Bexley in Bloom…Blogbrarian’s Question Time for Topical Tips…
What-ho, my old compost companions!....
Well, spring has sprung, and it’s Bexley in Bloom time again – splendid!, you cry.
Even more splendid, Bexley Libraries have a blooming marvellous collection of gardening books for your delight and delectation.
Even better news…(I spoil you, I know) - inspired by the BBC’s Gardeners' Question Time (although I do still miss old Bill Sowerbutts), the Blogbrarian has cleared his busy schedule this week to help answer your own gardening conundrums…I`m no expert (although I know a man who is), but my tomatoes have been “mentioned in despatches”, I subscribe to `Hoof and Horn` weekly, and I know one end of a gnome from another, so I`m willing to give it my best shot.
Here are a few I’ve recently been asked:
Q “How can I improve the girth of my beetroots?”
A Go “By the book”
Q “Is it acceptable to have one’s garden gnomes on view in Bexley?”
A “Perfectly”
Q “I`ve got a bad case of fungal wilting-tip spore blight in my asparagus beds…is it infectious?”
A “Arrgghhh!!!! Get away from me, now!”
We green-fingered library folk like to be able to help, when we can.
So, dear readers & weeders, if you’ve got any more questions, just let me have ‘em, using the comments thingy-dibber at the end here…
And finally, it’s a lot to ask but…can I ask you to click here? Thank you, it meant a lot to me…
TTFN, Old Chums, and “Dig On for Victory”!
Well, spring has sprung, and it’s Bexley in Bloom time again – splendid!, you cry.
Even more splendid, Bexley Libraries have a blooming marvellous collection of gardening books for your delight and delectation.
Even better news…(I spoil you, I know) - inspired by the BBC’s Gardeners' Question Time (although I do still miss old Bill Sowerbutts), the Blogbrarian has cleared his busy schedule this week to help answer your own gardening conundrums…I`m no expert (although I know a man who is), but my tomatoes have been “mentioned in despatches”, I subscribe to `Hoof and Horn` weekly, and I know one end of a gnome from another, so I`m willing to give it my best shot.
Here are a few I’ve recently been asked:
Q “How can I improve the girth of my beetroots?”
A Go “By the book”
Q “Is it acceptable to have one’s garden gnomes on view in Bexley?”
A “Perfectly”
Q “I`ve got a bad case of fungal wilting-tip spore blight in my asparagus beds…is it infectious?”
A “Arrgghhh!!!! Get away from me, now!”
We green-fingered library folk like to be able to help, when we can.
So, dear readers & weeders, if you’ve got any more questions, just let me have ‘em, using the comments thingy-dibber at the end here…
And finally, it’s a lot to ask but…can I ask you to click here? Thank you, it meant a lot to me…
TTFN, Old Chums, and “Dig On for Victory”!
13 comments:
Wonderful.
Am glad thet youve got allotments books.
Also I didnt know that Chas and Dave were veggie growers -
B.
Thank-you, B…
No, I didn’t realize that Chas was an allotment man either (we’ve got a copy of his book…’Chas and his rock & roll allotment’…AND, if you’re fan – as am I – then their biography is called “Chas & Dave-all about us”. Triffic stuff!)
And thank-you, too, to the anonymous correspondent who emailed the Blogbrary on Sunday…
Sadly, on reflection, I feel that your comments may be slightly too risqué for publication…Try again?
TTFN
My garden's speciality is weeds - fast as I dig them out they grow again! Do you think this could have anything to do with my mother having a book called "How to enjoy your weeds"?
Thanks, Terri…
Well, it seems to me you've got two choices:
A) Follow Gerard Manley Hopkins' advice:
"What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left
Let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the
wilderness yet"
Or...
B)
Dig 'em, hoe 'em, spray 'em or burn 'em.
Hope that helps.
TTFN
I am intrigued by the gardening expertise of good old Gerard M H. What, pray (ha ha), might he have grown on an allotment?
Good old Gerard Manley Hopkins - a poet very fond of nature, though not everyone's cup of tea for reading in the garden. William Wordsworth is another nature lover that comes to mind, whether it be daffodils or wilderness.
Thanks, Judith R...
Re Gerard Manly Hopkins' plant of choice?...Jerusalem artichokes?
(But isn't it wonderful to see GM Hopkins and Chas & Dave together, united by fine verse and vegetables)
DEAR Sir.
Can u help me with rhubarb?
Dear Chipp@,
Many thanks for your enquiry…
Rhubarb, eh? Not my strong point, I must admit. (Don’t you have to force it, or something?)
Anyway, I`ve just checked (we’ve a great library book called “How to grow practically everything” produced by the Royal Horticultural Society, so they must be right! It says: “Once established, rhubarb looks after itself year after year. All you need do is pull as many stalks as you can eat….You will need: rhubarb plant, well rotted organic matter, such as farmyard manure, spade, slug pellets or a slug ring…at it’s best: early summer”.
Well, there you have it. (I`m not sure what a slug ring is, but I do know that my Grandma Flo used to make the finest rhubarb crumble known to man…happy days!)
Hope that’s helped?
Toodlepip.
Troubling gardening news reaches the Blogbrary via a member of the Erith Library Reading Group...a keen allotment grower, she reports the regular theft of individual rhubarb stalks from their patch...
Unfortunately, a 'super-injunction' prevents us from naming the culprit here, but we know who you are...kindly desist!
My dad once had a spate of his rhubarb going missing. The 'thief' turned out to be a cat, who was leaving it on the kitchen doorstep of an elderly neighbour a few doors down.It wasn't even her cat!They do say that animals do the funniest things....
Well, thanks Sue…This is astounding news. (I know there are series of books in “the cat who…” series, but – to date – none entitled “the cat who stole the rhubarb”).
How, one wonders, did it cut the stems?
Anyway, thank you for sharing this with Bexley readers – it’s almost certainly a significant observation.
Post a Comment