Nature abhors a vacuum

It seems such a short while ago that I donned thermal layers to weather the cold outside and watched not very patiently for signs of growth in the garden. At last we had some warm hot weather, a tad earlier than expected while the veg patch was still in spring mode, covered in forget-me-nots and daffodils. 

It looked wonderfully frothy ... mainly because it was too early to plant anything. 

Move on a few weeks and I now have to steel myself to ruthlessly remove (some of) the flowers in order to make space for some veg. The forget-me-nots can be pulled out once they've seeded themselves (thank you May winds) but the calendula, linaria and foxgloves will be keeping the bees and pollinators happy for a bit longer. 

I did actually make a start clearing and mulching this area in late winter ... tidying the strawberries, removing some of the raspberry canes that had crept too close to the path, and digging up last year's Jerusalem artichokes (somewhat optimistically hoping that I did actually find them all). 

And having waited patiently for the gentle warmth of spring - ie keeping late March or April in mind to start sowing seeds - a tiny heatwave jump started the heat of summer and denied us any much needed April rain. The hosepipe came out, the water butts were topped up. 

The result? A veg patch of self sown forget-me-nots, calendula, linaria, foxgloves, feverfew, ox-eye daisies and a host of identifiable weeds.  And a windowsill at home full of veg waiting to be planted out. 

On the plus side, the quince tree canopy has spread providing a nice shady spot for spinach. At least, that was the plan but when I walked around the patch this morning, a small meadow seems to have sprung up in the shade of the quince. Very pretty but oops. 

It all looks rather beautiful to my mind - I absolutely adore the zingy oranges, peppermint pinks and purple hues - and love the sounds of bees making the most of this early season bounty.  I admit I've spent more hours admiring the flowers than working in this plot.  

But now it's time. The forget-me-nots are starting to seed all over the garden for next year, last year's pink chard and Cavolo kale have finished and need to be removed, as does the garlic that never bulbed up. 

And, no, I didn't get all the sunchokes out, there seems to be a fair amount of those popping up again. Oops. (But maybe not.)

Tulips and a grand Day Out in Sussex

Spring is such an exciting time and every day there's something new to see in the garden. But there was extra excitement for me this past week as this town mouse went to the Sussex countryside on a day trip to Gravetye Manor.  

Gravetye is the historical home of William Robinson, a renowned gardener/writer of the late Victorian era who pioneered wild gardening during a period when formal bedding-plant style prevailed. Gravetye Manor is now run as a rather grand hotel and Michelin starred restaurant but Robinson's gardens have been maintained in keeping with his ideas on natural beauty. As expected, they are a visual delight all year round.

Why was I there? Well, the occasion was a talk from award winning garden designer Jo Thompson about her latest book 'The New Romantic Garden'. This was followed by a delicious lunch* and a stroll around the gardens where thousands of tulips, euphorbia, forget-me-nots and fern-leaved Sweet Cicely gave that spring sparkle to the borders in the Flower Garden.

I'm rather envious as my own stalwarts of spring, the hefty amount of tulips planted in previous years, have more or less vanished. There's a reason for this as I was to learn. Allegedly the tulips that can be bought in bulk from the nursery or garden centre are not as robust or dependable as those ordered from specialist bulb suppliers. No prizes for guessing where my bulbs were from. 

Or it could have been that mine just rotted as a result of torrential rain last year. 

So there's my lesson.  Now I know that if I want to keep the best ones, they should be lifted, dried and stored. I'm wondering if I can be bothered. And some species of tulip are more perennial than others as we learned from Tom Coward who, let's face it, knows.  

Tom has been the head gardener at Gravetye for the past fifteen years and imparted much wisdom to us about managing the gardens and, especially, tulips. We were told that 5,000 tulips had been planted in just three days last November (no, they don't have a vast team of gardeners) and that the best time to plant the bulbs is November or December.  (I sort of knew that, but not why.)

But notably, (pay attention please), if the bulbs are planted when the weather is still mild, the bulbs get warm and rot. (Note to self: don't store the bulbs indoors! And don't be tempted to plant while the weather is still relatively pleasant. And, yes, it's okay to plant the bulbs in January, they'll just flower later.)

Tom also mentioned Anna Pavord's book, 'The Tulip', as a jolly good read on the subject; my copy was retrieved from the bookshelf forthwith.

Another surprising revelation came when Tom showed us a small pot of tulips that he had grown from saved seed. Wow. Big respect. This is definitely one for the extremely patient gardener as the seeds take four years to grow. Impressive ... but not something I'll be trying any day soon. Although, as Tom pointed out, if you do this every year, after the first four years you'll have new tulips every year. 

To round off the tour, Tom took us up to the famous, and very large, oval walled kitchen garden. Built by Robinson on a slope to catch all available light, the symbiotic relationship between the kitchen and this garden continues.  Menus are planned to make use of what's growing there. Obviously there's not much that can be harvested at this time of year but an edible posy of wild garlic was included with our meal. 

In the garden long rows of beans are fleeced against pheasants, flowers for the house are starting to grow, herbs spill over the path edges under step over apples and broad beans and winter veg stood ready for harvest; it all looked very pretty. And, just outside the garden gates, who wouldn't want a hut like this to work from?

So, after this and to end the day, we were left to wander through the rest of the gardens, admiring blossom and camassia in the Orchard. This would have been the perfect end to a perfect day ... if we hadn't got stuck in traffic for two hours in the heat behind a road traffic accident. Ah well, you can't have it all.

Let me leave you with this lovely view walking down from the kitchen garden in Gravetye.

William Robinson's spirit lives on .... 

