General Gardening » Small Plot, Big Ideas

There’s more than veg in the garden…

Mar 092013

Sometimes I need reminding that there is more to the garden than just the productive (i.e. edible) parts that take up most of my time. It is good to remember that there are many other signs of life now that spring is approaching and I think it is important (to me particularly) to acknowledge this sometimes…

Hellebores

I am particularly proud of that the hellebores have done so well in recent years. I’d like to take all the credit but I suspect that would be a little greedy even if I was the one who originally planted them some years ago.

Hellebores

Since that time I have occasionally remembered to mulch them and even sometimes trimmed off the older, dying leaves or weeded around them. However my guess is that my limited contribution is only a small part of their success.

More Hellebores

Flowering Currant (?)

We have a few of these in one flower bed and I have spent the last 15 years calling them “Flowering Currants” because I thought they looked like that and never had any berries… until last year that is! Most unexpected but not the first time I have been wrong about a plant and probably not the last!

Flowering Currant – or is it?

Mahonia

Apart from the occasional prune and a bit of weeding this has been left to itself over the years. It seems to prefer that kind of treatment because it has gone from strength to strength and I’m even tempted to take some cuttings so I can have some in the garden at the new house…

Mahonia

Winter Flowering Jasmine

One of the few plants I have added to the garden that I can remember the latin name – Jasminum Nudiflorum – so even though it hasn’t done spectacularly, I am still happy to see the bright yellow flowers each January / February.

Winter flowering jasmine

And finally…

I think this is some variety of primula perhaps but I’m not always good at remembering the easy names. We must have moved this from another part of the garden into this spare chimney pot but I can’t remember where it was before. Perhaps we actually bought a few of these at a garden centre some time ago and the rest have died (or been pecked by the chickens)?

It has been surprisingly productive though and is still trying to put out flowers despite the cold spell and the apparent damage to some of the older leaves.

Answers on a postcard, please!

The end of year garden clean up

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Jan 012013

The weather has been kind around the end of December and so we managed a good couple of days work in the garden to end the year – to my untrained eyes at least it makes quite a noticeable difference. After all the wet weather and the lack of any decent chance recently for things to dry out I wasn’t sure when we started that anything constructive could be done though.

Luckily a little bit of weed control fabric and some strategically placed cloches seem to help bring things together on the veg beds at least. We are already starting to see some shoots coming through which I guess must be the snowdrops so I need to keep the chickens off those flower beds if I want to see them grow!

Raised veg bed with plastic cloche

Now that the leeks are all harvested and eaten all 3 veg beds are now tucked up for a couple of months while I try to decide what to do next year.

Raised veg bed with weed control fabric

And chickens really enjoy it when you dig over the compost heap, in this case I was redistributing the contents of the current compost heap and adding a little of the contents from an older heap to liven things up. I can’t help thinking that the chickens will have cleaned out any worms that I managed to transfer though so maybe the effort was wasted.

Chickens love a good compost heap

What to try in 2013?

We are still hoping to sell the house in the early part of this year so there aren’t any major plans for the veg beds but I can’t just leave them empty. Maybe a quick peek in the seed catalogues and some fancy planning with a calendar will throw up some ideas for vegetables that are happy with early planting and give a quick harvest? Of course there are always a few pots of various sizes dotted around which I could plant up and then if necessary take with us when we move so maybe all is not lost!

I’d better get off to study the catalogues and vegetable books but any suggestions or past experiences would be most appreciated…

Cutting it fine

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Sep 112012

Excuse the pun in the title but last weekend I had a spate of taking cuttings from various plants around the garden because I get the feeling that autumn is approaching fairly quickly up here in the North East.

First batch of cuttings

It’s possible that there may not be enough decent weather and sunshine but we’ve had a good couple of weeks so why not try. If they don’t make then there is nothing much lost.

The main reason was so that we can take some plants with us if/when we eventually move but there have also been requests from No. 1 and No. 2 daughters to have some (free) plants for their gardens.

As with most things in the garden, I am no expert on taking cuttings but I do have an old copy of The Tree & Shrub Expert by Dr D G Hessayon so what could possibly go wrong?

In the end the plants that I “attacked” with the secateurs for the first batch of cuttings were Philadelphus, Rose, Euonymus, Hebe and Lavender.

It didn’t take that long to get these prepared, dipped in rooting hormone, firmed into the pots and lightly watered. I find that there is something very satisfying about planting up pots whether cuttings or seeds.

