Cucumber 'Crystal Lemon'

Cucumber 'Crystal Lemon' Seeds: "Cucumber 'Crystal Lemon' "
Cucumber 'Crystal lemon' is an old-fashioned, delicious tasting round cucumber with fantastic flavour, rather like you might expect from its melon-like shape – very juicy and deliciously mild and sweet.

It is very prolific and easy to grow. Children particularly seem to love Crystal lemon' and it looks lovely on the vine.

Little Fingers Eggplant Seeds.

Little Fingers Eggplant Seeds - 60:

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Болезни томатов.

Из "Практических советов огородникам" Всероссийского НИИ растениеводства им. Н.И. Вавилова, 1993 г:
"Наблюдаемое скручивание листьев томата объясняется несколькими причинами:
- резкими перепадами дневной и ночной температур (разница должна быть в пределах 5-7 град);
- удалением большого количества пасынков или листьев;
- низкой температурой и высокой влажностью ночью."

Если же скручивание листа дополняется утолщением стебля и развитием мощных пасынков, — это признак избытка азота. Избыток азота вредит плодообразованию. Чтобы уменьшить количество азота, достаточно однократно обильно полить растения, чтобы промыть верхний слой почвы.

Tomato blight.

Alys Fowler: Tomato blight, plus the June drop | The Guardian:
- Try to keep leaves dry with some kind of shelter when the weather is wet for more than a day or two.
- Keep outside tomatoes sheltered from the rain if possible – plants hate wet leaves.
- Sometimes over feeding can be an issue, so feeding little and often is another way to keep plants healthy.
- A better approach is to breed tomatoes that won’t succumb to the disease.
- Grow resistant varieties such as: Potatoes 'Axona' or 'Mira' and Tomato 'Ferline','Legend' and 'Fantasio'.

All that said, there is hope for outdoor growers. A wilder Mexican tomato called Matt's Wild Cherry shows signs of resistance; another is Koralik, a sprawling bush tomato (the type where you don't have to pinch out side shoots) closely related to Matt's. Both have tiny cherry tomatoes.

Ferline and Legend are F1 cordons (the type where you do pinch out the side shoots) that were bred in Oregon, where blight is a common problem. They are not immune to blight, but are very early fruiting, so you get a tomato salad or two before your chutney-making begins.

Poor air circulation compounds the problem, so if your plants are in pots, give them plenty of space; in the ground, aim for 1-1.5m apart. There is some anecdotal evidence that a solution of 50/50 milk and water sprayed weekly helps to keep the spores at bay. And feed pot plants weekly with comfrey or liquid seaweed, to keep the plants' strength up.
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Tomato ‘Legend’
This particular variety was bred in the USA by Dr. Jim Baggett at Oregon State University. In recent tests ‘Legend’ had shown impressive blight tolerance, and in particular during trials in a ‘garden’ situation. It produces large, glossy red fruits with an expected crop of up to 6lbs per plant. The fruit have a slightly flatter shape compared to the norm and come almost completely seedless. Fortunately for most gardeners, best results are produced when the plants were grown outdoors but they are also perfectly fine for growing under glass. They have an excellent flavour and should be sown 6-8 weeks before expected lasts frosts - in the United Kingdom this will be any time from March onwards.

Tomato ‘FERLINE’ F1 Hybrid
Not only has this new variety shown excellent tolerance to ‘Late Blight’, it has also proven itself to be highly resistant against both fusarium wilt and verticillium wilt. As with the new ‘Legend’ cultivar, ‘Ferline’ has also tested extremely well in garden trials. It produces heavy crops – up to 5lbs per plant – of flavoursome, deep red fruits. Although it does well sown outdoors ‘Ferline’ is also suitable for growing under glass.

Tomato ‘FANTASIO’ F1 Hybrid
This is a deliciously flavoured variety that has also trialled well in the garden situation against ‘Late Blight’ infection. In fact it has also shown good resistance to Tobacco Mosaic Virus, Verticilium wilt, Fusarium Wilts, and nematodes too. Tomato ‘Fantastico will bear you a good crop of round fruits, with each plant producing up to around 6lbs of tomatoes.
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Using Coffee Grounds in the Garden.

Using Coffee Grounds in the Garden - Uses for Used Coffee Grounds in the Garden:
Coffee grounds are approximately 1.45% nitrogen. They also contain magnesium, calcium, potassium, and other trace minerals.
There are several ways you can put used coffee grounds to work in your garden:

- Put coffee grounds in your compost bin. As noted above, they are a valuable source of nitrogen.
- Add grounds directly to the soil in your garden. You can scratch it into the top couple inches of soil, or just sprinkle the grounds on top and leave it alone.
- Create a slug and snail barrier. Coffee grounds are both abrasive and acidic, so a barrier of grounds placed near slug-prone plants may just save them from these garden pests.
- Make coffee ground "tea." Add two cups of used coffee grounds to a five-gallon bucket of water. Let the "tea" steep for a few hours or overnight. You can use this concoction as a liquid fertilizer for garden and container plants. It also makes a great foliar feed.
- Add coffee grounds to your worm bin. Worms love coffee grounds! Add some to your worm bin every week or so. Just don't add too many at once, because the acidity could bother your worms. A cup or so of grounds per week for a small worm bin is perfect
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Средства защиты растений.

