How does your garden grow?

[ewt]

Bedraggledly, in my case.

A warm summer again, they aren't sure about rainfall though.

My passionflower appears to be still alive, as does one currant plant and the gooseberry. I thought they were destroyed by falling fence but this is not the case. Must set up something for the passionflower to climb... and hope that when the fence does eventually get replaced, the currants and gooseberries don't get trodden on.

Chives are very happy. Rosemary has succumbed to whatever weird-ass rust it had, I think. Mint everywhere, of course. Other perennials looking mostly okay so far.

Drains are a mess. I might try to have a go at sorting them out later if there is time and I am not-sore enough. Somehow, household plumbing tasks fall to me no matter where I am. I'd really like to get a greywater thing that doesn't SMELL TO HIGH HEAVEN set up this year; I have a vague PLN for this but it requires application of funds. Bah.

Veg bed is full of weeds except in the bits I managed to cover. Need to sort out raised beds... I'm better able to bend than I was earlier in the year, but even a little bit of elevation will help a lot. Potatoes - I want to do a stack again, because it seems like the best way.

Haven't started any seeds yet at all. Not good!

Lots of dandelions; might make bright yellow soup out of the flowers at some point.

Comments

[fwuffydragon.livejournal.com]

Hiya! If you want some spare seeds I have loads ...

[fwuffydragon.livejournal.com]

I have most of them on an excel spreadsheet ... shall I email it to you?

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

I've got loads and loads of seeds. If you have purple tomatoes, purple pumpkins or black tomatoes, or purple basil, I'm interested in those... else I'll use what I have I think.

[fwuffydragon.livejournal.com]

I think I have purple basil ... and I wasn't going to use it this year. Email me your postal address and I'll pop it in an envelope. fwuffydragon at gmail dot com

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

Contact details here (http://ewtikins.livejournal.com/435748.html).

[403.livejournal.com]

In what ways are dandilion plants edible?

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

Flowers, leaves, root (http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Taraxacum+officinale) are all edible.

:)

[arkady.livejournal.com]

Though dandelion acts as a very effective diuretic if taken in sufficient doses - not for nothing is its French name pis-en-lit; literally, "wet-the-bed".

Dandelion soup would be a pretty effective tonic for the kidneys, but be prepared for an awful lot of trips to the bathroom....

[hennes.livejournal.com]

Everything in my allotment is growing quite well, including all the weeds.

Tomorrow I will head back to Eindhoven and work some more in the allotment. Sunday I hope to do quite a lot more.

So far the PLNs.

[pungoose.livejournal.com]

Suggest you read this before building a greywater thing (http://www.oasisdesign.net/greywater/misinfo/index.htm).

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

I'm not planning on anything as complex as that.

What I had last year is external pipes that go from the washing machine and one of the sink drains to a water container outside.

The flaw is that the water container was filthy to start with (it had been used as a bin by previous tenants) and the whole thing got rather smelly.

This year I'm thinking of a similar design, but with a solar powered fountain of some sort to keep the water oxygenated and less smelly.

Setting up stuff with bathroom drains etc is way too complicated for a house that is not mine to modify, and with a water butt collecting rainwater from the roof I don't actually need that much water for watering the garden.

I'll have a look through the site to see if I'm missing anything, but this isn't anything quite as complicated as 'build'. It's more 'arrange suitable large buckets'.

[pungoose.livejournal.com]

Ah. OK, I shall digest it:

Author of site in question, who is, as far as I can see, credible, is of the opinion that storage and pumps are trouble. Pumps tangle or block up; storing greywater means it goes stagnant and stinks. Oxygenating it would help, I guess, but if you do go that route, I suppose you want an acqarium pump that pumps air, NOT water, because the air isn't full of shit that'll block it. You could probably keep the pump indoors & run off the mains, and run an air pipe out to aerate the tank. However, I don't know whether aeration will actually work.

I suspect you want to collect sink/washing machine water in a medium size bucket so you can then water things with it. Obviously more automation would be nice, but means mucking about with housey things. Hm. I suppose some laid out pipes to carry washing machine water to the beds the plants are in might work... big pipes, like, plastic drainpipes, that is, not small ones like garden hoses (that'll block up). (And if you try and push the water through small pipes with the washing machine's pump, it'll likely burn out).

In short, keep it simple.

I occasionally wonder about composting kitchen waste out front, but I do have very very little area, and I suspect composting is best done with patience, rather than in a flaming great hurry. I don't have anywhere to use the compost, either... and my local authority doesn't collect degradable stuff for composting.

[velvetpurrs.livejournal.com]

I think I would tend to agree. The best advice I've seen so far on grey water use is to let it cool (from bath/sink/whatever use), make sure you use as few products as you can, and if you have to, then use eco-friendlies. And then, use the water as soon as it's cooled - within 12-24 hours.

So, what comes to mind, is grey water into a rainbutt. Let it cool in there, then turn on the tap and let it all drain out completely, via a network of hoses off it, to various points around the garden. Obviously you'd need to throttle back the flow of the nearer points vs the further, to make sure the furthest still got watered...

And drain the waterbutt completely (so put the tap right at the bottom, tip it up, whatever it takes really) to stop it from going pongy.

I'm seriously considering fitting a diverter onto the bath waste which will just empty it into a hosepipe, with a tap on the end. Divert it, pull plug on bath, tap keeps it in hosepipe. Leave it to cool in the bath (this may result in bath needing cleaning more often) then open tap and wander around garden watering stuff :)