Calling all amateur gardeners!

Greetings!
A quick survey as I am interested! =]
I was just wondering what were the most common seed and fertilizer types that you end up buying for yourself?
In regards to the seeds, I am referring to seeds for annual plants, which will mainly be planted via scattering.
Will be interesting to see your responses!
Cheers!
Joe

 

The only time I bought seed was when I bought my new house 7 years ago. I decided to have wild flower borders for the first year. It was lovely. Eventually I got rid of those and planted from pants the local nursery.

Would like a wild flower area again, but wife finds it a bit messy....

 

I use very little fertiliser. I find if you keep the soil in good condition, there is very little need for fertiliser. It's all marketing by the big companies that sucks us in.

At most, an occassional top-dressing of chicken manure pellets or multi-purpose pellets like Growmore. Then a liquid feed (just a general tomato feed, or soluable multi-purpose) on my toms peppers etc and some flowers during summer.

I get most of my seeds for annuals and veg in sales in the autumn, save them from my plants, or swap with friends and family. Again, I resent paying over the odds to the big seed companies, being sucked in by snazzy photography and misleading names!

 

I use chicken manure pellets more than anything else, or rotted farm yard manure if the soil is desperately poor (as patches of mine were).

In containers I use miracle grow, and the odd handful of chicken manure pellets.

As for seeds, I don't really grow that many things from seed. Foxglove just gets scattered, but that's biennal so doesn't count in your survey. Apart from that, anything I grow from seed goes in little cells first.

 

Three times a year, I use fish, blood and bone. I do use my own compost ofcourse as a conditioner and a mulch. I buy annual seeds depending on what I fancy in any particular year.

 

The only seeds we've ever bought were for some cyclamen, which did very well.

I use Wilkinsons feed, weed and mosskill on the lawns twice a year as it comes in twin sachets which you dilute and spray, this stops the scorching I used to get with other products. I then use "Evergreen" feed and weed, every month or so between these applications with excellent results.

"Toprose" for the roses and they get a regular spray with "Rose clear."

"Westland" liquid fertilizer for the azeleas, rhodos and camelias, plus a few rusty nails sprinkled in around the roots.

Baby bio citrus feed for the orange and lemon trees.

I also use a bit of "Miracle grow" here and there.

Bonemeal for new plantings.

We don't use slug pellets as the frogs and visiting hedgehogs keep us clear of these.

 

Wow. That's a heck of a stock of chemical enhancement, Doghouse!

Out of interest, have you ever tried cutting right back on what you use, or stopping altogether? I suspect a lot of gardeners use feeds etc out of habit - a kind of psychological thing almost. I used to do it myself until I realised that you can get the same results just by looking after your soil!

I think my annual outlay on chemicals / feed etc is around £10 at most. A pyrethrin bug spray, a myclobutanil fungus gun, a box / packet of multipurpose feed and a glyphosate weedkiller. £2-£3 each, all used very sparingly, sorted!

 

Well..

Some might think that's too much, but I use the stuff sparingly. Our garden has fairly intensive planting, working on the basis, "don't leave any room for weeds."

The results speak for themselves,

 

Sorry, I'm not lecturing or anything - last post could have come across like that!

I just find it quite interesting. I've gradually cut down (out of necessity more than anything - I'm skint!) and the results have been just as good, if not better because I concentrate more on nurturing the soil.

For example, I always used to sweep up my fallen leaves. Now, they're just getting left, except when they pile up on the lawn then I just brush them into the borders. After all, that's the way nature has composted and fertilised its soil for millenia, so who am I to intervene!

 

No probs,

I've posted elsewhere that I blow a lot of the leaves to the back of the borders and let them rot down, I also use the dregs from the koi pool sump after I've purged the drain, each week, as fish pee is acidic. The combination is good for our borders of azaleas, rhodos and camellias.

As we are often moving stuff around, replacing plants we don't like or haven't done well and adding to our collection, I use the chemicals mostly on the new plants, but also on the several plants in big pots on the patio as they're sat in the same soil.
Digressing a bit, with what we've bought this year, some "mini-projects" "garden related items" food and medicine for my koi hobby and garden maintenance, I must have spent just over £1,000, although there doesn't seem to be a lot to show for it.

 

When I cut down the buddleja a few weeks ago, I painstakingly removed all the leaves from the chopped off branches and scattered them (the leaves that is) among my flower beds before putting the bare sticks in the ever growing pile that will one day get loaded into the boot of my motor to go to the tip.

I've been patiently waiting for autumn to take hold so I can get out into the woods to gather up a few big bags of fallen leaves. They too will end up on my garden. Whenever I mow the lawn, the clippings go on too. Ok, I know I'm supposed to let them rot somewhere first, but I haven't got a very good compost bin.

In one patch, which is very poor soil, I planted a load of nasturtiums a few back. We've been harvesting bits of it to eat, but the main purpose was to get some organic matter into the severely depleted soil. The nasturtium has thrived and taken over the patch. When the frost gets it it will do an impression of boiled cabbage (it literally looks like boiled cabbage on the floor when the frost gets it), and then I will pick off any seeds before digging the whole lot under.

 

If you need any s***** leaves.... I've some big wisterias that will shed loads shortly.

 

Night scented stock underneath all sorts of stuff. Not much to look at but smells of summer to me!

 

The only thing I bought was one of those pre-seeded 'mat' things (from Betterware or Kleeneze). 'Just unroll, water and watch it bloom' - I unrolled, watered and ..... well, I'm still waiting for No. 3. Out of the so-called '.. 500 premium annual flower seeds ...' I was 'rewarded' with 1 stunted cosmos, which made the, 'Plants may be thinned .. and transplanted' somewhat superfluous.

As for fertiliser, Growmore.

 

Hmmm, I can sympathise. I bought root stock of herbaceous perennials that come ready to plant in a bit of compost last Spring. Most either germinated, then died or never made an appearance at all. The ones that did were puny to say the least and I'd have been better off spending the money on healthy plants later in the year. Never again!