Showing posts with label #mygardenrightnow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #mygardenrightnow. Show all posts

2 Jul 2018

Weed, Mulch, Water, Clear - the yin and yang of gardening



It's been a busy month in the veg patch.  Every year I imagine that I'll reach that dreamed of moment when all that's needed is a little light watering in the evening and a chance to sit and relax.  Hohoho. Well, that's certainly not happening this year! (Does it ever?)

As usual, there's been good and bad, yin and yang, light and shade.  The heatwave continues so watering is sparse but slugs are few; flowers have bloomed then faded much too quickly; aphids have been legion, weeds less so. Hopefully after my efforts in past weeks, the bad will have been nudged to one side. Temporarily, at least.


1 Apr 2018

Six on Saturday: End of March in the garden



Goodness isn't weather fickle! Was that typical for March? It seemed winter would never end. We never know what the weather's going to do from one year to the next and this past month garden plants must have wondered whether winter was coming or going. Here in the UK, we've had snow, we've had sun, we've had rain, chill winds and then we've had more sun, and now to round off the month, it seems we're in for a week of rain. And I've got a hedge to plant. A new waterproof gardening coat has been ordered.

Despite the weather, there are several #sixonsaturday things happening in the garden today:

6 plants flowering now, showing that spring is well under way:


UrbanVegPatch: first tulip flower end of March

1. Tulips - yes really! starting to open in March. A big shout out to Morrison's supermarket for these as this is the third spring they've flowered. Planted into a raised bed with nothing-fancy multi-purpose compost. Five minutes to plant the bulbs, no maintenance, big return on the floral front but I don't pick them. I think they cost me £3 for 50 bulbs; a bargain. Look out for the bulbs from August onwards.


2. Forget-me-nots - the gift that keeps on giving.  I had a few plants from a friend's garden the year before last as they look so pretty in spring. Oh boy. Who knew they could self seed so far and wide! I still think they brighten up the early months but am confused. Some have opened pink; surely they should all be blue, or will they turn colour? Anyone?


3. Pulmonaria.  More commonly known as Lungwort due to its spotty leaves. Such an unattractive name for a beautiful little plant.  Also known as Soldiers and Sailors or Spotted Dog. I thought that was a pudding ... no, that's Spotted Dick. I digress. The buds have threatened to flower for weeks and have finally started to open. Hurrah!


4. Daffodils - yellow daffs have been going strong for weeks through snow and ice but the white ones, my favourites, have only just opened. I have no idea of the exact name as, again, these were Morrison's specials, £3 for 50 mixed white bulbs. The white tulips are lovely but I've been digging up the tiny alliums ever since.


5. Violets. I pictured a bank of wild thyme, oxlips, nodding violets, woodbine and eglantine - a throwback to studying Shakespeare at school. The reality is a few solitary flowers that become slug fodder every spring. They're seeding themselves around though so I'll pot a few up for the middle garden where I'm about to plant some eglantine (Sweet Briar Rose) and the woodbine (honeysuckle) is constantly striving for garden domination but forgiven for its lovely scent.



6. Primulas.  These were the first 'wildflowers' I planted in the veg patch for early colour and early food for bees. They're still my favourites. I have cowslips (Primula veris), primroses (Primula vulgaris), drumstick primroses (Primula denticulata) and all reliably flower throughout March and beyond, being some of the earliest spring flowers. As oxlips are only found growing in ancient woodland, and often mistaken for cowslips, I think I'm there on that one.

(A bonus to the list - the wood anemones and muscari have also flowered this weekend. So 8 plants, but why spoil a good meme!)



6 jobs completed in March:

1 - Dug out literally hundreds of foxglove seedlings
2 - Moved self seeded Cavolo Nero seedlings to this year's spot.
3 - Tidied up garden debris - swept up leaves, weeded, washed and tidied pots, disposed of litter ... yes, quite; it's a community garden so visitors/strangers/tenants and their families wander through. I'm still appalled that people will chuck plastic bottles, cigarette packets, beer bottles, plastic containers and food wrappers into a garden!! I also currently get scaffolders' debris. 😠
4 - Ordered new netting to fence off the garden against cats and foxes.
5 - Continuously picked up the 'calling cards' from said pesky critters. 😠
6 - Pruned gooseberry bushes, redcurrant, and quince, pear and apple trees - just in time!

6 jobs still to be done:

Make lots of paper pots. Then sow hundreds of seeds ...
Pot up spuds that are still chitting on the windowsill because I need more planters.
Repair fence and remesh (see 'Jobs completed')
Plant hedge - I'm going to grow an edible hedge! Excited? Oh yeah.
Finish new layout and herb bed in middle garden.
Move herbs from veg patch to other garden.
Buy cover for balcony staging to turn it into a mini greenhouse.
... Oh, and heaps more but let's not get overwhelmed too early in the season.


Linking to:
#sixonsaturday hosted by The Propagator blog 



5 Dec 2017

Early December in the Veg Patch

How many people are currently hunkering down inside, away from plummeting temperatures and relishing the warmth and cosiness of being tucked away from the cold?  I know the temptation to stay indoors on a dreary, possibly drizzly, day gets me every time. Grey skies do not motivate me. But I always surprise myself with how good it feels to get outside, wrapped up against the cold, for a walk or an hour's work in the garden.  There are always jobs to do, even (or especially?) at this time of year.  I still have leaves to rake and store, bulbs to plant and mulching to finish. Trees need pruning and a few perennials need to be relocated. I admit I enjoy the peace of working outside in winter, it clears my mind and gives me the headspace to think.

