Hi from North Lincs

Hi Folks,

My wife and I have been working on our plot since moving in July 2015. In part it has been a distraction from the big expensive things that need doing on the house!

We've a substantial apple tree, Bramley I think that is now half tamed. There's also a sour cherry (picked clean by blackbirds and starlings every year!) and a Victoria plum that is now possibly on its way out with fungi. Between the plum and the cherry is a well established gooseberry bush.

I've removed Lleylandi from a whole side (a lot of work over last year!) and then we've replaced the area with a veg patch. My wife is hoping to create a separate mint patch and a herb patch down at the bottom.

We had huge problems with slugs at first, however by removing the things they like to hide under and taking any we find to the other end of the field where lots of birds live we seem to be largely on top of that. Next came the cabbage whites, spent several days picking them off the broccoli. It turns out we planted most things too late last year. We got plenty of parsnips up and a bit of kale but no squash before the frost got it so many lessons learned!

It'll be good to have people to consult and share stories with, we went to a local gardening thing but they just wanted to talk about pretty flowers and all the chemicals that they were so fond of. Personally I'm more interested in learning about natural pest control, so need to find a source of British ladybirds for the greenhouse this year!

All the best,
Colin

 

to GC @Beddo and Happy New Year to you

Lovely to have you join us, Colin. I'm not much of a fruit/veg grower myself (I like talking about pretty flowers ) but we do have some very knowledgeable members on here who enjoy growing fruit and veg.

Might be of help if you could pop your (general) location into your profile so that it shows up under your picture when you post? I know you've put North Lincs in this thread title but members will forget that when you start posting over the forums

Do have a good nosey around (but please excuse the mess, New Years Eve party plus all the mucky pups about ) as I'm sure there are plenty of topics which will be of interest to you.

Looking forward to getting to know you around the forums

 

@Beddo Welcome. I grew up in South Lincolnshire.
For natural pest control I've used these people for sometime Natural, Biological and Organic Pest Control from Green Gardener
website quite informative. Other suppliers are available.

 

Welcome to GC @Beddo

 

Nothing against flowers myself, my wife has dabbled with a few and we're looking at a load of lavender for the bees. Front garden has some begonias that we picked up cheap from Sainsbury's - 50p and we only wanted them for the pots they came in as they looked nearly dead. Popped them in the garden and they grew well for more than 6 months before succombing to the winter!

Nigel - Thanks for the link, I'm not sure if I've seen that before but the Mycorrhizal fungi biscuits are of interest from some of the stuff I've been reading.

Cheers FC, I tried amending my email and this time noticed that it said it needed both email and admin activation after clicking the activation link. My own fault for seeing the success and then clicking elsewhere, could have saved a lot of time

 

Welcome to GC Beddo. Like "M" I'm not really a veg grower but do know you should think carefully before letting mint loose in your garden as it tends to be rampant. Many moons ago I can remember my dad taking a scythe to my grandparents garden every year just to keep it under control as it takes over.