Hi, from by the sea

[Purple Primrose]

Hi, everyone,

I live by the coast in NE Scotland. I mainly grow vegetables, strawberries and a few herbs. Neeps and tatties grow well here, but trees and tender plants don't. Growing things in my garden can be a bit of a challenge, what with the high winds, rain and salt spray!

In 2021, I'm hoping to grow a bit more fruit and more types of wildflowers (and other flowers) that make bees and other insects happy.

[Bren In Pots]

Hello and welcome to the vine Purple Primrose

There's a few member from Scotland so hopefully you'll all be able to share growing tips suitable to your harsh conditions.

[burnie]

Hi I'm in Angus a mile from the sea, I can hear the surf just now after last nights storm, luckily most of the garden has survived the flooding.

[mothhawk]

Welcome, Purple Primrose. Love the name.

[Purple Primrose]

Being able to share advice on how to make things grow better our climate would be great, Bren In Pots.

I'm glad most of your garden survived the flooding, burnie. Mine's really sodden at the moment too. It gets a bit irritating when a storm suddenly kills plants I've been nurturing for a while. I lost a few borage and antirrhinum plants this summer due to being snapped off at soil level by the wind. Had to support the remaining ones with short bamboo canes! The plants that survived did really well so I'm not going to let losing a few put me off growing them again next year.

I'm glad you like my name, mothhawk. I thought I'd use something that refers to the Scottish primrose which is endemic to this small area in the very north of Scotland. I like your avatar - the moth is beautiful and looks rather like ermine.

[Babru]

Hi, I'm in Edinburgh, a couple of streets back from the sea. The good thing about proximity to the sea is that we don't get so much frost and snow - we do get some though. All that stuff on the news yesterday, if you saw it, about thundersnow, we heard the thunder but just had rain and hail. So, not all bad being near the coast, and plants do seem to survive better.

[Plot70]

Welcome to the forum from the clay challenged east midlands.

[peanut]

Welcome Purple Primrose!

[Purple Primrose]

Hi, Babru, Plot 70 and peanut. It's so nice of you to take the time to welcome me to this forum.

We so rarely get snow or frost here, that I hardly ever have to think about having to protect any of my plants from them. Most winters there's no snow at all and frost comes maybe two or three times.

There's a bit of clay in one part, but most of my garden has pretty good soil, just a bit wet. I don't miss the heavy clay soil we had when I used to live in London - rock, solid in summer with cracks big enough to stick my thumb in didn't make it easy to work with.

[mothhawk]

... I like your avatar - the moth is beautiful and looks rather like ermine.

Well spotted
It's a white ermine moth.

[Nicos]

Hi there, and welcome to the Vine from me too!

[Purple Primrose]

Hi, Nicos.

Mothhawk, I shall have to keep a look out for those ermine moths now as I've just looked them up and found out that the caterpillars feed on nettles. I've got a couple of good sized nettle patches that I grow for the Red Admiral etc caterpillars and to make stinging nettle fertiliser. I was at the Scottish Crannog Centre (by Loch Tay) this summer and tried some stinging nettle tea there. I was surprised to find it actually tastes quite nice!

[burnie]

Nettle beer is tasty too and you can put it in spring dinners as a fresh green instead of Spinach or Cabbage.

[Purple Primrose]

Making nettle beer sounds an interesting idea. I'm not sure I could persuade my family to eat boiled or steamed nettle leaves. They were wary enough about trying the tea. They did admit to liking it though.

[Plot70]

Boiled nettles taste like spinach with nuts added.