Fellow allotmenter gave me some seaweed stuff diluted ready to go on
the plants. Just spray it on he says.

Suspect the container I put the seaweed spray in wasn't really
clean...
hmmm... got some very dead looking potato plants and runner beans.
hmmmmm

--
http://www.freedeliveryuk.co.uk
http://www.holidayunder100.co.uk

mogga wrote:
Fellow allotmenter gave me some seaweed stuff diluted ready to go on
the plants. Just spray it on he says.

Suspect the container I put the seaweed spray in wasn't really
clean...
hmmm... got some very dead looking potato plants and runner beans.
hmmmmm


Sounds like the old seaweed and glyphosate special. Ouch! You don't
think he did it on purpose do you? There are some strange people about.
While most gardeners tend to be mutually supportive, or even a little
competitive, some can take things a little too far.

--
David in Normandy.
To e-mail you must include the password FROG on the
subject line, or it will be automatically deleted
by a filter and not reach my inbox.

On Sun, 14 Jun 2009 18:06:14 +0200, David in Normandy
wrote:

mogga wrote:
Fellow allotmenter gave me some seaweed stuff diluted ready to go on
the plants. Just spray it on he says.

Suspect the container I put the seaweed spray in wasn't really
clean...
hmmm... got some very dead looking potato plants and runner beans.
hmmmmm


Sounds like the old seaweed and glyphosate special. Ouch! You don't
think he did it on purpose do you? There are some strange people about.
While most gardeners tend to be mutually supportive, or even a little
competitive, some can take things a little too far.


Nah I mostly suspect it was already in my plant sprayer which we
inherited when we took over the plot ... although if it was they
never used it on the ground as we had some antique weeds growing..

The plot has changed hands a lot though - no one stops long on it
apparently...

So can I still eat the spuds if it's glycowhatsit or other
plantkiller? Is it worth digging them up?

--
http://www.freedeliveryuk.co.uk
http://www.holidayunder100.co.uk

mogga wrote:

So can I still eat the spuds if it's glycowhatsit or other
plantkiller? Is it worth digging them up?


Can't give a definitive answer. The ultra safe answer is not to eat them
and dig them up for the compost heap. However, I've eaten some potatoes
from plants that had a "glancing blow" while spraying weeds alongside.
The plants survived but were poorly for a while. The potatoes themselves
looked superficially ok and tasted normal, but I noticed they did not
keep well.

However, you can't be sure it was glyphosate or something more
obnoxious? On that basis I wouldn't eat them and just compost them.

The normal practice is to keep different sprayers. One specifically for
weedkillers. Alternatively, to always thoroughly wash out after using
a weedkiller.

--
David in Normandy.
To e-mail you must include the password FROG on the
subject line, or it will be automatically deleted
by a filter and not reach my inbox.

David in Normandy wrote:
mogga wrote:

So can I still eat the spuds if it's glycowhatsit or other
plantkiller? Is it worth digging them up?


Can't give a definitive answer. The ultra safe answer is not to eat them
and dig them up for the compost heap. However, I've eaten some potatoes
from plants that had a "glancing blow" while spraying weeds alongside.
The plants survived but were poorly for a while. The potatoes themselves
looked superficially ok and tasted normal, but I noticed they did not
keep well.

However, you can't be sure it was glyphosate or something more
obnoxious? On that basis I wouldn't eat them and just compost them.

The normal practice is to keep different sprayers. One specifically for
weedkillers. Alternatively, to always thoroughly wash out after using a
weedkiller.


Better still, give up using chemicals and pesticides. Go Green, go
organic. So much better for you and the environment.
I have a large garden, and a my husband has a good sized vegetable
garden, we don't use any chemicals. The veg are doing well and so are
the flower beds.

Bobbie

Bobbie wrote:
David in Normandy wrote:

Better still, give up using chemicals and pesticides. Go Green, go
organic. So much better for you and the environment.
I have a large garden, and a my husband has a good sized vegetable
garden, we don't use any chemicals. The veg are doing well and so are
the flower beds.


What do you use to prevent / cure rust on the onion family? My chives
seem very prone to attack at this time of year. Similarly how do you
prevent / cure blight on potatoes and tomatoes?

--
David in Normandy.
To e-mail you must include the password FROG on the
subject line, or it will be automatically deleted
by a filter and not reach my inbox.

David in Normandy wrote:
Bobbie wrote:
David in Normandy wrote:

Better still, give up using chemicals and pesticides. Go Green, go
organic. So much better for you and the environment.
I have a large garden, and a my husband has a good sized vegetable
garden, we don't use any chemicals. The veg are doing well and so are
the flower beds.


What do you use to prevent / cure rust on the onion family? My chives
seem very prone to attack at this time of year. Similarly how do you
prevent / cure blight on potatoes and tomatoes?


