Hmmm!  Yes Rob!  What is it with courgettes?  They are so temperamental!  Yours sound like mine.  Crispy outer leaves but healthy looking centre growth that’s slow to grow.  I think it can come out of its bubble wrap today.

Two years ago I had one running rampant, resulting in many jars of chutney, but last year I completely failed with one.  Of the two in my daughter’s garden, the slowest one to start proved to be the best.  

On another note, I think we’ve killed our green grape that grows up the veranda.  Hubby put weed killer on the block paving a couple of weeks ago, then jet washed and re-sanded it last week.  We think the jet washing flushed the weed killer down to the vine roots as the leaves have wilted.  

We've had an exceptionally "anty" year too, Rob. They seem to have scouts in the kitchen most of the time and if we leave anything unwise lying about - like a honey spoon - the word soon gets round. We have no idea where they get in. There are anthills in the sheep field next door and lots of ants in the front garden too. I am wondering if we are in for an early "Flying Ant Day".

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/when-why-winged-ants-swarm-nuptial-flight.html

I am about to mow the lawn before it gets too hot.

Roger

Sorry about your woes Rob.

Not gloating at all, but we just received a nursery delivery we placed a week before Easter(!) including plants we've since brought from seed, including runners. But we hadn't any success with courgettes and we've just received 6 beauties (obviously we didn't bring these on). They are going to be, no doubt, in Innes number 16 special or the such. Weather looks courgette-good from her on in, but not sure what our funny soil will do to them.

Runner beans are climbing well and look like they have flower buds forming.  Getting them out early May have paid off.  The courgette certainly enjoyed today’s warmth and sunshine and my sunflower seeds are through!   The lawns are going a bit yellow as we’ve had very little rain since March, so I’ve got the sprinkler out on one this evening and will give the other a drink in the morning before the sun comes up.

My peas are looking a bit too strong to eat as salad pea shoots and may end up being planted in the garden to grow on.  I’m trying a different method for use in salads, just sprouting them in a tub!  We’ll see how that works.  

Two or three years ago we had courgettes coming out of our ears, to the extent that the following year we decided to plant something else. Went for butternut squash and got a grand total of one squash to show for nurturing two plants right through to autumn. 

Our soil here is terrible, it is thin sandy acid heathland stuff. Local flora that thrives is gorse, bramble, heather, broom and rhododendrons.  (Although strangely I have tried growing heather and azaleas in the garden and failed with both!)

The veg are in raised beds filled mostly with compost from our two bins. Our compost output has soared since we got rabbits. They predigest all the bramble cuttings a treat 🙂 Bramble seems to be their favourite food, which is handy as we have masses of the stuff and a single shoot can grow nearly a foot in a day!

Rob I sympathise with you regarding soil condition.  Ours wasn’t great either but is much improved after many years of digging in home made compost, tea bags, coffee grounds and wood ash.  Rather than a veg patch, I grow herbs, fruit and veg in my mixed borders, so digging around the perennials is a bit of a pain and I’ve had a few casualties but it’s paid off.

Bagged compost has been hard to get hold of this Spring, so I’ve re-used what I had in containers last year, mixed with stuff from our compost bin. This year’s Apache chilies have gone into the same pot as last year’s and I have far more than the three I planted!  Obviously self sets from the fruits that dropped last year.  A bonus but will be giving away quite a few!  

That light, sandy soil, with limited improvement, would be ideal for some crops- I seem to remember carrots like it light & drained. Other root vegetables like parsnips and, I think, potatoes do well as they root deep to get to moisture because of the excellent drainage.

But poor fertility and drought pose problems. I had a look about as I'm sure you have, Rob. This looked interesting wrt improving soil quality.

https://www.growveg.co.uk/guides/the-secret-to-improving-sandy-soil/

May not help ... best of luck anyway.

Yes, carrots and potatoes tend to do well here but we have never had much luck with radishes - they grow masses of top growth and then when you pull them up there's nothing underneath! And rosemary and lavender thrive too, as mentioned in that article.

However much compost we add to the beds it always seems to turn to dust, though!

I reckon that's the right thing to do. Tomatoes, sayeth Monty, should always be planted deep as it encourages stronger rooting and lower shooting- could be the same for cucumbers.

After gloating about our courgettes, two have now got major snaps from yesterday's wind.

Dry weather has meant almost no slugs and snails out but we're getting an increasing greenfly problem, especially on lettuces and weaker tomatoes. Having to top&tail wash every lettuce leaf before consuming. They don't seem so keen on the rocket.

