- Choose pot grown apples. Ours were quite expensive and came in large pots. Both are now ready to come into blossom. It's cold up here so I hope they don't opening out during another early frost.
- Don't prune your blackcurrants after planting. We didn't. These also are now beginning to flower and I am happy to see that we bought one variety the article recommends - 'Ben Connan'.
- Buy summer fruiting raspberries as long canes. Well, they weren't exactly long, but long enough to have buds which are now beginning to develop. Both raspberries and blackcurrants get sun for some periods of the day.
- Strawberries. We thought about these and didn't buy any in the end. However, the ornamental small strawberries that grew in the border we turned into a veg patch are beginning to reappear and should look decorative if not tasty.
Monday 27 April 2015
Buying fruit to crop in the first year
One of our neighbours has given us some back copies of Gardeners' World and I was interest to read an article in the February 2013 issue entitled Fast Fruit. In our experience fruit is not usually 'fast' but I was gratified to find that we had followed the advice in this piece without knowing it:
Wednesday 15 April 2015
Petunias
When we lived in the south, petunias were the kind of bedding plant that pleased our customers. We would rush into a superstore on the way to a job (lateness is usually my fault) and load up with general purpose compost and trays of sweetly smelling, pink, purple and white petunias. Then it was out with the pansies - the winter bedding - and in with the petunias.
Up here, the winter pansies are doing fine as the April sun finally warms their south-facing bed. I guess that if my husband keeps dead-heading them regularly they are good for at least another month yet. As for the petunias, well I am having a go.
We have acquired several packets of saved seed and commercial seed from a friend whose late mother was a great gardening enthusiast. She collected them from her monthly magazine, but in her latter years was too infirm to do much. The petunia packets had a 'sow by' date of 2010. Now that is a challenge.
Regardless, I sowed these almost microscopic seeds in a fine moist compost inside our new potting shed where, at the warmest point today, the thermometer showed 80 degrees F. It is predicted to drop to just below freezing tonight. Then I covered them with cling film for humidity. The packet says that germination can take from 14 to 21 days. I also sowed Morning Glory (2015) seeds; some coleus (same age as the petunia seed) and some of our saved french beans from the allotment.
We could afford bedding plants ourselves. But as we have the leisure to concentrate on our small 'plot' we are beginning to focus on doing things well on a small scale. And if the petunias should fail I still have plenty of common or kitchen garden pot marigolds.
Up here, the winter pansies are doing fine as the April sun finally warms their south-facing bed. I guess that if my husband keeps dead-heading them regularly they are good for at least another month yet. As for the petunias, well I am having a go.
We have acquired several packets of saved seed and commercial seed from a friend whose late mother was a great gardening enthusiast. She collected them from her monthly magazine, but in her latter years was too infirm to do much. The petunia packets had a 'sow by' date of 2010. Now that is a challenge.
Regardless, I sowed these almost microscopic seeds in a fine moist compost inside our new potting shed where, at the warmest point today, the thermometer showed 80 degrees F. It is predicted to drop to just below freezing tonight. Then I covered them with cling film for humidity. The packet says that germination can take from 14 to 21 days. I also sowed Morning Glory (2015) seeds; some coleus (same age as the petunia seed) and some of our saved french beans from the allotment.
We could afford bedding plants ourselves. But as we have the leisure to concentrate on our small 'plot' we are beginning to focus on doing things well on a small scale. And if the petunias should fail I still have plenty of common or kitchen garden pot marigolds.
Monday 13 April 2015
Shrubbery (replacement) Project
Walking around our park one evening after supper we noticed that in a minor act of vandalism some person had torn off and then dropped a flowering branch from one of the forsythia bushes. I took this home and put it in a vase with some daffodils.
It got us thinking. When we moved here and established our kitchen garden my husband removed a lilac, an unspecified tree and a forsythia bush of which our neighbour was rather fond. With hindsight we could have taken hardwood or root cuttings. Never mind. Once again we supported our local agricultural college and last Saturday took our place in the queue behind two loaded trolleys. A young student, under supervision, was learning to operate the till. We bought two at £4.50 each. Then on up the A6 for the charity shops, but that is another story...
On our return my husband removed another (smallish) dead leyland cypress from our perimeter and created two planting holes, filled with a mixture of leaf mulch and compost. In among the barbed wire went two forsythia bushes with healthy roots.
These bushes are small at the moment, but I know from previous experience that they can do well and grow quickly. Next year we hope to remove another dead cypress and put in two more. I see in my mind's eye a springtime screen of yellow forsythia waving in the dappled shade, while local residents enjoy the park.
It got us thinking. When we moved here and established our kitchen garden my husband removed a lilac, an unspecified tree and a forsythia bush of which our neighbour was rather fond. With hindsight we could have taken hardwood or root cuttings. Never mind. Once again we supported our local agricultural college and last Saturday took our place in the queue behind two loaded trolleys. A young student, under supervision, was learning to operate the till. We bought two at £4.50 each. Then on up the A6 for the charity shops, but that is another story...
On our return my husband removed another (smallish) dead leyland cypress from our perimeter and created two planting holes, filled with a mixture of leaf mulch and compost. In among the barbed wire went two forsythia bushes with healthy roots.