There were still some spare plant pots and I had a few old compost bags each with a little bit left. It made sense to keep going at least until I run out of space to put them all but maybe mixing old houseplant compost with the old other slightly dried out left overs was not the best approach.

Even more cuttings

Next to receive an assault with the secateurs was Fuchsia, Bay, Lonicera and Cornus. In the case of the Lonicera for example I already had some success a few years ago with another cutting so I have high hopes for that!

Most are still alive for the moment and they are happily zipped up in the cheap plastic “greenhouse” I bought in the spring. However I’m definitely starting to notice the days getting shorter and I’m not convinced that all of them will make it.

There’s more to the garden than vegetables

General Gardening, Practical ideas, Seeds / Plants 1 Response »

Aug 212012

Bee on the lavender

Our lavender is looking pretty good at the moment although I really can’t take much credit for that. Apart from the fact that I originally planted it they have been left to their own devices but maybe that is the trick? It could be a lesson I should learn and apply to the vegetable side of things when i consider the variable results I’ve had this year.

By not interfering I’ve allowed the lavender plants to develop at their own pace, as they have nicely filled the space allowed – sometimes exceeding it so I’ve had to clip them back – there has been no need to worry about weeding around them too much, just the occasional half-hearted effort.

It certainly looks like the bees love the flowers and I’m not known for my love of bees but I am coming around to them a little. They may even have a place in the future smallholding plans but only after learning more about then and taking all relevant safety precautions!

I was interested to find this link to the Newcastle and District Beekeepers association which looks like the best place to start and at least I know there’s somewhere fairly local to get help and advice!

Butterfly on lavender flowers

I also took this lovely photo of the lavender flowers with a butterfly as well but I know very little about the different types of butterfly and further research has taken the shine off this in the end

According to my research this is a Cabbage White butterfly and is probably the reason for large holes in the leaves of the broccoli plants. More accurately this particular butterfly could be partly to blame for the damage to my cabbages earlier in the year.

I don’t like to hold a grudge though and it does look nice even if my photo doesn’t quite do it justice!

This isn’t just some idle ramblings about pretty flowers and wildlife though, I’m now curious to find out whether I can make use of the other plants in my garden for cooking and eating.

The initial signs are good and after a quick web search there are some promising recipes and ideas. Here are the first few that I think I’ll be trying in the near future

Lavender Infused Shortbread - this looks like the easiest of the lot so I may try this first!

Lavender Tea Cake – looks good and uses fresh lavender so limited preparation needed

Amy’s Lavender Still Lemonade – the recipe says “dried lavender” but I might try fresh instead

Another chaotic week or two…

General Gardening 1 Response »

Jul 042012

Just lately things have been overtaken by the preparations for the recent wedding for No.2 daughter so the blog has suffered quite a bit. This situation was not helped by a crashed disk drive with lots of fairly important data which has now proved to be unrecoverable (hardware failure).

On top of all that we had some proper monsoon conditions here in the North East last Thursday (28 June) but I’m very conscious that some other people had a worse time with houses flooded and power outages.

Here is a picture of the garden at about the worst point last Thursday evening (the day before the wedding!)…

And less than a week later here is roughly the same view now:

Luckily the wedding was generally unaffected by all this chaos and everything went very smoothly on the day. Normal life can now be resumed!

Vegetable progress update

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May 102012

The potatoes are finally starting to show signs of life which is encouraging. That is only when compared to the apparently interminable wait for anything to happen of course. I’m sure that I will soon need to worry about earthing them up but for the moment they should be okay.

early potatoes coming up - May 2012

The onion sets that were planted in the veg bed are looking very good – it may not look like that in the photo but trust me on this! Even the extra ones that I planted in various pots around the garden a little later are coming on nicely. I would have planted more but I ran out of space and containers to put them in!

onion sets coming on nicely (with cabbages)

In a probably futile attempt to seize some more vegetable space in the garden I decided to hide some broccoli seedlings behind a few French Marigolds. I’m not sure if that will help with the companion planting but I had some marigolds left over and didn’t want to waste them.

This area is really supposed to be a flower bed anyway but I don’t have anything special to put in there at the moment so I figured it was worth a try. I think I got away with it but only time will tell..

trying to hide the broccoli behind some french marigolds in the flower bed

A weekend of successes

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Apr 232012

Now that the dust has settled a little from the weekend exertions I can start to take stock of the progress made and the relative success of my efforts so far. I know it’s still early in the year and spring is squelching more than usual but I like to focus on the positive aspects where possible.

