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Saharan chickweed?

Posted: July 25th, 2018, 9:01 pm
by stewamax
The dry spell has sent my border weeds and lawn weeds into hibernation. But chickweed seems to be impervious to the drought and where previously I would have had an interesting variety of unwanted greenery to contend with, its now just chickweed, chickweed and ... chickweed.
Anyone else noticed this?

Re: Saharan chickweed?

Posted: July 26th, 2018, 9:16 am
by bungeejumper
Not around these parts (West Wiltshire) - the drought even seems to have put the speedwell on hold. :D

Still, it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good. Apparently chickweed is edible, and it's even tasty and nutritious. (I never knew that.) So what are you waiting for? Chickweed salad, chickoburgers, Kentucky Fried Chickweed. Who says there's no such thing as a free lunch?

BJ

Re: Saharan chickweed?

Posted: July 26th, 2018, 10:39 am
by Rhyd6
Chickweed is rampant in my borders and there is a lot of it on the allotments but luckily the chooks absolutely love it.

R6

Re: Saharan chickweed?

Posted: July 26th, 2018, 3:12 pm
by neversay
Chickweed always does well in my garden but, I agree, it is the only thing thriving at present. We are forecast thunderstorms tonight and tomorrow, plus rain on the weekend. Do others think the plants will grow like crazy when the rains arrive?

Today I dug up the remaining onions and (tiny) spuds so my small vegetable plot is bare (except for asparagus fronds). We are away for most of August and September so that's it for me for this year. I got off to a flying start after the Easter storms but it has turned out to be a really bad season for me (work-life is just too busy). How have others fared?

Re: Saharan chickweed?

Posted: July 26th, 2018, 3:33 pm
by Breelander
neversay wrote: How have others fared?


The garlic ripened too early and too small. My first red(ish) tomato appeared today in my 'greenhouse' (well, propagating tent actually) but then they have had to be watered copiously at least once a day.

Re: Saharan chickweed?

Posted: July 26th, 2018, 3:44 pm
by Rhyd6
We have 8 allotments on our bottom field and things seem to be doing well. Courgettes especially. I don't bother with an allotment myself, OH hates gardening and these days we try and go away to the caravan on Anglesey as much as we can so I don't really have the time. The allotments were first started during WWII and my father and friends grew copious amounts of veg for the village. There were 15 allotments then and as we have natural springs there has never been a problem with watering them. I was down there the other day and there seems to loads of runner beans, courgettes, squash, leeks, carrots and plenty of outdoor tomatoes which are pale yellow at the moment, one chap has a plastic greenhouse and has had loads of cucumbers and his tomatoes are delicious. Fruit bushes seem to be doing well, black, red and white currants, gooseberries, raspberries are almost finished so are the loganberries. We charge £1 a year for the allotments though gifts of fruit and veg are always appreciated.

R6

Re: Saharan chickweed?

Posted: July 26th, 2018, 4:17 pm
by neversay
Breelander wrote:
neversay wrote: How have others fared?


The garlic ripened too early and too small. My first red(ish) tomato appeared today in my 'greenhouse' (well, propagating tent actually) but then they have had to be watered copiously at least once a day.


Same here with the garlic. I had three small red tomatoes on my two tomato plants until my 7-year-old son smushed them with the football.

All the T&M plug plants I carefully potted on in late April never got put in the ground. No doubt they would have got smushed by the football too...

Re: Saharan chickweed?

Posted: July 26th, 2018, 6:05 pm
by bungeejumper
It's been mixed down here in West Wilts, but not many complaints really. Outdoor tomatoes have come on really early - we've been eating the miniature ones (grown in pots) for four weeks now, and the standard Ferlines (chosen for their blight resistance) have been on song for a fortnight now. By contrast the Marmande beef tomatoes have been very slow to develop, which is odd since they're supposed to like this southern European weather. :lol:

Courgettes and pumpkins - rather slow to set flowers, for some reason - I suppose it must be the heat? We have enough of both, but no gluts likely this year. Runner beans likewise, but our climbing French have swamped us with produce and we're giving them away right, left and centre.

Best chilli harvest ever (in the greenhouse) - I decided to pick them off and ripen them on a string, and then I put the plants themselves into the compost heap because there's no way they'll survive while we're away on holiday. Besides, there are limits to how many chillis you can eat. :shock: We have about 60 (jalapeno and Inferno), all 4-6 inches long and looking good.

Sweetcorn is loving this weather! Eight feet tall and setting the cobs nicely at the moment. I never water my onions on principle, so they're only the size of golf balls, but they're still good for the kitchen. Red onions have had the heat they need, even if they haven't had the water. Elephant garlic has done well. Leeks doing fine.

An amateur geophizz writes: The drought has given us some visible clues as to the direction of an underground watercourse which winds its way through our garden. (It's where the plants are growing the best...) And across the road in the churchyard, we can see the grid pattern of 18th and 19th century graves that have been lost to view for many generations.

Just as long as I don't get to see the plague pit. Yes, it's down there somewhere. :?

BJ

Re: Saharan chickweed?

Posted: July 27th, 2018, 3:44 pm
by Slarti
Dandelions are my bumper cropping weeds, this year.

We have one recently recovered bed where we scattered a load of cheap meadow flower seeds, and I seem to have to spen half an hour per day removing the Dandelions. And they are about the only thing growing on the "lawn".

The meadow flowers are pretty though. Just wish SWMBO hadn't thrown the seed packets away, then we might have some idea of what we are growing.


Slarti

Re: Saharan chickweed?

Posted: July 27th, 2018, 6:08 pm
by stewamax
Apparently chickweed is edible, and it's even tasty and nutritious. (I never knew that.) So what are you waiting for? Chickweed salad, chickoburgers, Kentucky Fried Chickweed.

Hmm. I have a particularly luxuriant and burgeoning patch of chickweed all around my monkshood (aconite).
So this may be my Last Post...

Re: Saharan chickweed?

Posted: July 28th, 2018, 9:08 am
by bungeejumper
stewamax wrote:Hmm. I have a particularly luxuriant and burgeoning patch of chickweed all around my monkshood (aconite).
So this may be my Last Post...

I once tried to grow some nearly-black aconites, but failed miserably. Year after year, they would grow, flourish and then quickly die. I think they were poisoning themselves. :lol:

BJ

Re: Saharan chickweed?

Posted: July 29th, 2018, 10:36 pm
by sg31
I put raspberry canes in earlier in the year. I didn't expect them to fruit this year but they have done really well. We've had plenty of fruit for the last couple of weeks and it appears there's a lot more to come. Sugana and Tulameen.

Strawberries were mixed half the bed produced lots of fruit but the other half was disappointing. Strange because they are 3 varieties but not separated, just planted in any order.

The runner beans started cropping at the beginning of last week. I'm already giving bags of them to anyone who will take them.

Gooseberries cropped well and we stopped the sawfly larvae dead. My wife picked them all off by hand and drowned them. They haven't returned.

Tomato, just starting to crop. Had a bad problem with blossom end rot because I couldn't get enough water to them. That seems to have eased now. Sungold taste very good some of the others not so much.

I did put a lot of Portuguese Laurel hedging plants in early in the year. Some are doing well but 6 have shrivelled up. The current rain might stop more doing so.

My grass is brown, the only green in the lawn is weeds. I can't spray due to the dry weather.