Well the cucumber is still looking healthy and another new leaf is appearing from the centre so it seems to have worked so far. Amazing that the water can still get through once the stem has collapsed like that.

I’m also enjoying the lack of slugs and snails. No greenfly yet on our lettuces. Our big rose bush is once again covered in mildew as it seems to every year, especially when it is dry, but it never seems to stop the display of flowers. Not sure what variety it is but it’s very vigorous and fills one whole corner of the garden. Some type of musk rose I think, with cream flowers that fade to white. It looks fantastic but the flowering period only lasts for two or three weeks from around late May to mid June, depending on weather.  

Should the bottom layers of my compost bin be riddled with ants and wood lice?

Sounds like it's too dry? Mine is just riddled with worms, dozens of them in every spadefull.

Robs compost sounds like it's going well. Add a couple of cans of water Saint and keep it moist but not overly so.

An accelerator helps as well.

For a free accelerator, Saint, you can do no better than "chamber lees" as they called it in Lincolnshire. Best diluted. Main thing is as said - to get the heap wet - but not too wet. You don't want "anaerobic" conditions.

R.

Indeed Roger. I suggested he uses that very same compound I think last year. It's also a great tomato feed too, diluted of course.

Good for lawns or indeed most horticultural endeavours.

When I was a kid, in the days before inside toilets and central heating - a piss pot or gozunder was found in most bedrooms. You could tell my Gran was in the privy by the fag smoke coming out of the little "window" in the door. Wee went on the garden - why not?

In these lockdown days of closed public toilets I find myself yearning for the absence of "pissoirs" - but that's a typical selfish male thought...

The excellent one near Radio Lincolnshire in Lincoln has been closed for some time. How mean! Here's the Twickenham Pissoir. Luxury! Enjoy.

https://londonist.com/london/secret/london-s-most-glorious-toilets-the-twickenham-urinal-pissoir

Roger

 p.s. I was using one of these in Rome some years ago when a classy lady came in, stood next to me, gathered up her long dress and had a perfectly successful wee, as far as I could judge from a distance. I was a bit surprised and still can't answer the obvious question...

Pee is also a way of clearing up Fungal nail infection so every time you have a shower piss on your afflicted toe.

We’ve temporarily removed our compost bin due to the woodshed relocation and my son is missing it!  All his life he’s used it as his ‘loo’, he’s 31 now!   Nothing better for getting your compost working than pee!

My runner beans are 4foot high with flower buds, my tumbling toms have flower buds and my courgette is finally having a growth spurt but my dwarf French beans are not doing a lot.  I’ve planted out my competition sunflowers over buckets full of compost in the sunniest part of the garden, away from any veg plants as I’ve read they send out toxins to keep the ground around them clear.  Fingers are crossed as I have tough opposition.  My kids and my siblings!  

Picking up from the UIA virus thread on hosepipe bans (which would seem to belong here)

The lawns here have noticeably gone brown in last week, and even some street trees are showing signs of stress.

I'm surprised that water suppliers in the SE are worried, as most of the water for this region is from underground supplies. The level of  local well at Chilgrove is about average for the time of year and the Lavant winterbourne is still running though declining.

Yes, the aquifers have been thoroughly well-charged and although soil moisture is low just beneath the surface and the lawn is yellowing, everything deep rooted including the fruit trees seems fine here.

An additional horticultural stress might be temperatures if some of the long fetch cold air in the models settles in for a few nights, with HP reasserting, dropping the winds and drying the air. Frost pockets to the midlands and ground frosts possible here. I thought I'd tucked the fleeces away for the year after that late cold spell in May!

I think the warning about water usage was because demand is so high, rather than supply being low.  Severn Trent were saying our pressure may drop due to demand with people being at home.  I expect everyone’s gardening and I have to admit to putting the sprinkler on our yellowing lawns. 

My runner beans are now showing red flowers!  Yay!  Thank you weather gods but please don’t send frosts to spoil all your good work!  

I spent some time on the phone trying to persuade my wife's nephew in London not to throw out 5000 gallons of water from his inflatable pool because the latest batch of chlorinating chemicals had deposited a bit of sediment (which IMO will be sucked up by the filtration system - and certainly ought to be given the chance to do so overnight). He uses the pool for exercise, swimming like mad but with a rope tied round his waist to prevent him going anywhere.

Down here, I've put in the bedding plants from seed (cosmos, antirrhinum etc). Not the ideal weather for planting out, first hot then cold, and I shall have to keep them well watered, but they were really getting too large for the seed trays.