* 'lunch'  doesn't convey the fabulous meal we had; tasty, beautiful and locally sourced fine dining with delicious wine would be a better, if more wordy, description. 

A natural way to control slugs and snails

A baby snail exploring the flower stalks of my Wild Garlic plants.

If you've got a garden, you've got slugs and snails.  Fact.  The little blighters lurk everywhere - behind walls, around pots and under planks of wood. I've even found one behind a pot on a top floor balcony! But they're also an essential part of the eco-system that our gardens need to succeed ... but possibly not in such large numbers.

Slugs come in all shapes and sizes ... and names.  A quick google search gives me banana slugs, ghost slugs, leopard slugs, pancake slugs, Spanish slugs, brown field slugs and a rainbow of slug colours - black, yellow, red, ash-grey and pink. And there's also a range of rather cute sea slugs.

They're hermaphrodes so both sexes can lay hundreds of eggs several times a year after mating. Once hatched, tiny slugs become adults within a year and then start the cycle again.

They'll munch on dead leaves, sick plants and, in the case of leopard slugs, they'll also eat each other.  And when that food source runs out, they'll head straight for your newly planted lettuces and legumes. Pity the poor gardener who persists in trying to grow hostas, lupins and delphiniums!  (There is a way round that.)

Putting aside their natural aptitude for destruction, slugs are also an important part of the garden eco-system, providing a food source for birds, foxes, beetles - and, if you're lucky, hedgehogs, frogs and ducks. So the methods I've tried and tested in my veg patch and other gardens are more about control than total annihilation.

When I wrote about natural slug deterrents in 2014, I hadn't yet tried wool pellets or Strulch. But both worked for me in subsequent years keeping slugs and snails away from beans and strawberries.  

This year I'm going to try Grazers, a natural spray recommended by garden designer Jo Thompson.  I can't report on its effectiveness yet as we haven't had much wet weather so far. (Ha! I wrote that yesterday, today it's raining.)

And I've not tried drowning slugs in pots of beer (I prefer to drink it myself) but heard from a neighbour that he'd had some success with a yeast based concoction but was unable to provide me with a recipe. It seems that it's the yeast that gets the slugs attention.

But, happy days, I've since found the magic potion online and have stored up the recipe for the next bout of expected precipitation. (Recipe at bottom of this post or watch here.)

Two more ways of protecting your veg plants; try surrounding them with plants that slugs dislike. Or, secondly, plant into pots and smear a good slick of grease such as a Vaseline around the rim - slugs will arch over copper tape but sticky grease deters them.  It certainly worked with a client's delphiniums last year!

A few plants that slugs don't like are strong smelling plants like nepeta, sage, thyme, lavender and the hairier plants like borage, foxgloves, salvia, astrantia.  I've noticed they also leave calendula alone.  All of these are also good for attracting pollinators. 

But, of course, the best deterrent is to go out during the evening with a torch and bucket of warm salty water; you'll find many molluscs feasting on your plants. Pick them off, drop them into the bucket; the salty water will kill them. Cruel but effective. But put the bodies into the compost, I'm not sure that birds would benefit from eating salty snacks. 

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A recipe to capture slugs

• Approximately one cup of lukewarm water (not hot)
• 2 Tablespoons of plain flour
• 1 Tablespoon of sugar (fine sugar like caster sugar will dissolve faster)
• 1 teaspoon of dried yeast
• A jar to mix it all in.

Add all the dry ingredients in the jar, add the warm water bit by bit stirring as you go to avoid clumps. 

Make this mixture an hour before using. The mix will be active when you see foam on the top.

Pour into tubs or containers sunk partly into the soil, away from your precious plants. Check on the tubs in the morning and expect to find several slugs have found their way there. 

A few pointers on making slug traps from recycled pots can be read here.

Worth a try, eh? 

Bursting with Blissful Blossom (it must be spring)

 

That winter wasn't so bad, was it? And followed by a glorious sunny spring, it's easy to believe that the plants are jumping the gun a bit but, no, looking back at previous years, I can see that everything is right on track.  (A good reason for taking photos of the garden throughout the year.) 

After the gentle unfolding of snowdrops, then the brash appearance of yellow trumpet daffodils, the garden is settling into the season. The flowers that heralded spring in my garden are starting to fade (the pink hellebores are currently a rather lovely pale lilac grey colour) and there's something new every time I go into the garden.  It's taken a while to get to this stage but now the garden is constantly evolving and surprising me.  (No instant tv makeovers here!)

Brunnera, ajuga, camellia, forget-me-nots, white daffs and honesty ... all are brightening up the borders. Bizarrely, so is a very orange Fritillaria Imperialis. I have no idea where that came from - I definitely didn't plant it! - but am rather loving it.  I might even introduce a few more for next year. 

But it's not just flowers.  In this garden (the one I see from my balcony), the lemon verbena is pumping out delicious smelling leaves, as is the Chilean guava; hopefully there will be fruit from that this year. The blackcurrant, blueberries and gooseberries are also looking very healthy. I've planted a couple of purple sprouting broccoli into the beds as well; they're leftovers from last year so who knows if they'll actually grow but there's nothing to lose!

There are pots of dahlias, origanum Kent Beauty (the one that trails pink bracts), four mint varieties, achillea, lemon balm (those herbs are the four that make a refreshing tea) and wild strawberries.

In the veg garden, fruit trees are in full froth; one puff of wind and it will look like a wedding has just taken place. My Cavolo kale plant (just the one left!) has started to flower, the pink Chard is hanging on in there and I've had many delicious stems from my third year (perennial?) purple sprouting broccoli. 

It must be time to break out the seed box again and get the beetroot, chard and brassicas in for next year.