Non alpines: other types of gardening: growing veg.etc for instance

[ronm]

Thank you Lesley. I will certainly use your post and show your website, as an example of 'best practise'.

[John85]

Hybrids of Vitis amurensis
Do you grow some?
What varieties?
How do you rate them?

[Diane Whitehead]

This year my Purple Cape cauliflowers have a very strong taste, quite unlike
how they usually taste.

Two of the plants were sown in August 2008, and the other one is only two
years old.  I'm not sure whether both sets taste bad. Unfortunately,  I generously
bestowed heads on all the gardeners who were at the allotments at the time. 
I offered seeds as well, but they won't be wanting any if theirs tasted the same
as mine.

Any ideas about what could cause the change in taste?

[John85]

Maximilian sunflower,Helianthus maximilianii
Does somebody grow that big perennial?
Mine doesn't look like the pictures on the net.Only one flower on the top like a Jerusalem artichoke(H.tuberosus)
How does yours look like?

[Brian Ellis]

Mine is'nt quite in flower yet John, when it is I'll post a picture, but there are definitely more than one flowers to the stem.

[Brian Ellis]

You may be able to tell from this?  You can see four or five buds on this stem.

[Rick R.]

If I remember correctly, the first flower to bloom on a stalk is at the top, but there is always many, many more.  I grew this in my pre-digital photography days, and here in Minnesota (USA), it doesn't begin blooming until the end of September.   The foliage is not at all like Jerusalem artichoke, and is pretty distinctive among large helianthus spp.  Here it is in the wild (late June):
http://nargs.org/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=455.0;attach=35930;image
Posted in this thread:
http://nargs.org/smf/index.php?topic=455.msg18805#msg18805

[John85]

Hello Brian,
Are the flowers opening close to the main stalk?
How tall are your plants,mine are more than 8' in rather poor soil .
Rick,
The foliage is that of maximilianii,only the plants produce very few flowers and the flowers are not close to the main stalk like shown on the web

[Maggi Young]

Rick, Thank you for the link to the  NARGS thread -I had missed the updates from this year and so this was a special treat for me. 


John, are you sure you are not growing a Triffid ?  8 foot already seems  a monster- don't stand too close- it may eat you!

[Brian Ellis]

Hello John,

The plants are about 6' in full sun, very poor soil and, as far as I remember the flowers are on quite short side stems, but I will take a photo when it is in flower for you.

[John85]

Maggi
8' are the short ones,the tallest is 10',but I am in no danger:I am not edible,just skin and bones!
Thank you Brian,I am waiting for your photo.

[ronm]

Seeing the Pine Sawfly on a different thread made me want to relate our experiences this year.
Every year we have suffered from attacks of various sawfly on our Gooseberry, Black, Red and White currants, and various Raspberry Cv.s. As we do not use any chemicals, control has been by hand picking, and putting them elsewhere to feed birds etc. This is effective if done at least twice a day, but with the number of bushes we have it is not only time consuming, but back breaking work.
Sawfly larva will drop off the foodplant at the first shake or sharp tap usually. Armed with this knowledge we decided to let the tall 'weeds' grow amongst our fruit bushes, in the hope that the constant movement of brushing weed stems against fruit branches, would put the sawfly off. I must mention that up until this year we had kept the fruit growing area totally weed free.
  Not a sawfly this year anywhere on our soft fruit. The bushes are buried beneath thistles, nettles, tall grasses etc. and picking is not as easy as in the past, but yields are great, and not a sawfly in sight . Now the fruit is picked we'll weed to enable pruning in winter, and see what next year brings with the same regime.

[Maggi Young]

Seeing the Pine Sawfly on a different thread made me want to relate our experiences this year.
Every year we have suffered from attacks of various sawfly on our Gooseberry, Black, Red and White currants, and various Raspberry Cv.s. As we do not use any chemicals, control has been by hand picking, and putting them elsewhere to feed birds etc. This is effective if done at least twice a day, but with the number of bushes we have it is not only time consuming, but back breaking work.
Sawfly larva will drop off the foodplant at the first shake or sharp tap usually. Armed with this knowledge we decided to let the tall 'weeds' grow amongst our fruit bushes, in the hope that the constant movement of brushing weed stems against fruit branches, would put the sawfly off. I must mention that up until this year we had kept the fruit growing area totally weed free.
  Not a sawfly this year anywhere on our soft fruit. The bushes are buried beneath thistles, nettles, tall grasses etc. and picking is not as easy as in the past, but yields are great, and not a sawfly in sight . Now the fruit is picked we'll weed to enable pruning in winter, and see what next year brings with the same regime.

Sounds a promising development, Ron. One that needs a pretty large area to accommodate the plan though, it would be rather claustrophic in a small garden, I think.
I am interested in your previous tactic of collecting the various sawfly grubs and "putting them elsewhere to feed birds"- my experience is only with the Pine Sawfly and Solomon's Seal Sawfly and  I can state  with certainty that no birds here will touch either of those types.  I can imagine the Pine Sawfly taste pretty awful, because of the resinous sap they're chomping but it was a surprise to discover that the Solomon's Seal variety are equally distasteful.   Or are "my" birds just fussy eaters?

[ronm]

Very interesting Maggi. It is reported that many bird species find sawfly larvae distasteful, but equally reported that they don't. I'm not keyed up enough on this group to make a definitive statement, other than to say that we have for years put them on the bird feeding stations, and seen them carried away by. I would say to feed young birds given the way they are taken. My picture of 'Kitten on Pot' shows one of the clay pots, partly filled with sand, screwed through the drainage hole to a wooden post, that we use to feed the sawfly larvae to the birds.
So I guess ' the Jury is out' unless anyone knows better than I.

Yes, would be very difficult to reproduce in a small environment, but maybe the theory is sound?? If so a rigging up of string or Cds or some contraption may help those with smaller plots??

[Maggi Young]

Hmm..... if they tend to drop quickly when "rattled", might  giving the plants a good shaking in passing  not be enough to get them off the fruit bushes/ plants and on the ground where they can be preyed upon..... am I right in thinking they don't climb very well or would they just shin up the nearest stem? Trouble with the pine sawfly is that they get together in large, sticky groups and are not easily dislodged at all.....