Plants

The most obvious positive is that the carrots I planted out about 2 weeks haven’t died yet and in fact are looking pretty strong. They have been under a cloche all this time so I suspect that extra cover has helped them survive the wet conditions lately. From now on though they are on their own as the cover has been put away.

The carrots have been joined by the first batch of leeks although time well show that these were planted out too soon I suspect. The planting was simple though as the leeks were sown in the toilet roll tubes and so I just had to drop the entire thing in the hole each time. Once they had been watered in that veg bed was looking pretty full for the moment – at least until the carrots get harvested in July.

The onion sets are already starting to show signs of life with most having strong green shoots. I somehow hadn’t registered how many onion sets were coming in my order so I’ve filled all the planned space for them and established some overflow into various pots around the garden as well. It seems a waste but the remaining onion sets will just go to waste I think as I can only do so much with the space allowed.

Chickens

It was decided to give the chicken coop a good clean out with the disinfectant to keep on top of any possible problems. This decision seemed to be fully justified when I thought I saw some red mite but on reflection I realised that I wouldn’t know red mite if it bite me and it was just as likely to be my imagination. Either way the whole coop was dusted with mite powder as a precaution too.

In the meantime the chickens had their best day ever because they were given free run of the garden while the work went on. This went as well as could be expected apart from the regular hold ups while we herded them back to the furthest end of the garden in a vain attempt to keep some part of the garden in a presentable state.

Construction

The new water-butt is now installed and filling up nicely as a result of the rain on Saturday evening. The best I could get from our local B&Q was 200+ litres and maybe I paid a little over the odds at £30 but that should do fine for our purposes. I couldn’t see the point in forking out for a plastic stand at £12 as well so I just bought half a dozen breeze blocks and saved some cash as a result. Small and petty victories are the best!

Other stuff

Many of the non-vegetable gardening jobs didn’t get a look in again but at least I managed to get around to moving a small conifer which had got much bigger since we planted it. As a result the garden view has opened up a bit and an unsightly part of the garden has inherited an impressively looking shrub. Fingers crossed that it likes the new position and settles in well.

If only my first attempt at bread making had turned out so well but never mind, at least it was edible and tasted pretty good even if the rolls did look a bit like an accessory for the 2012 Olympic shot putt. I’ve learned some useful tips for the future and the next attempt should be a lot better.

Keeping on top of the Spring jobs

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Apr 202012

After another extended time away from home on business I know that there will be plenty of tasks waiting for me on my return. All of these will be in addition to the usual concerns about the contents of the vegetable beds and how they have coped in my absence.

Here is a brief run-down…

Vegetable beds

After the range of planting that I did a couple of weeks ago I’m hoping to see signs of progress from some if not all of them.

The seed potatoes have been under cloches so they should have been well protected from any frosts recently. Unfortunately the cloches will also have kept the rain off too so I;ll need to check that.

It is much the same for the carrot seedlings I planted out but these are a fast growing variety so I suspect I will see more progress with those.

The onion sets got planted out in a bit of a rush and as a result all I had left to cover them was some netting. Hopefully even that has been some help to keep the worst of the weather off them while they get established.

Planting Out

By this time the French Marigold seedlings will probably be a little too big for their current home and desperate to get out into the real world.

I have great hopes for these mainly for the companion planting benefits however they are also one of the few plants that I am growing from seed this year specifically just for the flowers. Unfortunately I don’t have such high hopes for success with the old poppy and foxglove seeds which I sowed after finding them in a corner of the garage.

The leek seedlings in toilet roll tubes seem to have taken ages but I suspect that is down to my impatience more than any inherent weakness on their part. If my calculations are correct then the first batch should be about ready for planting out. I just hope I left enough room for them when planting out the carrots a few weeks ago but if not then some leeks will just have to suffer a temporary home until the (early harvesting) carrots have gone.

Construction work

The work to reroute the guttering on the garage was completed (fairly roughly) last time but I need to adjust the slope to get a proper flow and finish off the supports as well.

Of course I still need to get the water-butt to use with this but that’s just a minor detail really! It’s just a shame that I’ve missed an opportunity with all the wet weather at home over the last 2 weeks. Never mind I’m fairly confident that the North East of England is not likely to suffer a drought just yet.

Rearranging things

There are always plenty of other (non-vegetable) jobs to get done though and one of them will to rearrange some other plants that have managed to spread their way around the garden.

As usual we have a lot of self seeded Campanula and they will mostly be left where they are this year. However I will clear out some of them in an effort to create the illusion of a few select areas rather than having them all over the whole garden.

