[HelenaP_EONNext]

The Harvest Season! 🍓

Hello Everyone 👋,

This year we have seen some lovely warm weather throughout the UK!

In the UK, the harvesting season is usually seen in July to as late as October. I thought this would be a wonderful time for anyone with a passion in gardening to share their thoughts! 🍅

• What have you planted this year?
• What variation of plants do you currently have in your garden?
• Have you harvested any plants? What were you able to harvest this year?
• Are you planning on or preparing to plant anything new for autumn or next year?
• Do you have any great gardening tips?
• Which is your favourite plant in your garden?

This year I have seen a nice harvest of some Greengages, Raspberries and Lavender! ✨

Are you working towards your contribution to a Sustainable Future? Do you have any pollinator-friendly flowers? 🪻

My favourite plant in the garden, and one that has bloomed very suddenly! Is my White Roses 🌹

I am also very much looking forward to the 2024 Harvest Moon which should take place on September 18th 2024 and preparing for my favourite time of year, Autumn! 🍂

I would love to see and hear about all of your harvests this year and your wonderful gardening tips!

I think my next challenge will be a pumpkin patch 👀 🎃

[Tommysgirl]

@HelenaP_EONNext

I've planted potatoes, blueberries, and both an orange and a lemon plant that I've managed to grow from pips. The orange and lemon are in pots and will have to come indoors once the frosts are forecast.

I have quite a variety of plants in my garden: Roses; fuchsias; a blue iris; two Acers; conifers; hydrangeas; lavender; various bedding plants; a small apple tree; two holly bushes; my potatoes and blueberries; and two rowan trees that I've grown from berries.

I've harvested my potatoes and got quite a good crop, but there are no berries on the blueberries yet, and the jackdaws raided the apples just as they were forming nicely.

I'll be planting some spring bulbs such as daffodils and snowdrops fairly soon.

Tips; Keep everything well watered and feed plants regularly with plant food, and spray roses with something like Roseclear to keep them free of bugs and diseases.

My favourite plants are my roses, I planted some of them in honour of family and loved ones, and also in memory of lost loved ones. I even have a Freddie Mercury one, in memory of my favourite singer. Here's a picture of 'Freddie':




Have a lovely evening.😃

[HelenaP_EONNext]

@Tommysgirl

Ooo blueberries sound great! We did once find that some potatoes had grown in our garden by accident due to the compost pile! 😅 Oranges and lemons will also certainly be lovely, I did have a small orange and lemon tree but my dog as a puppy ate the whole tree and left just the stubs! 😂

It sounds like you have quite the variety of plants! I love to see a garden full of life 😊

I will have to look into Roseclear as I have not heard of this! I am very new to my garden starting to flourish

The roses look beautiful, I love the colour! 🏵 and such a lovely sentiment!

What a great name also, I recently watched a tribute act to Queen and they were quite good, the singer certainly had some pipes!

[meldrewreborn]

We’ve had a great crop of apples this year. Ours is called James Grieve - a cross between a cooked and an eating apple - so they’re a bit larger than normal eating apples. They’re very crisp when first picked but lose that after 4-5 days. We freeze surplus as cooked apple, or pies.

the tree is probably over 40 years old now.

[Tommysgirl]

@HelenaP_EONNext

It'll take two to three years before the orange and lemon produce any fruit from what I've read, buy I'm glad that they've actually germinated and grown from pips. Amazon and most garden centres sell Roseclear, and the major supermarkets do in Spring and early Summer. My grandad and dad used to spray their roses with soapy water using washing up liquid. That was the traditional old-fashioned way of caring for roses, and it might work just as well as the more expensive sprays like Roseclear. 🌹

I've seen clips on Youtube of Sam Ryder singing Queen songs, and he's pretty good, and there's a less well known man, Rob Lea who sings in a Queen tribute band called 'Majesty', who's good too.

[HelenaP_EONNext]

@meldrewreborn Oh that sounds great! My grandpa provided me with some tree starters and one of them is an apple which i'm very excited for 🍏 They grow some lovely green apples perfect for apple pie! 😋

I have also noticed the pears are starting to come through, which will be great for some pear and cranberry muffins!

@Tommysgirl Do you have any good tips for germinating fruit from the seeds? I would like to give this a try 😊 These are some good tips I will need to start trying with my roses!

I believe the tribute I saw was 'Flash' 🤔

[meldrewreborn]

@Tommysgirl

Essentially we need to combat bugs and separately fungus like black spot. Whatever products you use, I always buy a concentrate which I use in my pump up sprayer. Make sure to thoroughly wash it out if it’s been used for weed killing previously.

sometimes products disappear from the shelves due to regulation changes. Sometimes though they are still available in different concentrations for other purposes. One sold as a drench to deal with vine weevils, is the same product as a withdrawn systemic bug killer, albeit in a different concentration. Research is the key to beating the system.

[Tommysgirl]

@HelenaP_EONNext

I have two twelve section seed trays with lids that you can open a little to let air through. I filled them with seed and cutting compost and just got the pips out of the oranges and lemons and put one pip in each section. I covered them over with compost, kept them on the kitchen windowsill and watered them lightly about once a fortnight. It took about three to four weeks for them to germinate, and I only got three oranges and one lemon to germinate out of 24 pips. Once they started to grow properly I transplanted them into small pots, and now they're in bigger pots. I water them lightly twice a week. I gave two of the orange plants to my brother, he's kept one and given the other one to one of his two grandsons, who at 13 is already a keen gardener. Here's a photo of the orange I took before I moved it outside:




And this is the type of seed tray that you can get. I bought mine from Amazon, but garden centres and DIY stores sell them too:



I hope that helps.😃

I'll look the tribute band 'Flash' up on Youtube. Have a great day.😃

[Tommysgirl]

@meldrewreborn

Thanks for the tips. I'll try the concentrate and sprayer from now on.

[HelenaP_EONNext]

@meldrewreborn These are some great tips for plant care!

@Tommysgirl I tried to do some herbs once in small biodegradable pots but it did not work out well 😅 I will have to buy some proper containers and try it this way!

Really great tips I will be using for my next round of planting, hopefully I can restart the herb garden and see some progress! 🌿

Hope you have a lovely rest of the day!