April

I trimmed the hedge this weekend.  It started gently enough – a few snips here and there – but then the red mist descended.  Before long, our hedge had lost over a metre in height and I had “reclaimed” some excellent sticks that will be great supports for the tomatoes this year.  I’ve a worrying feeling that gardening traits are hereditary …

Speaking of tomatoes,  the seedlings are doing okay although they seem a little more leggy than last year – I’m not sure if this is down to planting them straight into pots rather than a shallower seed tray.  The count of plants so far is 16 Gardener’s Delight and 5 Cherry Red.  I’ll be planting a maximum of twelve plants – 8 in growbags (with “growing pots”) and 4 in individualy pots so it looks like I’m going to be searching for deserving homes for quite a few plants.

We’ve also planted a few other seeds … Pennesetum Cream Falls, an ornamental grass, and about a hundred sunflowers (Irish Eyes).  Both germinated in under a week and whilst the grasses are destined for our Prairie section, I have no idea where we’re going to put the sunflowers.

The raised beds have been finished, filled with a mixture of top soil and blended farmyard manure and then cat-proofed.  After looking at the choice of cat repellents (water, sonic … shotgun) – we went with the only sure fire solution and netted them using canes as support.  So far, no poop.  We’ve also planted a pot of climbing nasturtiums alongside the beds in an attempt at sympathetic planting.

We’ve started a quarter tray of cut-and-come-again salad leaves which will be one of the first crops in the beds this year – by staggering the planting we hope to get a good spread of plants that can be cut at different times.

It looks like it’s going to be a good year for fruit this year.  The gooseberries are off to a flying start and we’re experimenting with a small pot of strawberries which have already got flowers on them.

The euonymus in the border nearest the house went to the garden in the sky this weekend (another example of the red mist descending I’m afraid).  Lovely as the foliage was it had turned into a social centre for slugs and had to be removed.  In its place we’ve planted a syringa (red pixey), with some sweet williams and antirrhinums for cover and colour.

After a very grey easter bank holiday weekend, it was lovely to finally see some sun back out in the garden – the grass is cut, the sweet peas are planted … and we still have a few bluebells brightening up the borders.

The season begins

I have to say our living room is now looking splendid even if it is currently curtainless (awaiting delivery of new poles). The paintbrushes and rollers have been put back in the shed and we can really start concentrating on the gardening again now. And having a very bare window does give us a very good view out onto the garden and what’s waiting for us there. All we need now is warmer weather … and lighter evenings … and more top soil … and cloches … bamboo canes … seeds … cat repellent … slug repellent … the thing that ate our runner bean flowers repellent …

This weekend we were finally able to use one of our christmas presents (thanks Archie & Kitty !) … a clever little wooden thing that makes bio-degradeable pots out of newspaper.

It works surprisingly well and we’ve used them for all the veg we’re growing from seeds this year.

Gardeners Delight (cherry tomato) will be our main crop again this year – they did really well last year until the blight got them.Hopefully nipping out the side shoots early and generally thinning them out will stop the blight from taking hold and maybe it won’t be such a cold wet summer this year. Anyway – we’re aiming for 12 of those.

We’ve also sown a few Cherry Red tomatoes (from the front of Gardeners world magazine) as well as some Cayenne chilli peppers (again free). We’ve sown a few extra so if they all grow we’ll be able to do some swaps again – nothing like the thousands of plants we were left with last year though!

We’re off to the garden centre tomorrow to stock up on some more topsoil for the raised beds … we’ve been gradually building up a stock of soil, although we’ve only filled up one bed so far. We stopped filling the other two as the local cats thought we were making a deluxe litter for them …

Spring

Finally – after having a winter worthy of actually being called winter, spring is beginning to show it’s face around these parts.

Early in 2008 my mum gave us a clump of snowdrop bulbs from her garden.  We planted them underneath the holly tree and slowly forgot about them.  Now, admittedly, we have dug over the area several times since but this year we’ve been surprised by an absolute carpet of snowdrops spreading over several feet.

I think this year is going to be a good year for the garden

2009 Happy New Year !!

Okay – so we didn’t quite manage to keep the blog up to date last year but we’re determined to do better this year.  We’ve put the little bit of time off we’ve had over the Christmas period to good use and made a start in the garden.   Last year’s veg trials were generally a success (apart from the carrots, onions, pumpkin, peppers …) so this year we’ve extended our space by building three slightly raised beds in an unused corner of the garden.

In the far bed we intend to put the potatoes this year – the middle bed will get the beetroot, cabbage and cauliflowers whilst the front bed will get some lettuce and rocket.  We made the beds ourselves using decking timber screwed together with posts at each corner driven down into the soil.  Each bed was painted with cuprinol’s Sage wood preservative first and there are little walkways between them, made by laying down some strong weed liner with Celtic Plum slate scattered on top …

With the offcuts we made a smaller square bed (see below) which we intend to place just at the bottom of the beds by the compost bin – this will be planted up with some herbs.

You have to look after the birds otherwise they’ll poop on your washing so this year we’ve decided to build new apartments for them with all mod-cons (well, roofs at least).   Not sure how the two sites will work but hopefully the robin that followed us around today will like the look of the box in the holly tree.