Would you believe me if I was to tell you that so far we have not been
blighted in this way.
I think a lot has to do with being able to use untainted compost. from
our own compost heaps. Made up of goat, horse, and chicken manure, to
which we add kitchen waste, and garden waste. Maintained, organically
and allowed to rot sufficiently to produce a viable sweet smelling
crumbly black final compost. Added to that, possibly the most temperate
climate in England, warm and sunny Dorset. I don't grow for instance,
plants that I know to be prone to disease, aphids are dispatched with
soft soap solution or simply by hand, same with slugs and snails.
Grand-daughters are bribed into hand picking any caterpillars that dare
to escape all other methods of removal. John uses cages and lots of
netting. We lose a few things to inclement weather but fingers crossed
we haven't come across anything that hasn't responded to a little extra
tender loving care, and a lot of Mozart.
There are any number of good organic remedies for most garden pests and
vegetable blights.
I confess to a bad case of powdery mildew on a honeysuckle but amazingly
it survived and this year is looking and smelling lovely


Bobbie

"Bobbie" wrote in message
...
David in Normandy wrote:
mogga wrote:

So can I still eat the spuds if it's glycowhatsit or other
plantkiller? Is it worth digging them up?


Can't give a definitive answer. The ultra safe answer is not to eat them
and dig them up for the compost heap. However, I've eaten some potatoes
from plants that had a "glancing blow" while spraying weeds alongside.
The plants survived but were poorly for a while. The potatoes themselves
looked superficially ok and tasted normal, but I noticed they did not
keep well.

However, you can't be sure it was glyphosate or something more obnoxious?
On that basis I wouldn't eat them and just compost them.

The normal practice is to keep different sprayers. One specifically for
weedkillers. Alternatively, to always thoroughly wash out after using a
weedkiller.


Better still, give up using chemicals and pesticides. Go Green, go
organic. So much better for you and the environment.
I have a large garden, and a my husband has a good sized vegetable garden,
we don't use any chemicals. The veg are doing well and so are the flower
beds.

Bobbie

Water is a chemical. I hope you haven't given up using that ;-)

wafflycat wrote:

"Bobbie" wrote in message
...
David in Normandy wrote:
mogga wrote:

So can I still eat the spuds if it's glycowhatsit or other
plantkiller? Is it worth digging them up?


Can't give a definitive answer. The ultra safe answer is not to eat
them and dig them up for the compost heap. However, I've eaten some
potatoes from plants that had a "glancing blow" while spraying weeds
alongside. The plants survived but were poorly for a while. The
potatoes themselves looked superficially ok and tasted normal, but I
noticed they did not keep well.

However, you can't be sure it was glyphosate or something more
obnoxious? On that basis I wouldn't eat them and just compost them.

The normal practice is to keep different sprayers. One specifically
for weedkillers. Alternatively, to always thoroughly wash out after
using a weedkiller.


Better still, give up using chemicals and pesticides. Go Green, go
organic. So much better for you and the environment.
I have a large garden, and a my husband has a good sized vegetable
garden, we don't use any chemicals. The veg are doing well and so are
the flower beds.

Bobbie

Water is a chemical. I hope you haven't given up using that ;-)

Ah, butt.! We have rain water butts wherever we can put a drainage pipe.
We use them for perforated hose irrigation in places and always use rain
water whenever lime is not recommended. John has also utilised rain
water butts to set up a kind of capillary watering system for the green
house to water the tomatoes and cucumbers. We do live in a hard water area.
I do drink tap water, will I die?

Bobbie;-)

Bobbie wrote:
David in Normandy wrote:
Bobbie wrote:
David in Normandy wrote:

Better still, give up using chemicals and pesticides. Go Green, go
organic. So much better for you and the environment.
I have a large garden, and a my husband has a good sized vegetable
garden, we don't use any chemicals. The veg are doing well and so are
the flower beds.


What do you use to prevent / cure rust on the onion family? My chives
seem very prone to attack at this time of year. Similarly how do you
prevent / cure blight on potatoes and tomatoes?


Would you believe me if I was to tell you that so far we have not been
blighted in this way.
I think a lot has to do with being able to use untainted compost. from
our own compost heaps. Made up of goat, horse, and chicken manure, to
which we add kitchen waste, and garden waste. Maintained, organically
and allowed to rot sufficiently to produce a viable sweet smelling
crumbly black final compost. Added to that, possibly the most temperate
climate in England, warm and sunny Dorset. I don't grow for instance,
plants that I know to be prone to disease, aphids are dispatched with
soft soap solution or simply by hand, same with slugs and snails.
Grand-daughters are bribed into hand picking any caterpillars that dare
to escape all other methods of removal. John uses cages and lots of
netting. We lose a few things to inclement weather but fingers crossed
we haven't come across anything that hasn't responded to a little extra
tender loving care, and a lot of Mozart.
There are any number of good organic remedies for most garden pests and
vegetable blights.
I confess to a bad case of powdery mildew on a honeysuckle but amazingly
it survived and this year is looking and smelling lovely


