Another sorting day. I planted out the scabious and the knifophia in the side garden and sowed some more radishes, beetroot and carrots in the field, helped by Em. Her Ian did some digging and it was a hot, hot day. After not too much time she had to decamp to the stone bench under the wild cherry tree and we joined her not too much later.
The tomatoes are planted out now, with only one solitary pot still languishing in the greenhouse.
Yesterday I planted out nicotiana and cosmos in the side garden in front of the warzone which is the cut down oriental poppies. I have tried to weed the side garden today too but the stony soil and the prolific weeds which have sprung up from the mulching (moral, use compost to fill planting holes, not as a mulch) makes it a thankless task. Still everything looks green and fresh and growing again after the cold start to spring.
This is a garden diary, for myself, to keep track of the flowers, fruit and vegetables which grow up here on the hill
Thursday, 2 July 2009
Saturday, 27 June 2009
End of June
Where did the last couple of months go? One minute I was blogging away fairly frequently about the garden and suddenly here we are and I have said nothing for weeks.
The garden is slowly returning to its usual state of semi-wildness as opposed to the total overgrown mess it was when I got back from my long walk. One of the problems with a naturalistic garden, full of self sown seedlings and every thing jostling for position, is that it easily tips over into chaos. Three weeks of neglect had left it so overgrown it made me want to cry. Now a week of hours of cutting back, weeding, taking out some of the thousands of opium poppies threatening to drown out everything else in the new bed, has just about returned it to something which looks as if it is meant. Not great, not perfect, but in the loosest sense a garden rather than a mess.
I must must must remember next year that the oriental poppies and the foxgloves need staking. Every year I am seduced by how sturdy they look in May and every year we get a ferocious wind slicing along the valley which leaves everything tipsy and twisted. I have also cut back the huge amounts of growth on the poppies as the flowering finishes and am left with a lot of bare soil and mess. I am wondering about zinnias or more cosmos. I suspect zinnias would be better. next year I should try growing some from seed.
to do:
Sow more lettuce and other salad stuff - done
Sow more carrots and beetroot - done
Finish cutting back poppies - done
Weed poppy bed - started
Plant annual succession (??)
Move heuchera
Move marguerites - done
Weed behind new bed
Mulch path with wood chippings
Tie up sweet peas -done
Weed side bed - started
Dig up lavender - done
Aargh
so much to do
The garden is slowly returning to its usual state of semi-wildness as opposed to the total overgrown mess it was when I got back from my long walk. One of the problems with a naturalistic garden, full of self sown seedlings and every thing jostling for position, is that it easily tips over into chaos. Three weeks of neglect had left it so overgrown it made me want to cry. Now a week of hours of cutting back, weeding, taking out some of the thousands of opium poppies threatening to drown out everything else in the new bed, has just about returned it to something which looks as if it is meant. Not great, not perfect, but in the loosest sense a garden rather than a mess.
I must must must remember next year that the oriental poppies and the foxgloves need staking. Every year I am seduced by how sturdy they look in May and every year we get a ferocious wind slicing along the valley which leaves everything tipsy and twisted. I have also cut back the huge amounts of growth on the poppies as the flowering finishes and am left with a lot of bare soil and mess. I am wondering about zinnias or more cosmos. I suspect zinnias would be better. next year I should try growing some from seed.
to do:
Sow more lettuce and other salad stuff - done
Sow more carrots and beetroot - done
Finish cutting back poppies - done
Weed poppy bed - started
Plant annual succession (??)
Move heuchera
Move marguerites - done
Weed behind new bed
Mulch path with wood chippings
Tie up sweet peas -done
Weed side bed - started
Dig up lavender - done
Aargh
so much to do
Friday, 17 April 2009
mid April
Vegetables
A lot has been happening over the last week or two. Last weekend we planted the potatoes, at Easter as tradition dictates: Arran Pilot (first early), Charlotte (second early), Pink Fir Apple (maincrop). We also planted a couple of rows of samples given to us by Emma: eight Ratte, five Belle de Fontenay, and six Rooster. All these went into the new bed in the field between the raspberry rows where there will eventually be rhubarb, and in the new lower half of the cutting bed where there will eventually be flowers.
The first sowing of broad beans, peas and mangetout are coming along well in the greenhouse and will soon need to be planted out. I have also sown carrots (just showing today), celeriac (no sign) and beetroot (up and growing strongly). Yesterday I sowed chard and a couple of days ago two sorts of cabbage, Greyhound and Calibos. A couple of weeks ago I sowed some Little Gem lettuce and some mixed salad leaves and they are growing quite strongly.
