Thanks for reading my blog post yesterday and for your comments.
I have been thinking about how to give my tomato seedlings and other vegetables some much needed additions to their compost to drive them on a little.
I don't really want to try my liquid " garden tea" on seedlings. It may be too rich for them just yet? modern shop bought composts are made from crushed bark, coir and perhaps a bit of peat? I find there are very few plant nutrients in them.
Saying that Lidl have a lovely John Innes number 3 mix in at the moment. It contains loam soil and I find it excellent especially for potting up plants it's five Euros something but I find the more you pay the better the compost and the cheaper the poorer the compost.
I realised that I still had some organic seaweed and chicken pellets that I bought from our local German garden centre and supermarket and beer providers last year. Do you remember?
The only thing I don't like about that said supermarket is if they get something new you like they never seem to get it back again. Like this stuff:
Is love organic? I give them that.
ReplyDeleteGood one YP.👍
ReplyDeleteSounds like you already have what they need seaweed, chicken manure, but only very dilute, oyjrt wise you get big plants and few fruit. Later bananas/skins and ground up eggshell will be good for flowering
ReplyDeleteKathy
Thanks Kathy. I have been putting the broken and crushed egg shells near the lettuces along with my beer slugs. I was reading the other day that milk given in small quantities to tomatoes provides calcium and prevents blossom end rot. We have stacks of fym consisting of pig, pony and rabbit manure. Thanks again for the veg feeding tips.
ReplyDeleteI scattered chicken poo pellets in my new raised beds as an extra layer of nutrients, along with home made leaf mulch and compost, I am trying to feed the top soil as much as I can to keep it rich and productive. The thought of emptying any slug beer bars makes me feel sick, I can pick off snails but slugs are horrible.
ReplyDeleteAll good natural soil additives and plant foods Marlene. Just empty the slug beer bars outside and the birds will have a feast. I have just been topping up my slug pubs with old unwanted cider. It's working wonders.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of slugs I was always of the understanding that hedgehogs eat them. We built a hedgehog diner and restock it daily. The bowls are a empty every morning and we find slugs lurking about (slightly dried up slugs I must admit - as if, possibly, the hedgehogs have sucked their insides out and left the skins behind.) Do you suppose that hedgehogs skin slugs before they eat them?
ReplyDeleteCould be Tigger's Mum. I know they have a hard reputation and give themselves names like Spike. I wish we had hedgehogs and frogs in the veg garden.
ReplyDeleteWe visited the german supermarket, over an hour away, last week. All it had in the way of plants were a few little pots of flowers. Now and again they have herbs, mint, parsley, dill, packets of seeds and very rarely small bags of compost. Very disappointing, especially after reading of what you can find. They do have tins of octopus though and frozen kalamari. And salted Irish butter!!! I always stock up on that. It's half the price of the other varieties
ReplyDeleteTins of octopus? Gosh that's different Linda. We have a very good store near us and West Cork residents are made of native Irish, English, Dutch and German and Polish and other Eastern European countries and Spanish who have moved because of free movement in Europe. So they stock food and drink from a lot of these countries. Unfortunately they don't stock English beer and I have to drink Carlsberg or go to Kerry for my Newcastle Brown Ale. We find a lot of Lidl stores are different and stock different items. There is one really big store in Tralee and it's range of products is large.
ReplyDeleteP used to put chicken manure pellets on his veg plot at our old place. Now we just have cat poo.
ReplyDeleteHmmm... I wondered if you were ok JayCee after you said you weren't feeling wellIs there near you on the IOM? Send P for a bucket of lion or Elephant poo. Then put it on your garden and any garden invaders look at the size of the big poo and think: "Yoikes Scooby. What creature's done that?" You can buy King Cat Keepoff spray and spray it in different areas of your garden. Vinegar spray is said to do the same thing.
ReplyDeleteYou don't want to know what I use to perk up compost, but I do it in a secluded part of the garden and it avoids going into the house in dirty shoes.
ReplyDeleteWee wee? Male urine is said to be very good to add to the compost heap Tasker. Can I ask a silly question? It occured to me the other evening after rereading your blog about your carrot tub. Does it have drainage holes? If not you can soon drill some.
ReplyDeleteIt's the top half of the water butt. I put the lid at the bottom so it drains all around and also through what was originally the hole for the drainpipe in.
DeleteWife says Bob Flowerdew talking about adding urine to the compost heap heap on Gardeners World but did not demonstrate.
I knew you would have thought about drainage Tasker. Flowerdew is a wonderful name for a television gardener. I suppose they could of shown a potty full of cold tea like the pints of Newton and Ridley in the Rovers Return?
ReplyDeleteI like the chicken pellets and throw a handful of those onto each of my pots once a year and water it in. I know some people who soak them in water and use the resulting tea to water seedlings or vegetables.
ReplyDeleteChicken pellets tea sounds just the ticket River.
ReplyDelete