Last weekend Michelle at Vegplotting blog hosted another of her #mygardenrightnow challenges, inviting gardeners to get together on social media with a snap of themselves in their winter gardens.  We've had such a good warm autumn (and by that I mean temperatures still in the mid to high 50F range (10-15C) with occasional sun) that many of those gardeners were able to show plants in bloom.  Could I match that with anything in the veg patch? Let's have a look.


10 Sept 2017

And then it was September

Is that it? Is summer over?  You'd better believe it.  Leaves are falling from the fruit trees, children are back at school (hello again peaceful days!), seed catalogues are thumping onto the doormat and apples are blushing up nicely.  Unlike previous years, I'm feeling strangely calm about it all. Que sera sera, and all that.

The weather's been a bit tricky these past few weeks - hot one day, wet and mild the next. Luckily I'm no longer obliged to be outside putting my waterproofs through their paces; instead, as summer slips away, it's been the perfect chance to pop the kettle on and take stock.


9 Mar 2017

#mygardenrightnow In the Veg Patch early March



Last weekend I joined in with Veg Plotting's engaging #mygardenrightnow meme with pics of me in the middle garden as that was where I'd been working but ... "What about the veg patch?", do I hear you ask? Indeed. Still loved, rarely forgotten. That space has been quietly trundling along over winter supplying me with kale, chard, beetroot, a few herbs, wild rocket and bucketloads of inspiration to be outdoors. (I haven't yet nailed the winter salad that I hope to achieve this year.)

Now depleted winter veg but, ooh look!, here comes rhubarb and psb!

From top left: Herb bed (Tarragon, mint in buckets, chives, hyssop, thymes);
Wild garlic (ransoms), Tarragon, Chives.
The gaps will be filled with parsley, coriander and dill and fennel also grows in the garden.

Seeing the garden spring back into life over the past few weeks has brought good cheer and a reason to walk through every day, sometimes lingering to pull a weed or two and making plans.  It's not just veg that's grown here though and my favourite spot right now is the patch under the apple tree - I like to think of it as my "spring border. As soon as the fruit trees were planted, I wanted to pretty up the soil underneath so every year since I've randomly dropped in primulas, mini daffodils, violets, snowdrops and crocuses - all of which are gradually spreading out and providing much needed sustenance for early pollinators.


Last year I transplanted some of the hellebore seedlings from the middle garden and am delighted to see that they've started to flower this spring. The more the merrier!



I'd like to claim that I actually planned the planter above but the sad reality is that I ran out of time in autumn 2015 and plonked crocus bulbs in so that they weren't wasted ... and since last spring had completely forgotten they were there, proving the point that bulbs thrive on neglect.  Most gardeners have their fails but, happily, I seem to have turned this one around.

Inside the veg patch, the raspberry canes have been cut down, empty beds are weed free and mulched where possible - hence the cages over the asparagus bed.  Purple sprouting broccoli is finally starting to sprout to my huge relief. A couple of the plants had got so enormous that they regularly toppled over, blocking the path or crushing other plants depending which way the wind blew. These plants were 'Early summer purple' so wouldn't have sprouted until May; that was bad planning on my part as I now need the bed for other veg so, spur of the moment, I heaved them out. Yep. That was probably a really stupid decision in terms of future harvests but, lesson learned, I should have known by now to place them at the back of the bed, firm them in and tie them up.  The supporting stakes were not strong enough for such big plants. And at least I can now get to the far end of the Veg Patch. Every year a learning curve.

I'm really happy with the veg patch at the moment, although there's still work to be done.  I still have a little bit of hungry gap veg and, more importantly, I have space to get the ball rolling again - and, serendipitously, a bit of free time coming up to do just that.


I've read that #mygardenrightnow will be back in June, joining the Chelsea Fringe online. Look out for news about that nearer the time from Veg Plotting.

5 Mar 2017

#mygardenrightnow - progress in the middle garden

Ooh, look! It's me!


There's a garden bloggers meme running - for this weekend only! - hosted by Michelle at Veg Plotting blog.  Come join us and check out what other garden bloggers are up to this weekend!


It might not look like much but progress was made in the middle garden yesterday. This is the little garden which I look out on from two floors up and which I started to clear last year.  I've been taking my time as there was a lot of ivy and other stuff that needed to be got rid of (mostly on the occasional day off work) but, finally, I'm redoing the layout.

As with all garden design, it was important to get this step completed first before I could introduce new plants but over the last year, I've acquired lots of plants for this space - some bought, some given, some adopted from my mother's garden.  These plants have been shuffled around the garden in their pots while I deal with one area or another but timing is now crucial.  Spring is here and these plants need to be in the ground, so the layout has to be finished. Yesterday's task was to level off the soil where I'd dug out weeds, bricks and tree roots, hack back some more ivy and clear under the Euonymus (spindle) hedge ready to chop it back more. All done by 6pm, just as the light was fast fading.

Luckily, when I got in, I spotted Michelle's weekend meme #mygardenrightnow; photos were needed so, at 8 am this morning, before taking my garden waste to recycling in the rain, I snapped a (rare) quick pic of me in the garden.

13 months ago - 7ft wide hedges and ivy creeping up to the tiny weed filled oval of gravel.

What a difference a year makes! This morning (when the sun briefly reappeared from behind rain clouds)
I'm still deciding whether to keep gravel in the centre or replace with grass or chippings.