I think the time has come to leave the Bluebells alone after many years of removing them from certain areas. This year I got the impression that they looked a little more under control so I think they deserve to break.

It may not be the right time but I think we have a Philadelphus in need of some tidying up. There was an ill-advised attempt at pruning a couple of years ago which didn’t go well – no names of course but it wasn’t me!

If I remember I may add a post with a picture of the Bay tree before I tackle it as we have left this for many years now. What used to a be a fairly well-trimmed but large standard-style tree is now getting out of control and needs a firm disciplinary hand.

At this point I should make it clear that I’m no expert with plant names but I always use these names for the plants in question so if I’m wrong then at least I’m consistent!

I’m keeping my fingers crossed

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Mar 312012

We have a few days away coming up so the Small Plot will be left in the hands of No3 daughter and although I’m not particularly fussy, I just know that things won’t be done exactly how I’d like. Okay, maybe I am a little fussy but then again I have invested a fair amount of time and effort getting the seeds to this stage so I’d rather not have any setbacks now.

The assortment of seeds and new plants have been careful arranged in the mini greenhouse or the reclaimed cold frame so I’m hopeful that they will make it through relatively unscathed. I suspect a text message cashing in some past favours may be needed if I hope to get them watered while we’re away though.

With luck the seeds that have been planted more recently (a 2nd batch of carrots, some lobelia & other flower seeds collected last year) will be perfectly happy. At least any water loss through evaporation will be less now that the weather is a little cooler.

We’ve tried to explain the limited complexity of the daily routines when keeping chickens but these have mostly been met with the comment “Yeah, yeah, whatever…”. There were some tricky episodes earlier this week when the chickens decided to go “exploring” when they were allowed into the fenced run we added. As a result it seems certain that the chickens will have to make do with their (roofed) run for the whole time we are away. Better safe than sorry I guess.

Obviously I’m looking forward to the time off from work but I’m also looking forward to getting back as well. There will be the chitted potatoes to plant out, my onion sets have been delivered, the first batch of carrots and the leeks should be well advanced and the French marigolds for companion planting may also be ready.

Exciting times ahead!

The great wheelbarrow debacle

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Mar 292012

It all started innocently enough when the No 1 daughter loaned our wheelbarrow to a friend but it didn’t seem too big a deal as it was “only for a day or two”.

Just a barrow

When the wheelbarrow was finally returned to us it turned out that the wheel had a puncture. While this news was not very well received there was little that we could do about it now.

At the time this seemed a fairly simple problem to solve so I put the wheelbarrow to one side for many months while I considered the options. A fairly standard response to things in our house at least plus the upended, incapacitated wheelbarrow was a handy place to store our garden hose!

Let’s try an inner tube

Having spent many a happy childhood afternoon mending bicycles and fixing punctures in the garden I assumed that adding an inner tube to the otherwise undamaged (and tubeless) tyre would do the trick. After a quick search for wheelbarrows on the B & Q website, it certainly looked a cost-effective option when compared to buying a complete new wheelbarrow.

This might have worked out nicely if it hadn’t been for the problems involved in getting the tyre back on the wheel after inserting the inner tube. Each time I got the wheel all back together there was a puncture in the inner tube. Probably as a result of my clumsy efforts but, needless to say, after the third time around I gave up with the inner tube and decided to order a complete replacement wheel.

What turns a barrow into a WHEELbarrow?

Having had no luck with a new wheel from B & Q (always out of stock on the website), the nice people at Northern Tool UK Ltd were more than happy to sell me a replacement wheel.

It arrived very promptly and was exactly as described on their website but given the lack of choice I ended up with a red wheel on a green wheelbarrow. Not the best colour combination but by this stage I was past caring and just wanted it working again!

Engineering by Botchit and Fudgit

As you might expect, this was not an exact match and required a certain amount of “re-engineering” with a hammer and spanner. Luckily I have extensive skills in that department so the job was soon successfully completed. And I didn’t lose any skin or blood in the process.

And so finally after all that effort we now have a working wheelbarrow again but as you might expect it is now propping up the house!

Older Entries

Hellebores

Flowering Currant (?)

Mahonia

Winter Flowering Jasmine

And finally…

What to try in 2013?

Plants

Chickens

Construction

Other stuff

Vegetable beds

Planting Out

Construction work

Rearranging things

Just a barrow

Let’s try an inner tube

What turns a barrow into a WHEELbarrow?

Engineering by Botchit and Fudgit

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