Anyway – so this is how 2009 started for us.  Sadly one of the casualties of 2008 were our tiger worms – they died, leaving us with the foulest smelling bin load of c*ap imaginable.  This will be put to good use in preparing the runner bean trench this year … roll on May 3rd

Get a load of these …

Or more precisely GOT a load of these.  Despite one of the worst summers in living memory (well, since last year anyway) look what those twelve little plants turned up.  This was about two days picking and there are plenty more where they came from …

 So – the lessons learnt from this year.  Well, the main problem has been staking the plants.  Despite having a great south facing position, the back garden seems to be a little windswept … and small bamboo canes in the growbags did little to stop the wind damage.  A couple of the plants snapped with the weight of the fruit after being battered by this summer’s gales.

We’ve seen some wire holders specifically designed to give a much firmer hold than the growbag alone which should do the trick for next year.

You “ahhh” what you eat …

After months (seemingly) of intense and unrelenting pressure from all sides, I finally gave in and tipped out one of the pots of potatoes.  At least if we came up empty I’d have the satisfaction of being able to say that I had told everyone it was too early.  As it was, we ended up with a nice little bowlful of small new potatoes – desiree, with a lovely pinkish red colour.

 

We picked a good couple of handfuls of beans (which are beginning to crop a lot heavier now) put them in the steamer with the potatoes and ate them outside, with a little butter and salt put over them.  About an hour from garden to plate … you really can’t get fresher than that.

The buddleias are the most prominent feature in the garden at the moment.  The ones at the top of the garden (that get more sun) are well in advance of those at the end – and despite being cut down hard in the winter are already over 7ft.  Sadly Gem’s prized sweet peas aren’t looking so happy – they are still flowering but have been hit with a powdery white mildew, with some of the bottom foliage turning yellow-brown.  We’re not sure what it is yet but will try a fungicide on them this week.

 

Five more days until we both have two weeks holiday – neither of us can wait !

July the 15th … doesn’t rhyme with anything

… but it was the day we picked our first runner bean

The fruits of our labour

The last week or so has made it seem like summer has come to an early end.  The last few days have seen more rainfall than we were supposed to get in a whole month – at least the evenings have not been taken up with trips up and down the garden with the watering can.  All we’ve been able to do is look out of the window at the poor plants being blown around and lashed by rain.

Today has been a little bit brighter though and we’ve been able to get out and see that, far from buckling under the weathers ravages, the garden has actually managed to survive and start bearing fruit … literally.

The long awaited gooseberries are finally ready for picking.  Only a handful at a time from each bush but there are still plenty of berries left to develop and the taste is simply amazing.

After slugs, blackfly, birds and bad weather the runner beans have shone through and we’re beginning to see sizeable beans forming.   The ladybirds have done a sterling job of keeping the blackfly at bay and the beer traps are managing to do the same for the slugs.  It looks like we might have a crop after all

 

 

 

 

 

Last but not least the tomatoes are absolutely loaded.  The two growbags at the front have the most fruit on them (as they get the most sun) – but all twelve plants have done really well.  Staking the plants has been a problem as the growbags aren’t deep enough for the stakes to hold against the wind.  I think next year I might buy more of the troughs we used for the salad this year.

As for the rest of the garden – our clematis (General Sikorsky) burst fully into flower this week … it’s really liked the shady location along the shed and looks stunning in the late evening sunshine.  We’re also beginning to see the first of the buddleias flowering … our garden seems to be about two years behind the rest of the world

Blob update …

A really rotten day at work where nothing seems to go right can easily be lifted by an evening out in our garden where, touch wood, things are all looking up.  It’s been a busy old time with so much to record so we’ll let the photographs tell the story.

A visit from the family brought a sweep of new flowers and added a touch of much needed colour to the garden.  We’re concentrating most of the flowering plants in the top borders near the house where they can be seen the easiest.

Pink hardy fuchsia

 

White hardy fuchsia

 

Penstemon

 

Day Lily

 

Dianthus

 On the veg side, we thinned out the side shoots from the tomatoes and they have responded with a glut of bright yellow flowers and, finally, finally – the first real tomatoes forming.  All the effort has definitely been worthwhile and the plants look totally different to the plants of early June.

The runner beans have survived the slugs, although the bottom leaves are a little sparse.  Slug pellets have been replaced by beer traps as they seem to be a lot more effective and a lot more nature friendly.  I’m still hoping to turn the neighbour’s cat into a hopeless alcoholic … start it off on Carlsberg before moving it down through Fosters to White Lightning

 

The potatoes are flowering well, although the high winds caught them (and the tomatoes as well) leaving them at quite an angle.  The tarpaulin pots aren’t very rigid and I’m a little worried about light getting to the potatoes.  Next year I think we’ll try them in the ground rather than go for pots again.

 

The gooseberries are absolutely laden with reddening fruit – I still think it’ll be mid to end of July before they are really ready for picking – can’t wait !  Both the courgette and pumpkin are doing well – the pumpkin has had the first of the female flowers appear and will need pollinating soon.  Maybe we’ll leave that to the ladybirds though …

 

Bugs and Slugs

Everything in the garden is ticking along quite nicely - a little light weeding and lots of running to and fro with the watering can is really all that has been needed of late.  We did put some netting around the gooseberries as, one evening, the amount of fruit looked suspiciously less than the night before.

I’ve put down beer traps now for the slugs – I feel better about that than slug pellets which, to be honest, weren’t really doing much at all.  At least beer isn’t harmful to any other wildlife (unless drunk in large quantities ) and I live in hope that I can turn the local cat into a hopeless alcoholic.  The beans are hanging in there and just beginning to flower … I think next year I’ll definitely use two plants to each bean stick as the wigwams are looking a little sparse.