Mumsy's Romantic Garden Advice

[MumsyII]

Thanks Mumsy, will tryto do what you suggest. I must be honest that I am not that keen on using liquid fertiliser as I am very nervous about introducing a chemical to my plants/ground with my chickens. I will take 2 cuttings and put liquid fertiliser with them and leave the others just water and plant them in selective areas when they are ready.

On another topic, today we ate our first ever cauliflower that we grew from seed. It was enormous and tasted yummy. Unfortunately bugs got to the other plants and the cauliflowers are half eaten but at least we had 1

. We gave the leaves of the cauliflower plants to the chickens and the babies (3.5 weeks old) and they shredded the leaves in seconds WOW.

We harvested some carrots and gave the green tops to the girls and they don't want to touch it - I really thought they would love the dark green but no.

We have tomatoes that are growing beautifully but hope the weather stays hot enough for them to ripen. Last year we also grew tomatoes but they never ripened, but we had almost solid rain for months on end and no sun. Last summer - well we did not have one!

There is nothing tastier in my husbands and I opinion than fresh grown vegetables right out of the garden. Home grown cauliflower if one of our favorites.

Carrot tops are related to Queen Ann's Lace wild flower, and Parsley. They are part of the umbelliferous family. My chickens just don't like the smell of this plant. They are picky about this group of vegetables but love the Cabbage family of which cauliflower belong to. The Brassica or cruciferous vegetables are their favorite. Kale, Collards, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Brussel Sprouts. All the leaves of these plants are devoured by my Silkies especially.

Tomatoes belong to the Nightshade family. The leaves are toxic. Chickens will go for the ripe red fruit but know better than to eat the leaves.

 

[MumsyII]

Vegetable gardening goes hand in hand with ornamental gardening in my world. It's so easy to tuck herbs between ornamentals. Fruit bearing bushes like Blue Berries between Azaleas and Rhododendrons. Onions and garlic can be tucked into any little space. Strawberries grow easily in the front of a flower border. Those that don't send out long runners adapt very well. Those Strawberry varieties that do send out runners make wonderful ground covers. I have fennel coming up next to roses. Pumpkin vines growing through the raspberry row. Pear and plum trees in the hedge. Hazelnuts also in the hedge. Beans grow up anything that will support them. Peas make an effective screen if grown on chicken wire.


Sugar Snap peas reaching into the sky over the top of my arbor in the potager garden.

There is beauty even in a simple vegetable like a pea pod.

The list goes on. I can find something to nibble on nearly every month of the year wandering around my gardens. I can even pull a dried rose hip off a shrub in the dead of winter and chew on it.

The plant for the right spot. Ornamental or edible. Together is the way I do it.


The furthest corner to the South East of my property is probably the least loved. But there is beauty even here if you look up. A sweet red cherry tree was planted before we moved here. I planted a thick rose hedge using mostly ramblers. There is more rose than cherry tree but we still get fruit. Though the birds get the lions share. My dad used to tease me. Saying, "Janie, you don't have dirt to spare." He is so right. When the dirt ran out, I started growing things upward.

 

[Kassaundra]

I have a mulberry tree I really want to take cuttings from in this next week or so, so this discussion and instruction has been great for me.

On the topic of cuttings are there any fruit trees/bushes or nut trees that can be propogated from cuttings and come true.

 

[Kassaundra]

Oh and could someone explain soaking a cutting in willow water?

 

[echosrevenge]

I would never take a cutting from a nursery, or even from someone's yard without permission. That is indeed stealing. Public spaces are sort of grey to me, I'd ask permission first, but nurseries and yards are definitely private property. If it was something crazy rare and amazing that was hanging all overgrown way far out over the sidewalk from an obviously badly neglected yard, I might consider it, but never without at least trying to obtain permission.

I can't believe someone would come to a nursery and just take cuttings. Wild. Reminds me of the saying "it's not that it takes all kinds, its just that there ARE all kinds."

Bernie (my grandma) was a bit of a wild card, she raised 5 boys on her own in the 40's and 50's without the social benefit of being a widow...she didn't much care what anyone thought of her.

I'm definitely gonna hassle the wine shop with the huge gorgeous climbing rose....

 

[echosrevenge]

Kassaundra, im not sure exactly what the willow water was - some (I presume) willow-based concoction my grandma used to keep cuttings shed take while out and about. Given how easy it is to root willows, and how many rooting solutions contain willow in one form or another, im sure it worked well, but I wouldn't try it myself without more research.

 

[MumsyII]

Any cutting off the original plant is considered a clone. A direct copy of the parent plant. Seeds are something else altogether when it comes to hybrids, cross pollination, and sterile seed.

We don't have Mulberry trees here so I can't help you there but you can try. No harm ever in trying.

Take a bunch of fresh willow branches. Stick them in a five gallon bucket of tepid water. Leave the bucket in a corner for a few days. The willow bark will leach out it's hormone rooting properties into the water. Use that water to jump start your cuttings.

There are technical names for the process but I have spelled out the easiest way.

Edited to add: You could throw a few branches of the Mulberry tree right into the same bucket with the steeping willow branches. I wonder if they would root in the bucket right along with the willow?

 

[Kassaundra]

Cool I have willow I can sure do that.

I know mulberries are able to be started from cuttings from previous research.


I have a ton of forsythia I have started from cuttings from my Gma's old bush, and even cuttings from the offspring of those cuttings.

I have heard blueberry can also be started from cuttings.

 

[Quailsong]

Beautiful, totally subscribed.^^

 

[MumsyII]

I would never take a cutting from a nursery, or even from someone's yard without permission. That is indeed stealing. Public spaces are sort of grey to me, I'd ask permission first, but nurseries and yards are definitely private property. If it was something crazy rare and amazing that was hanging all overgrown way far out over the sidewalk from an obviously badly neglected yard, I might consider it, but never without at least trying to obtain permission.

I can't believe someone would come to a nursery and just take cuttings. Wild. Reminds me of the saying "it's not that it takes all kinds, its just that there ARE all kinds."

Bernie (my grandma) was a bit of a wild card, she raised 5 boys on her own in the 40's and 50's without the social benefit of being a widow...she didn't much care what anyone thought of her.

I'm definitely gonna hassle the wine shop with the huge gorgeous climbing rose....

My dad told me it was dealing with people that finally drove my Grandparents into retirement from the nursery business. It is what made me put a chain across my driveway as well. When you invite the public onto your private property that also happens to be your place of retail, you get all types. Most people are gracious and appreciative. They know they are going to be treated to something special from special collections of plants not offered in the chain nursery's. The horror stories my Grandparents told and that I could tell you would curl your eyebrows.

I came home once with my children from shopping at the village grocery store and a woman was loading two five gallon buckets of flowers and cuttings from my gardens into the back of her car. I asked her what she was doing. Her reply, "I figured you had so much, you wouldn't mind me taking some." True story. I took my sign down for good that day.
That is the reason no one has been invited back into my gardens in twenty years.