What to do.....

First topic message reminder :

I wonder if any keen Gardening folk amongst us all would like a reminder of what we should be doing on a monthly /weekly basis. I know I am the world's worse and always seem to be late sowing seeds and planting. Maybe a remnder on this site would help us keep on track and encourage us to get on and just do it ? If a few of us did think it was a good idea, maybe we could take in turns to post ?

Blimey............Grapefruit !!!! I'm guessing the weather is a little better in Sicily ?

Well done !

V

Lax growing water plants sound great, but a long way down the line for us I think.

Angela, yes the old water bottle was used by us many years ago before we swapped over to watering systems. My little greenhouse in the UK was the love of my life (mainly toms and a grape vine) and the water bottle upside down was the easiest and quickest way to water into the grow bags. However when we  were going away more often on holiday it was a bit much having to ask neighbours to look after the watering and to be blunt they just did not have time to do it right. Hence a watering system and timer. Never looked back since, not just the greenhouse, we had flowering baskets and pots everywhere, all taking care of by one little timer. Here we have 2 rather large veg patches, fruit patch, herb garden and of course flowers around the house. So that would be a lot of plastic bottles to fill! The 4 timers we have here look after things when/if we go back to the UK. It is a bit more tricky here as the system is not buried as it was in the UK. This is due to it needing to be a little more versatile here, but causes problems on the connections coming adrift due to the heat at times... The initial cost is quite high, but it will last for years (well apart from the timers 3-4 for them if we are lucky). Doing it again here I would look to buy local bigger bore feed pipe and better quality.

Had to look around for this post as I knew Modi had said about it being too hot in the summer down there in the South (mind you a crop of grapefruits sounds wonderful - not sure how I missed that post). Anyway I've been thinking about it since quite a lot. Mostly to do with what we are eating now from the garden, most planted last Sep/Oct. I'm sure these would grow well down South and need little or no water... Cauli, broccoli, cabbage, beetroot, onions and garlic. Along with artichokes and asparagus, these would be well worthwhile for little effort....

ghiro wrote:Lucky you Steve.  In our neck of the Italian woods using mains water for your garden/lawn/orto is strictly proibito.    

Is that true?  I'm sure that our neighbours use mains water.  Also, without asking him to, our architect installed an outdoor tap so that we could easily hook up a hose.  In fact we've not been established long enough to make use of it, but I'm surprised that he'd put one in if it's not allowed.

What is allowed and what  almost all Italians do is a very different matter. It likely also depends on the area you live. We have mountain supply water and I suspect would only ever have a ban in real prolonged heat. However just 30 minutes away on the coast they can't even drink their water most of the summer and it is often switched off...

just taking a moment out of mushroom stuffing for Angela...actually i've found that it is possible to sow over couch grass,well not really sow, just sprinkle clover seeds,in one area where i did this i had surprisng results in that the clover has almost entirely suffocated the couch grass AND a lot of other hard weeds.The only down side which is not too bad is that it does grow prolifically and requires a lot of very regular cutting however even when a bit long doesn't look as bad as ragged grass and weeds.Certainly worth trying.So for those who don't do or like digging give it a go....

I'm sure admin will tell us clover has lots of benefits (I know it does), but very interesting to hear about it battering couch grass... We have a large swathe of land (about a third of the total, so say 3000 sqm we have giving over to grass (read weeds). It is absolutely amazing the change to this land (which the previous owner had someone stick a tractor over it twice a year) and its contents. We have found the more we mow it the more lovely wild flowers appear and differ if we collect or don't and at different times of the year. In particular the large amount of clover we have we collect in the "grass" box and compost at the beginning and end of the year, but leave during summer....

I must try the clover solution, we do have a lot of it around.............but the rockery Couch grass is a nightmare AND it pushes up through the plastic matting that I have there.

Re planting through the year............I found this for Perugia which might be of interest ?
[url=http://allthingsplants.com/apps/calendar/?q=Perugia, Italy]http://allthingsplants.com/apps/calendar/?q=Perugia,%20Italy[/url]

V

stevegwmonkseaton wrote:Double digging is very hard work, but it is the way I was brought up to do... However, reading the link I added heavy mulch looks a promising way of avoiding digging at all and kills almost all the weeds as you go. To me it seems well worth trying on a small area and see how it does. As to it becoming rock hard in the blazing sun, as with everything here it needs to be watered very regular, but yes a little breaking of the top layer does no harm and is absolutely nothing like digging.

Well partly successful, we now have a 1m x 6m layer of couch grass, but to be fair we did not do as we should have and dug out the little couch grass that was there earlier. All the other weeds were and still are dead!

Time to start a new year! A few days in and already started to realise just how much work it is to do the smallest of jobs. Failed to get around to the pruning of most of our fruit trees, so catching up now. A little late, but started with the apricot and moving on to the plums, apples and pears to follow. Note from OH records from last year that we bought onions, lettuce and basil plants last year. Onion (bulbs) were put into pots to root and planted a week or two later. The basil we kept in the "conservatory" as it was too cold to be out, but we did end up with very early basil. Pea, carrot, beetroot and fennel seeds can be planted now in the veg plot. It's not too late for summer veg seeds in trays, but they need cover. Here it's forecast for 4-5 days below -2c overnight, so not too sure if we will wait for most things...