Ian has sowed more tomatoes this week, together with cucumber and courgettes. So far there is very little outside except for the garlic and onions, all growing well.
I need to weed and rake the slice of the cutting garden which will have to take root veg. There is just no room in the kitchen garden.
Side garden
I have planted out the three fennel plants that I grew from our own seed, sown in October of last year and overwintered in the greenhouse. They are in the sunnier of the two beds in the side garden. I also planted out seven dianthus, also grown from seed and looking a bit sad and straggly having been in the coldframe for a couple of months, three pulsatilla and three more white foxgloves. Into there also went a phlomis from Great Dixter and three eremurus.
In the shady bed went the other three eremurus, three smyrnium perfoliatum , five arum creticum (these last two also from Great Dixter) and the other three pulsatilla. I know the eremurus really like full sun, but there is sun for a fair part of the day and just not enough room in the other bed for all of them.
The side garden is starting to look a bit more garden like now, although still with patches of bare soil. All these plants sound great but they are tiny! Once the alchemilla and the hardy geraniums have filled out it will be better. The grass seed on the resown lawn is a bit hopeless. Perhaps it will need to be done again.
A lot has been happening over the last week or two. Last weekend we planted the potatoes, at Easter as tradition dictates: Arran Pilot (first early), Charlotte (second early), Pink Fir Apple (maincrop). We also planted a couple of rows of samples given to us by Emma: eight Ratte, five Belle de Fontenay, and six Rooster. All these went into the new bed in the field between the raspberry rows where there will eventually be rhubarb, and in the new lower half of the cutting bed where there will eventually be flowers.
The first sowing of broad beans, peas and mangetout are coming along well in the greenhouse and will soon need to be planted out. I have also sown carrots (just showing today), celeriac (no sign) and beetroot (up and growing strongly). Yesterday I sowed chard and a couple of days ago two sorts of cabbage, Greyhound and Calibos. A couple of weeks ago I sowed some Little Gem lettuce and some mixed salad leaves and they are growing quite strongly.
Ian has sowed more tomatoes this week, together with cucumber and courgettes. So far there is very little outside except for the garlic and onions, all growing well.
I need to weed and rake the slice of the cutting garden which will have to take root veg. There is just no room in the kitchen garden.
Side garden
I have planted out the three fennel plants that I grew from our own seed, sown in October of last year and overwintered in the greenhouse. They are in the sunnier of the two beds in the side garden. I also planted out seven dianthus, also grown from seed and looking a bit sad and straggly having been in the coldframe for a couple of months, three pulsatilla and three more white foxgloves. Into there also went a phlomis from Great Dixter and three eremurus.
In the shady bed went the other three eremurus, three smyrnium perfoliatum , five arum creticum (these last two also from Great Dixter) and the other three pulsatilla. I know the eremurus really like full sun, but there is sun for a fair part of the day and just not enough room in the other bed for all of them.
The side garden is starting to look a bit more garden like now, although still with patches of bare soil. All these plants sound great but they are tiny! Once the alchemilla and the hardy geraniums have filled out it will be better. The grass seed on the resown lawn is a bit hopeless. Perhaps it will need to be done again.
Wednesday, 1 April 2009
The side garden
Further progress on the side garden today. I planted out 12 white foxgloves and lifted and moved 8 alchemilla mollis from the gravel in front of the house to the edges of the new bed. I also planted out two new hardy geraniums from Crug Farm Plants. Shamefacedly I have to admit that I don't know the varieties as I have had these in pots for about a year and have lost the labels.
The side garden is still looking empty but not quite as desolate as last month. I still have some potted tulips to plant out and some eremurus later in April. I suspect the eremurus will be happier in the other bed. This one is likely to be too shady but I have so many I will give it a go. It is a pain to plant things out in here at the moment. The soil as always here is stony and shallow. I wonder how much of what has gone in will survive.
In the greenhouse I sowed Clary and Orlaya Grandiflora, both hardy annuals. I also sowed some carrots and celeriac in guttering which, perhaps surprisingly, worked well last year.
Saturday, 28 March 2009
Rhubarb and grass seed
A cold day today, dry but windy, bursts of sun but a two fleece day. This morning we went up to some friends' house to collect a trailer full of manure - marvellous stuff, gold dust. We have nine bags of last year's collection rotted down to perfect richness. This morning's hoard is stacked in one of the compost bays. On land like this with thin, stony soil, manure is the magic transformational ingredient which produces sweet peas in abundance, green beans and mangetout, courgettes and squash.