These bushes are small at the moment, but I know from previous experience that they can do well and grow quickly. Next year we hope to remove another dead cypress and put in two more. I see in my mind's eye a springtime screen of yellow forsythia waving in the dappled shade, while local residents enjoy the park.
Friday 10 April 2015
Shrubbery (removal) Project
It is almost five months since we left our gardening round in the south, but this week saw us in a familiar pose, my husband up a ladder with a tree saw and myself balancing it at the foot. We were there with the permission of our neighbour to trim overgrown shrubs and hawthorn branches along our boundary which in part comprises his hedge and our garage. This is a precaution to avoid blocked garage gutters and also preliminary work in the event of our garage needing repairs.
It seemed strange to be doing for ourselves the kind of task we had so often been set by others. The technique however was the same: the cutting of an access area into our neighbour's shrubs with the minimum of damage but sufficient to allow the safe balancing of the ladder; the selection of the correct branches by my husband and the hauling of said branches out of the foliage to be caught by me. Then it was the long process of cutting them into bits with the loppers and wedging all the green garden waste into the brown bin.
When we had finished we trimmed around the border and raked up leaves from the lawn.
The nesting blue tit that came by with a beak full of mossy material can now return to our neighbour's bird box in peace and the sparrows resume their twittering among the holly and privet.
It seemed strange to be doing for ourselves the kind of task we had so often been set by others. The technique however was the same: the cutting of an access area into our neighbour's shrubs with the minimum of damage but sufficient to allow the safe balancing of the ladder; the selection of the correct branches by my husband and the hauling of said branches out of the foliage to be caught by me. Then it was the long process of cutting them into bits with the loppers and wedging all the green garden waste into the brown bin.
When we had finished we trimmed around the border and raked up leaves from the lawn.
The nesting blue tit that came by with a beak full of mossy material can now return to our neighbour's bird box in peace and the sparrows resume their twittering among the holly and privet.
Thursday 9 April 2015
Planting out - northern temperatures
Today I felt it was warm enough to plant out our broad beans. They had been taken out of the greenhouse, sheltered in large terracotta pots for a week or so and now it was time to test them in our new raised beds. My husband kindly raked these over for me, remarking that manure and compost seem to disappear in a clay soil like ours.
We got about fifty per cent germination success on these beans. Never mind. We don't have twenty five square metres times three in allotment space so the beans, properly spaced were sufficient to fill two of our raised beds. Now I was in the mood for sowing. So I intersowed radish (saved seed) with the beans, beet spinach in the next raised bed and pot marigolds in little pockets around the kitchen garden area.
On to the potting shed, where I sowed a packet of dwarf french beans we found in the charity shop today for 75p. Rather a lot in the packet. We may be swimming in french beans later this year. Maybe not, they were old seed to be used by December 2015. This is worth a try. Even fifty per cent would be good.
Tomorrow it's on to ruby chard in the next raised bed and observing how the lettuce and rocket that have been taken out of the greenhouse manage the night on the patio. The golden oregano, a burgeoning but tender herb, goes back inside.
We got about fifty per cent germination success on these beans. Never mind. We don't have twenty five square metres times three in allotment space so the beans, properly spaced were sufficient to fill two of our raised beds. Now I was in the mood for sowing. So I intersowed radish (saved seed) with the beans, beet spinach in the next raised bed and pot marigolds in little pockets around the kitchen garden area.
On to the potting shed, where I sowed a packet of dwarf french beans we found in the charity shop today for 75p. Rather a lot in the packet. We may be swimming in french beans later this year. Maybe not, they were old seed to be used by December 2015. This is worth a try. Even fifty per cent would be good.
Tomorrow it's on to ruby chard in the next raised bed and observing how the lettuce and rocket that have been taken out of the greenhouse manage the night on the patio. The golden oregano, a burgeoning but tender herb, goes back inside.
Monday 6 April 2015
Shrubbery Extension Project
When the tree on our boundary was taken down it left light and space in our garden and large piles of woodchip in the park on the other side. I decided to rename this area our 'shrubbery extension project' and last week went out with a rake to distribute the woodchippings more evenly. I wanted to deter the use of the area beyond our hedge as a 'doggy toilet', reckoning that if it looked tidy and smelled of leyland cypress that would be a good start. I then 'pruned' the pollarded elderberries that had suffered slight damage during the felling, picked up a few old drinks cans and bits of plastic and finally went along our own leyland cypresses taking out protruding branches at eye level, and other untidy bits. All the cuttings are now in a neat pile just beyond our boundary which I hope will encourage beneficial invetebrate life.
I really wanted to carry on litter-picking beyond our hedge, but this is not my job. There is a residents' association for this park and the council sweep up as and when needed. I hope that the ground cover returns, trampled celandines will spread, the elderberries and pollarded birches recover and the birds that are getting ready to nest in our hedge will find our 'shrubbery extension' a happy hunting ground.
I really wanted to carry on litter-picking beyond our hedge, but this is not my job. There is a residents' association for this park and the council sweep up as and when needed. I hope that the ground cover returns, trampled celandines will spread, the elderberries and pollarded birches recover and the birds that are getting ready to nest in our hedge will find our 'shrubbery extension' a happy hunting ground.
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