Bobbie


Organic gardening is something I aspire towards but haven't quite made
it. The only non-organic things I use a

1. Glyphosate, but that is mainly for my drive which is around 300
metres long and needs treating several times a year to keep it weed
free. There are also other parts of the garden (just over an acre) that
have weed problems. We have one area set aside as a wildlife area and
allow everything to grow there untouched by human interference. There is
a nice mix of grasses and wild flowers but also a number of nettles and
brambles which make the area impenetrable (for humans).

2. Slug pellets. I use these sparingly, sometimes too sparingly as the
slugs and snails occasionally destroy my seedlings. I've lost an entire
batch of lettuce this way. I don't tend to use slug pellets on the
garden when plants are more mature, just when they are young and vulnerable.

3. Fungicide. Bought last year as a result of rust on my chives. It
seems effective at curing the problem. I've also given my tomato plants
a preventative spray and similarly one of the potato patches which looks
like it is a bit ill.

4. Most of my fertiliser is from my compost heaps, but some plants get a
scattering of general purpose granular fertiliser such as the potatoes.
Other greedy feeders such as the runner beans get a treat of Miracle
grow periodically, as do the strawberries, courgettes and tomatoes.

Other than the above I shun chemicals. I tend to spend an average of
half an hour every day in the garden weeding one patch or another, so
the glyphosate is a godsend in untended / jungly areas and paths.

Maybe in time I will end up fully organic. It seems to be a juggling act
between conflicting interests including a lack of time to spend on the
garden and getting reasonable veg yields.

We do get a lot of wildlife in the garden which I try to encourage in
various ways. Today I saw a little red butterfly, first time I've seen
one like that. Only small, but red all over.

--
David in Normandy.
To e-mail you must include the password FROG on the
subject line, or it will be automatically deleted
by a filter and not reach my inbox.

Bobbie wrote:
wafflycat wrote:

"Bobbie" wrote in message
...
David in Normandy wrote:
mogga wrote:
snippy
Ah, butt.! We have rain water butts wherever we can put a drainage
pipe. We use them for perforated hose irrigation in places and always
use rain water whenever lime is not recommended. John has also
utilised rain water butts to set up a kind of capillary watering system
for the
green house to water the tomatoes and cucumbers. We do live in a hard
water area. I do drink tap water, will I die?

Bobbie;-)

Nah, just rust
--
Pete C
London UK

Bobbie wrote:

Ah, butt.! We have rain water butts wherever we can put a drainage pipe.

I've got a 500 litre water butt which is very useful, especially when on
a meter; besides it is better for the plants than tap water. I plan to
rig up another some time in the future. We also have an underground
water reservoir that catches something in the region of 3000 litres of
rain water (pure guess) plus a well which comes in handy in the case of
a prolonged drought, but it is a faff rigging up the pump and cables to
reach it.

--
David in Normandy.
To e-mail you must include the password FROG on the
subject line, or it will be automatically deleted
by a filter and not reach my inbox.

"Bobbie" wrote in message
...
wafflycat wrote:

"Bobbie" wrote in message
...
David in Normandy wrote:
mogga wrote:

So can I still eat the spuds if it's glycowhatsit or other
plantkiller? Is it worth digging them up?


Can't give a definitive answer. The ultra safe answer is not to eat
them and dig them up for the compost heap. However, I've eaten some
potatoes from plants that had a "glancing blow" while spraying weeds
alongside. The plants survived but were poorly for a while. The
potatoes themselves looked superficially ok and tasted normal, but I
noticed they did not keep well.

However, you can't be sure it was glyphosate or something more
obnoxious? On that basis I wouldn't eat them and just compost them.

The normal practice is to keep different sprayers. One specifically for
weedkillers. Alternatively, to always thoroughly wash out after using a
weedkiller.


Better still, give up using chemicals and pesticides. Go Green, go
organic. So much better for you and the environment.
I have a large garden, and a my husband has a good sized vegetable
garden, we don't use any chemicals. The veg are doing well and so are
the flower beds.

Bobbie

Water is a chemical. I hope you haven't given up using that ;-)

Ah, butt.! We have rain water butts wherever we can put a drainage pipe.
We use them for perforated hose irrigation in places and always use rain
water whenever lime is not recommended. John has also utilised rain water
butts to set up a kind of capillary watering system for the green house to
water the tomatoes and cucumbers. We do live in a hard water area.
I do drink tap water, will I die?

