onions more room
:-(

I think we could start a new thread on who has which weed!

In my vegetable area the most abundant weeds are Herb Robert, dog violet, alpine strawberry and enchanter's nightshade.

I don't have any shepherd's purse at all, though I do have hairy bittercress. And the only mallow I get is Musk Mallow, Malva moschata, which, having been introduced, seeds itself effectively into gravel paths.

Spurges are trivial by comparison (even though I have 5 species which try to get into p[laces where they are not wanted)

In article ,
Granity wrote:

You should have harvested the chickweed. :-)

"Chickweeds are Medicinal and edible, they are very nutritious, high in
vitamins and minerals, can be added to salads or cooked as a pot herb,
tasting somewhat like spinach. The major plant constituents in Chickweed
are Ascorbic-acid, Beta-carotene, Calcium, Coumarins, Genistein,
Gamma-linolenic-acid, Flavonoids, Hentriacontanol, Magnesium, Niacin,
Oleic-acid, Potassium, Riboflavin, Rutin, Selenium, Triterpenoid
saponins, Thiamin, and Zinc."

I have, and have eaten it both cooked and raw in salad. It is
better in the latter, but the operative word is "unexciting".

Where did you get that New Age mumbo-jumbo from?


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Christina Websell wrote:
I don't know /what/ is going on. Even the plots full of 6' tall weeds
have
beans sticking out of the top of the weeds! But every single one of my
bean
plants has been munched to skeletal and dead. :'(
My only beans this year are the ones I put in hanging baskets, and of
course,
they don't get enough water to keep them happy.

I didn't know you could plant beans in hanging baskets. How does it work?

You can plant anything in hanging baskets, Tina. ;-)
Whether they /thrive/ there, or crash to the ground, is a different matter.

They're ... doing ok, considering, but I don't think they are getting anywhere
near as much rain as they want. It was just a wild act of desperation - I had
spare baskets (we hang chitting potatoes in them in the spare room) and spare
liners (bought 30+ of them for 10p each in January) and a bunch of plants, but
every time we planted on the allotment, they got munched. Seemed a good idea
at the time.

Haven't had any pickable yet, but there are a fair few baby ones which /may/
be big enough for the show on Saturday. I won't be entering the Biggest Bean
competition this year, I can say that right now.

Christina Websell wrote:
Something that looks like a potato when it comes up, one of the nightshades.

I have a huge nightshade growing in a basket in the front. I have no idea
where it came from, but it's doing really well!

My next door neighbour and I both have Mysterious campanula, that look identical
(very short, same colour!) and no idea where they came from.

The biggest 'weed' on the allotment this year is the parsnips, which were seeded
from the next plot and have totally taken over the onion patch. I didn't want
to pull them up, but they've become a bit of a slug/snail haven. (nto that there
are many slug-free areas!)

wrote in message
...
Christina Websell wrote:
I don't know /what/ is going on. Even the plots full of 6' tall weeds
have
beans sticking out of the top of the weeds! But every single one of my
bean
plants has been munched to skeletal and dead. :'(
My only beans this year are the ones I put in hanging baskets, and of
course,
they don't get enough water to keep them happy.

I didn't know you could plant beans in hanging baskets. How does it
work?

You can plant anything in hanging baskets, Tina. ;-)
Whether they /thrive/ there, or crash to the ground, is a different
matter.

They're ... doing ok, considering, but I don't think they are getting
anywhere
near as much rain as they want. It was just a wild act of desperation - I
had
spare baskets (we hang chitting potatoes in them in the spare room) and
spare
liners (bought 30+ of them for 10p each in January) and a bunch of plants,
but
every time we planted on the allotment, they got munched. Seemed a good
idea
at the time.

Haven't had any pickable yet, but there are a fair few baby ones which
/may/
be big enough for the show on Saturday. I won't be entering the Biggest
Bean
competition this year, I can say that right now.

Well, you have taught me something. I had no idea you could plant runner
beans in hanging baskets.
Good luck for the show

On 15/08/2012 02:08, Christina Websell wrote:
wrote in message
...
Christina Websell wrote:
I don't know /what/ is going on. Even the plots full of 6' tall weeds
have
beans sticking out of the top of the weeds! But every single one of my
bean
plants has been munched to skeletal and dead. :'(
My only beans this year are the ones I put in hanging baskets, and of
course,
they don't get enough water to keep them happy.

I didn't know you could plant beans in hanging baskets. How does it
work?

You can plant anything in hanging baskets, Tina. ;-)
Whether they /thrive/ there, or crash to the ground, is a different
matter.