We bought some new rhubarb in the autumn. We ordered some very cheaply with our bare rooted plants for the hedging from Buckingham Nurseries and also ordered a collection. The plants were all very small, some laughably so, in 3 in pots and looking totally unlike anything which would ever provide a crop. We heeled them in one of the raised beds while deciding what to do with them. The plan had been to put them into the new bed in the field with the new raspberries but they are so tiny, and we have so many seed potatoes clamouring for space, that we have potted them up today in pots of mixed soil and well rotted manure. We will let them put on some growth over this year in their pots before they go into their permanent home. Ultimately each of these crowns will need about three foot of space. Hard to believe.
They are:
3 Sutton, all of a decent size, one smaller than the others,
3 decent sized Victoria
2 small Victoria which came in 3 in pots and don't look much bigger for having spent three months in the ground
3 reasonable sized Timperley Early
1 mingy little Glasnevin Perpetual.
We also raked and riddled the bank in front of the workshop which now contains the soil from the spoil pile after the utility build. The ground breeds stone, it wells up like water in a spring. We have bags and bags of stone which we have removed. With luck this bank will take grass seed now and will soon be part of the field again. I also want to reseed the side garden.
We bought some new rhubarb in the autumn. We ordered some very cheaply with our bare rooted plants for the hedging from Buckingham Nurseries and also ordered a collection. The plants were all very small, some laughably so, in 3 in pots and looking totally unlike anything which would ever provide a crop. We heeled them in one of the raised beds while deciding what to do with them. The plan had been to put them into the new bed in the field with the new raspberries but they are so tiny, and we have so many seed potatoes clamouring for space, that we have potted them up today in pots of mixed soil and well rotted manure. We will let them put on some growth over this year in their pots before they go into their permanent home. Ultimately each of these crowns will need about three foot of space. Hard to believe.
They are:
3 Sutton, all of a decent size, one smaller than the others,
3 decent sized Victoria
2 small Victoria which came in 3 in pots and don't look much bigger for having spent three months in the ground
3 reasonable sized Timperley Early
1 mingy little Glasnevin Perpetual.
We also raked and riddled the bank in front of the workshop which now contains the soil from the spoil pile after the utility build. The ground breeds stone, it wells up like water in a spring. We have bags and bags of stone which we have removed. With luck this bank will take grass seed now and will soon be part of the field again. I also want to reseed the side garden.
Wednesday, 25 March 2009
Sweetpeas
Today on the way home from the station (last day at work yesterday!) I stopped to buy some sweetpea seeds. I bought Elegant Ladies, heritage varieties with good scent. As I came away I thought I did not have enough and had been thinking about buying some of Sarah Raven's seeds. At home a card was waiting from a lovely friend, welcoming me to my new workless life and enclosing a packet of Sarah Raven's Dark Colour Mix. Synchonicity writ large.
This afternoon I split each packet in two and put half of each packet into water to soak overnight. The other halves I sowed in three inch pots and put into the propagator. I have read contradictory things about the value of soaking sweet peas so I thought I would do a mini trial. Sweetpeas should germinate within seven to twenty one days so there is plenty of room for manoeuvre there!
This afternoon I split each packet in two and put half of each packet into water to soak overnight. The other halves I sowed in three inch pots and put into the propagator. I have read contradictory things about the value of soaking sweet peas so I thought I would do a mini trial. Sweetpeas should germinate within seven to twenty one days so there is plenty of room for manoeuvre there!
Saturday, 21 March 2009
In the greenhouse
Much weeding today and discovering more things that did not survive the winter, this time one of my globe artichokes.
I have also sown beetroot in the greenhouse in guttering and two seedtrays, one of Little Gem and one of mixed salad leaves.
Ian built me another cold frame so now all the foxgloves, the tulips in pots and the eremurus are out of the greenhouse leaving more space for starting vegetables. Ian also sowed some tomatoes which are in the kitchen on the windowsill.
I have also sown beetroot in the greenhouse in guttering and two seedtrays, one of Little Gem and one of mixed salad leaves.
Ian built me another cold frame so now all the foxgloves, the tulips in pots and the eremurus are out of the greenhouse leaving more space for starting vegetables. Ian also sowed some tomatoes which are in the kitchen on the windowsill.
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