Brown Turkey will have fruits in July/August and in September/October. Fruits that start to grow later than in July are usually too late to ripen in that year and aren´t edible after the winter. Yours looks really tiny, but maybe you´re lucky.
The very small ones that appear in late summers are the July/August fruits for the next year. I am glad your fig grew fast. With a good soil they can become big and productive quite fast.
I've hot a lot of bulbs to add to the daffodil ones I put in the other day. All that is missing are English Bluebells - all I could find in shops were the ugly Spanish ones so I'm not bothering with them.
I have Snowdrops, Yellow Crocuses, Purple Crocuses, Red tulips and some Windflowers (I thought they were Grecian Windflowers at the time, but they're not).
I'm going to plant them on Sunday if the weather is fine and they should look quite nice in spring and summer next year.
Snowdrops
Yellow Crocuses
Purple Crocuses
Red Tulips
Windflowers
I've also got a lot of tomato seeds to grow next year. I fancied growing quite a few varieties and seed packets have gone cheap now we're approaching autumn (like 9p sort of cheap).
I have Moneymaker (high yielding), Garden Pearl (cherry tomato), Gardener's Delight, Marmande (beefsteak) and Sunbaby (yellow tomatoes) seeds.
So there should be a lot of flowers in late winter, spring and early summer and a lot of tomato plants growing next summer.
These are in addition to the mixed daffodil bulbs I put in the ground the other day. I think they're mostly the native species with a few Iberian species in there too (many NW European plants have relatives in Iberia because it acted as a refuge for many temperate plants in the last Ice Age).
I would have preferred the plain old British ones really:
The yellow, pale yellow / white ones are the native ones, the ones yellow and orange are hybrids and the white and orange are Iberian species.
I've already got a few Tete a tete (miniature daffodils) and Tulips in the ground.
Today I bought a few more plants. I've got a Hebe x fransicana which is a hybrid between Hebe elliptica which grows in South Island (NZ), Patagonia, Arucania and Tierra del Fuego (Argentina and Chile) and in the Falklands with Hebe speciosa from NZ. It's got nice purple flowers and looks pretty hardy. Hebe's are quite a common plant in Britain, they're often alpines and my neighbour has a nice one growing up a rockery.
I'm going to grow it against the side of a shed.
A fully grown one in Scotland:
I've also got a pot of perennial Garden Chrysanthemums. I think I'm going to leave them in the pot and just dead head and look after the plant.
And finally I've got another Hydrangea macrophylla that I'm going to plant in a large container.
Oh, and I finally found some English bluebell bulbs in a shop and so have finished planting them now. I'm not really interested in planting any Aliums, Irises or Colchicum.
Maybe next year I'll put in Autumn "Crocuses", but I'm mostly done for this year.
Hebes and Hydrangeas really do quite well in mild, Oceanic climates. They seem to thrive in the British Isles and NW Iberia + Azores. I suppose these areas mimic their native climates in Southern NZ / Falklands and temperate areas of Japan.
Today I bought 17 bare rooted roses. They were at Aldi at £2.99 for weeks and I went to buy two this morning and they were 10p each! (the sign still said £2.99, but they'd be reduced and it hadn't been changed). So I bought another 15. I was tempted to buy 30 at £3, but settled for 17 at £1.70.
The woman at the checkout was trying not to laugh when I put so many on the conveyor and a few people looked at me funny. They would have come to £50.83 at the full price. I think they were surprised when they came in at less than two quid for the lot.
A few have shoots on and are growing in the bags, all look healthy enough.
Bare root roses
I realised when I got them home that I'd selected quite a lot of orange ones. These are hybrid tea roses, I'm going to train them as shrubs, and maybe the odd one as a standard.
Left - a floribunda rose. I'll train it as a shrub. Right - climbing roses, I've never been as interested in them (they can look twiggy if not grown right) but they should turn out nice.
"Hedging rose" - Rosa rugosa. They can make shrubs or climb.
Here are the cultivars:
For a rough idea of what they look like.
Climbers:
Iceberg
Galway Bay
Blue moon
Arthur Bell
Flroibunda:
Scarlet queen
Hybrid tea:
Lovers meeting
Peace
No picture for Dorris tyerman rose.
Blessings
National trust
"Hedge roses"
Rosa rugosa rubra
Rosa rugosa alba
The orange hybrid tea roses look the best IMO.
Albion, that´s freaking awesome 1,70 pounds for 17 roses.
Yeah, I just need to think of where to put them now. I think I'll have 2 climbing ones growing up the wall of the house and a few more up the sheds. The Rosa rugosa can go in the hedges and grow through it, I'll probably grow one as a bush though. The hybrid teas can grow as bushes, I may grow one as a standard and give one or two to my relatives.Originally Posted by ficuscarica
Albion, that´s freaking awesome 1,70 pounds for 17 roses.
There aren't many good ones left at the shop now - mostly lots of Rugosas and some sickly looking ones. I did leave a few good ones, lots of orange ones (I thought 17 was enough).
In September I thought I'd have a go at germinating peach trees from seed so cracked a few peach stones open with a hammer. I planted them in a window box and left it under the shed from September until late November (I was forcing bulbs in it and they need cold dormancy). I brought it in in November and noticed a week ago that there were these unidentified plants growing. I pulled one up and found the peach seed attached. I'd completely forgotten / given up on them.
I can't remember what variety they were, they were grown in Spain though. So they're probably not a hardy variety, but I was going to grow them on and see which fruited best in our climate and get rid of those that performed poorly. However, peaches often come true from seed, so one doesn't necessarily get a new variety.
They're in my window inside at the moment. They look a bit wilted (probably the 24c heat and lack of humidity). I may move them somewhere else, but I think they'll likely fail before they reach a substantial size.
Now that I've done it successfully, I may try again whilst we're still in winter, and by the time they emerge this time it should be spring and they should be fine outside. I'll look in supermarkets to see if I can find and recognisable varieties or ones grown further north in places like France.
I have actually thought about buying a peach tree - one of the English varieties like Peregrine or Rochester. I'll wait for bare root tree season before I decide whether or not to buy one I think.
So it is possible, but you'll be waiting a good few months for the seeds to germinate. I've heard that peaches take 3 years to have fruit - I'm not sure if it applies to grafted only or bare root as well, but it sounds good.
The sticks are there to stop them growing towards the light. The bulbs are Hyacinths.
Ultimately I might buy a dwarf, potted peach tree this coming year. There are some varieties specifically bred for England's cool climate by Victorian horticulturalists. 'Peregrine' and 'Rochester' are two that spring to mind, but there are others and a few newer ones from cooler areas of North America.
I think I'll train one against the wall of the house because it stays warm well into the night during summer and you can feel the heat coming off it from about a foot away. I'm trying to find a second hand greenhouse, so a dwarf potted one would be better because it would fruit more reliably if I could move it in there during bad weather.
I'll see how the seedlings go. I'll attempt to grow them on, but I may buy a peach tree next year.
For Graham and Migla
I've also got a few plants for next year. Some Rusell Lupin and Red Hot Poker roots and some Stuttgarter and Karmen onion sets. Oh, and some Red Champagne rhubarb rhizomes. I've also got some Nantes carrot, All Year Round Cauliflower, Leek, various tomato and Giant sunflower seeds.
All I need to get now are the seed potatoes, some pea, melon, runner bean and nasturtium seeds. I think those are primarily what I'll be growing next year, and strawberries too of course.
I've got space for a small veg patch now and I'm going to use a lot of grow bags too.
For Graham and Migla
Hey Albion!
Your knowledge and skills are legendary!
One can learn more from you than from a botany textbook!
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