Bobbie;-)

Be careful, you never know.. ;-)

http://www.dhmo.org/


Sorry, it's one of my nitpicks.. this organic doesn't use chemicals. Apart
from the fact that *everything* is a chemical, organic does allow the use of
certain 'man-made' 'chemicals' I'm all for using the minimum and whenever
possible working with Mother Nature rather than fighting against her and am
against the *reliance* upon 'chemicals' but this blanket "don't use
chemicals' approach is plain wrong.

David in Normandy wrote:
Bobbie wrote:
David in Normandy wrote:
Bobbie wrote:
David in Normandy wrote:

Better still, give up using chemicals and pesticides. Go Green, go
organic. So much better for you and the environment.
I have a large garden, and a my husband has a good sized vegetable
garden, we don't use any chemicals. The veg are doing well and so
are the flower beds.


What do you use to prevent / cure rust on the onion family? My chives
seem very prone to attack at this time of year. Similarly how do you
prevent / cure blight on potatoes and tomatoes?


Would you believe me if I was to tell you that so far we have not been
blighted in this way.
I think a lot has to do with being able to use untainted compost. from
our own compost heaps. Made up of goat, horse, and chicken manure, to
which we add kitchen waste, and garden waste. Maintained, organically
and allowed to rot sufficiently to produce a viable sweet smelling
crumbly black final compost. Added to that, possibly the most temperate
climate in England, warm and sunny Dorset. I don't grow for instance,
plants that I know to be prone to disease, aphids are dispatched with
soft soap solution or simply by hand, same with slugs and snails.
Grand-daughters are bribed into hand picking any caterpillars that dare
to escape all other methods of removal. John uses cages and lots of
netting. We lose a few things to inclement weather but fingers crossed
we haven't come across anything that hasn't responded to a little extra
tender loving care, and a lot of Mozart.
There are any number of good organic remedies for most garden pests and
vegetable blights.
I confess to a bad case of powdery mildew on a honeysuckle but
amazingly it survived and this year is looking and smelling lovely


Bobbie


Organic gardening is something I aspire towards but haven't quite made
it. The only non-organic things I use a

1. Glyphosate, but that is mainly for my drive which is around 300
metres long and needs treating several times a year to keep it weed
free. There are also other parts of the garden (just over an acre) that
have weed problems. We have one area set aside as a wildlife area and
allow everything to grow there untouched by human interference. There is
a nice mix of grasses and wild flowers but also a number of nettles and
brambles which make the area impenetrable (for humans).

2. Slug pellets. I use these sparingly, sometimes too sparingly as the
slugs and snails occasionally destroy my seedlings. I've lost an entire
batch of lettuce this way. I don't tend to use slug pellets on the
garden when plants are more mature, just when they are young and
vulnerable.

3. Fungicide. Bought last year as a result of rust on my chives. It
seems effective at curing the problem. I've also given my tomato plants
a preventative spray and similarly one of the potato patches which looks
like it is a bit ill.

4. Most of my fertiliser is from my compost heaps, but some plants get a
scattering of general purpose granular fertiliser such as the potatoes.
Other greedy feeders such as the runner beans get a treat of Miracle
grow periodically, as do the strawberries, courgettes and tomatoes.

Other than the above I shun chemicals. I tend to spend an average of
half an hour every day in the garden weeding one patch or another, so
the glyphosate is a godsend in untended / jungly areas and paths.

Maybe in time I will end up fully organic. It seems to be a juggling act
between conflicting interests including a lack of time to spend on the
garden and getting reasonable veg yields.

We do get a lot of wildlife in the garden which I try to encourage in
various ways. Today I saw a little red butterfly, first time I've seen
one like that. Only small, but red all over.


It takes time, and a determination to put up with a few losses in the
beginning. I garden my ear, but I do have a very good collection of
gardening books that I refer to when in doubt, and of course there is
urg. It has taken me several years of trial and error to garden without
the use of chemicals. Careful choice of plants. ( I do love Hostas) .
Of course I couldn't have contemplated going wholly organic if I had
still been working, no time for messing about, but now I am retired I
have much more time, and a lot more determination, plus a lot of animals.
I'll look out a few book titles that have helped me.

Bobbie

http://www.smudgespatch.co.uk/newhome.html

Pete C wrote:
Bobbie wrote:
wafflycat wrote:
"Bobbie" wrote in message
...
David in Normandy wrote:
mogga wrote:
snippy
Ah, butt.! We have rain water butts wherever we can put a drainage
pipe. We use them for perforated hose irrigation in places and always
use rain water whenever lime is not recommended. John has also
utilised rain water butts to set up a kind of capillary watering system
for the
green house to water the tomatoes and cucumbers. We do live in a hard
water area. I do drink tap water, will I die?

Bobbie;-)

Nah, just rust

Hello Pete, how's tricks?

Bobbie:-)