They're ... doing ok, considering, but I don't think they are getting
anywhere
near as much rain as they want. It was just a wild act of desperation - I
had
spare baskets (we hang chitting potatoes in them in the spare room) and
spare
liners (bought 30+ of them for 10p each in January) and a bunch of plants,
but
every time we planted on the allotment, they got munched. Seemed a good
idea
at the time.

Haven't had any pickable yet, but there are a fair few baby ones which
/may/
be big enough for the show on Saturday. I won't be entering the Biggest
Bean
competition this year, I can say that right now.

Well, you have taught me something. I had no idea you could plant runner
beans in hanging baskets.
Good luck for the show


I would never plant runner beans in a basket.
I'd always go for French beans every time, and would use a water
retaining polymer in the compost to cut down on stress.
David @ a very warm end of Swansea Bay where we are going to be hit by
very heavy rain in the next hour

On Tue, 14 Aug 2012 20:35:53 +0000, kay
wrote:


;966625 Wrote:
In article ,
Christina Websell wrote:-

Spurge is the worst, it gets a foot high in no time. Also mallow.-

I find that lawn grass is the worst, followed by hairy
bittercress, though the bulk of my weeds were chickweed, spurges
and shepherd' purse.


I think we could start a new thread on who has which weed!

In my vegetable area the most abundant weeds are Herb Robert, dog
violet, alpine strawberry and enchanter's nightshade.

Alpine strawberries aren't a weed are they?

I think herb robert is liked by the bees.


I don't have any shepherd's purse at all, though I do have hairy
bittercress. And the only mallow I get is Musk Mallow, Malva moschata,
which, having been introduced, seeds itself effectively into gravel
paths.

Spurges are trivial by comparison (even though I have 5 species which
try to get into p[laces where they are not wanted)
--
http://www.voucherfreebies.co.uk

David Hill wrote:
Well, you have taught me something. I had no idea you could plant runner
beans in hanging baskets.

As I said, it's not ideal, but it seems to be the only way of getting anything
for me this year. :-(

Good luck for the show

Ta. I made aronia-berry jam last night, but it seems to have turned a bit like
toffee. So far I have a pencil drawing and a 'unusual container' planting ready,
plus I /think/ I have 4 onions suitable (but not really prize-worthy). This is
going to be my first year or not being able to show courgettes. :-(

I would never plant runner beans in a basket.
I'd always go for French beans every time, and would use a water
retaining polymer in the compost to cut down on stress.

I have both runner + french, but the runners are the only ones currently showing
a crop. There are water-retaining crystals and sponge bits in the baskets, plus
the one that is performing best has a black plastic liner rather than a better
draining one. If I do this again next year, I'll think harder about the water
retention (given it's very very hot in our back garden, and these baskets are
tricky to water)

mogga wrote:
In my vegetable area the most abundant weeds are Herb Robert, dog
violet, alpine strawberry and enchanter's nightshade.
Alpine strawberries aren't a weed are they?

Anything is a weed if it insists on growing where it isn't wanted

My experience is that anything described as "tasting somewhat like spinach" is at best something you would eat only if there were nothing else available. Nettle is probably the best of the bunch, and I don't go out of the way to eat that.

That said, there's a rather nice cheese called Yarg which is wrapped in nettle leaves. Not sure whether its taste has anything to do with the nettle leaves.

Every year I reduce the alpine strawberries to a six inch wide strip around the edges of the borders. That gives us copious amounts of strawberries to add to our breakfast cereal each morning and enough spare to freeze. By the end of the growing season, they have covered the entire borders and the paths in between. Anything that I have to pull up by the armful most definitely qualifies as a weed!

kay wrote:
My experience is that anything described as "tasting somewhat like
spinach" is at best something you would eat only if there were nothing
else available. Nettle is probably the best of the bunch, and I don't go
out of the way to eat that.

I am told ground elder is quite tasty and good in omlettes. I have never
tried it.

No-one would get to eat the chickweed by us, the chickens munch through it
much quicker than I can get to it

That said, there's a rather nice cheese called Yarg which is wrapped in
nettle leaves. Not sure whether its taste has anything to do with the
nettle leaves.

Must be pronounced with a Cornish (or at least, Somerset) accent!

On 08/16/2012 10:53 AM, wrote:
kay wrote:
My experience is that anything described as "tasting somewhat like
spinach" is at best something you would eat only if there were nothing
else available. Nettle is probably the best of the bunch, and I don't go
out of the way to eat that.

I am told ground elder is quite tasty and good in omlettes. I have never
tried it.


Ground elder is actually quite nice if it's young. And of course you
feel quite victorious eating it. Prepare as for, uh, spinach...

Someone once served us nettle ice cream, believe it or not it was quite
nice!