Отвары ботвы томатов против вредителей - Средства защиты растений - GreenInfo.ru:
Натуральные инсектициды и удобрения
Ботвой картофеля и помидор мульчируют приствольные круги деревьев. И сорняк она глушит, и вредителей запахом отпугивает. И даже если ботва больна на деревья это повлиять не может. У картошки и помидор общих болезней с яблонями, грушами или сливами нет...
Пасынки от томатов срываю и в бочку с золой и луковой чешуей и поливаю рассаду.
Спрей из томатных листьев
Эффективен при борьбе с тлей, хлопковой совкой, а также капустной молью. Замочите на ночь два стакана измельченных томатных листьев в двух стаканах воды. Утром необходимо процедить настой через марлю или мелкое ситечко, после этого добавить в него еще два стакана воды. Получившуюся смесь вполне можно использовать для борьбы с вредителями в саду. Спрей из томатных листьев отличается слабовыраженной токсичностью, поэтому соблюдайте меры предосторожности – храните состав вне досягаемости для домашних животных и детей..

Спрей с острым перцем
 Возьмите 6-10 стручков острого красного перца и поместите их в блендер, добавьте два стакана воды и хорошенько перемешайте. Далее смесь необходимо перелить в стеклянную чистую емкость и на ночь оставить для настаивания. Утром процедите получившийся настой через марлю, разбавьте одним литром воды. Получившимся средством необходимо опрыскивать растения один раз в неделю или после дождя. Работайте со спреем в перчатках, так как он очень жгучий и смыть его с рук будет достаточно сложно.
Кофейная гуща
Вы любите кофе? Не выбрасывайте кофейную гущу. Она может с успехом применяться не только как скраб для лица и тела, но и в качестве высококачественного удобрения. Добавляйте использованную кофейную гущу в компост и ваша почва обогатится азотом и некоторыми полезными микроэлементами.
Применение золы: удобрение и средство от вредителей
Травяные закваски для подкормки растений
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Огородные подсказки.

После томатов и картофеля хорошо растут капуста, огурцы, кабачки, тыква, бобы, горох, чеснок, свекла, салат, морковь, петрушка, сельдерей, укроп.

На месте огурцов, кабачков, патиссонов можно выращивать редис, капусту, свеклу, лук, чеснок, горох, бобы, помидоры, картофель.

Морковь, укроп, петрушку, сельдерей должны сменить лук, чеснок, бобы, горох, картофель, томаты.

После бобов и гороха можно сажать все культуры.

После лука и чеснока также можно высаживать все, кроме самих этих культур.
Отсюда!

New and interesting veg.

New and interesting veg | Life and style | guardian.co.uk:
Also known as the snow or sugar pea, mangetout are a flat-podded variety of pea, eaten whole while the peas within are still very small – hence the French name, which means ‘eat everything’.
Crisp and sweet, they can be served raw, or lightly steamed, boiled or stir-fried.
And here!
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Growing Sweet Potatoes

Growing Sweet Potatoes:
From Tuber to Sweet Potato Vine
Sweet potatoes are grown from rootable cuttings, often called slips.
If you've never grown sweet potatoes before, it can be great fun to grow your own slips from small or medium-size sweet potatoes purchased at the market.
Sweet potato plants are not hardy so you will need to grow them on in warm, frost free conditions for 3 weeks or more until they are established.
Sweet potatoes require high temperatures of 21-26C.
Plant sweet potatoes 30cm apart, leaving 75cm between each row.
One sweet potato will produce between three and five slips.
This process takes about six weeks, so there is no need to hurry.
As the shoots, or slips, grow to 15 cm long, they can be broken off and transplanted to the garden, or to containers if outdoor conditions are too cold.
As long as the soil is kept lightly moist, the slips will develop roots and start growing within two weeks. Six weeks after that, the sweet potato vines will explode with growth and cover the ground with dense foliage.
Even the fastest-maturing sweet potato varieties should be allowed to grow for 90 days before you start looking for harvestable roots.
It is also important to dig sweet potatoes before soil temperatures cool too much.
Fresh sweet potatoes need to be cured for two to three weeks in a warm place.
During this time, wounds to the skin heal over, and the flesh becomes sweeter and more nutritious.
This process continues after curing, during the first months of storage at cool room temperatures, so stored sweet potatoes that are eaten in winter are often the best ones of the year.

How To Grow Sweet Potatoes In The UK | Thompson & Morgan:

When To Harvest Fruit.

When To Harvest Fruit - Channel4 - 4Homes:

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