A useful link

This blog post is really short as it consists entirely of a link to someone else's page.

However I thought you would all find it interesting; I did considering all the blackberries I pick and eat straight off the branch..

So, before you go doing any more foraging, check out this link:

How to get worms out of Blackberries

And, kind of on subject, here is a picture of the blackberries I harvested last year.

I wonder how many little worms are frozen inside this lump.

Mint flowers, Mushrooms and Tomato update

Happy Sunday morning people.

Today I have another brief post; not much seems to be happening to update you on at the moment and I'm also totally focused on my plans for emigrating to do this full time.

I had some some very useful comments on a previous blog which is what prompted this blog. First of all, the flowers on the Mint, and then the diseased Tomato.

Mint flowers really are gorgeous... and they smell divine too. Click on the picture to enlarge it and see the details. I used scissors to cut these off as my secaturs are no where to be found. Hopefully now all the energy will go into essential oils and growing the rest of the plant, and not into making these beautiful blooms.

While I was by the Mint I noticed these little fellas which have appeared in the last day or two at the base of the Geranium. I'm leaving them for now, to see what happens. This Geranium has not flowered yet, I'm not sure if the mushrooms are indicative of a reason.

The other helpful advice was this link to a page about diseases, and specifically ones effecting Tomatoes. I am not 100% sure if this Tomato is suffering from Anthracnose or Sour Rot. Either way I had to remove it from the vine.

Here is a detail of the removed Tomato.

And here is another one. I may chose to keep this and see what happens now; obviously away from the other plants to avoid contamination.

It's not all bad news on the Tomato front though; there are quite a lot of clusters of fruit like this which have appeared towards the top of the plants. Hopefully I will get a good harvest from these yet.

So there you are, brief but sweet.

Thanks for reading.

And keep gardening

What a great idea...

This is just a quick update to link to a great idea I came across. I am definitely going to be trying this out with my tomatoes this year

http://skruben.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/how-to-self-watering-seed-starter-pots.html

Suffice to say I will be attempting to not grow more than 100 tomato seedlings this year either...

Anyway, I just wanted to share this.

Cheers

What I am growing (plus a cracking link - facebook)

So I decided to do a quick plan of our back garden showing where things are growing at this stage (obviously this will become out of date relatively quickly so, yeah...)

I can't really dig up any more of the grass else my girlfriend will shout at me (and the landlord may have a comment to make too...)

Not included in this (yet) are the chillis, tomatoes, mint, peppers and mushrooms that I am cultivating inside.

Also a useful idea I picked up off a friend's facebook (sadly I can't find the link but credit where it is due for this) is this:

I am going to make one myself later today and I will update this post with a picture of the result (and whether it works or not!)

Also this idea is a particularly cracking one, and one I will definitely try next year (I have whisky cabinets to build this year so that will take all my wood working skills up for the time being) is this:

Again credit where it is due and I have a link this time: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=404405099572046&set=a.208688125810412.59759.195391367140088&type=1&theater which is on the facebook page https://www.facebook.com/pages/ByzantineFlowers/195391367140088 along with a load of other cool ideas (though I really do think this one is the best) so get along there if you want.

Finally, a little technical tip picked up from a book that the almost-inlaws gave me for my birthday. If you are trying to do a compost heap, turn it regularly. I have not been doing this and when I tried to the other day it proved VERY difficult, especially as I have one of those plastic bin things with limited access and sharp edges (which shredded my hands while I was trying to fork the forking thing over)...

So there you are, top hot tip of the day.

Composting - breaking it down to it's component....

So, this post is coming rather quickly after the first... I don't expect this to continue really.

But I was sitting at work thinking about composting so in my lunch I found the following links that people may find useful.

First of all: www.recyclenow.com/home_composting :: there is a lot of information here including a link to find out if you local council is providing cheap compost bins (blackpool does)...

This blog looks good, and has the following useful page about making your own compost bin.

Finally, and from the same blog, is a useful list of what you can add to compost. I plan on making a printable list of the "greens", "browns" and "don't" so if I get that done I'll try and add it to this post.

Anyway, that's enough for now.

TPTH