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01/30/2006
Pruning
Sunny but cold, frosty weekend. Boys didn't stay out for long either day!
More pruning of soft fruit. Pruned out some old wood from the blackcurrant and removed a few crossing branches. Gave the redcurrant and whitecurrant a bit of a trim - removed some crossing branches and shortened the leader. The gooseberries got a haircut, with the shears rather than the secateurs. They don't mind! I tidied up the fig tree slightly, also and also the apples.
Spent a few hours tidying up the summerhouse beds. Pruned a couple of shrubs in those beds (eg the Spirea) & tidied up a couple of the others (Daphne, Azalea). Pulled up a fair few weeds. Potted up half a dozen holly seedlings. No idea what I will do with these - have about 10 holly trees growing in pots! I then hacked back the climbers on the shed wall. You can see the wall for the first time in about 6 years. This was the cotoneaster, honeysuckle and winter Jasmine. Also dug up a couple of places where the winter jasmine tips have rooted and put them in pots. Maybe someone will want them? The two other winter jasmines (on the south wall of the shed and up on the patio) need to be pruned after flowering. Anyway, two very tidy looking beds now - most pleasing. The Sarcococca has berries and flowers, the daphne is just starting to flower, plus a few winter aconites out.
Then moved onto to the path down the side of the patio. Pruned the fuchsia write back to the ground and the Leycesteria formosa back, pulled up a load of weeds, removed some of last year's dead stuff from the borders. Will delay a proper tidy-up, as a lot of ladybirds were taking shelter from the cold weather. Weeded the path - it wasn't looking too good. Clipped the Ceanothus - it's grown rapidly from a cutting taken in Autumn 2004. Swept up a stack of bay leaves - I reckon these were harbouring the pests which attached the bay last year. Also chopped the rosemary back a bit. Then got the ladder and sorted out the climber on the back wall of the utility room. Can't remember what it is exactly, but it was in the gutter and on the roof, so needed a good tidy up. Also tidied up the hydrangea by the back door, which looks to be close to breaking dormancy already.
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01/23/2006
First sign of spring
Lovely sunny weather at the weekend, it was like spring. I wasn't at home to take advantage of it, though. I did manage to take a few cuttings of lemon thyme (Thymus citriodora) and noticed the first few Winter aconite flowers had opened (Eranthis hyemalis). They are weeds, really - slowly taking over many of the herbaceous beds and even popping up in the veg patch. Quite amused to see Scotsdales selling them for £2.99 each - my garden's supply must be worth over £30k at that price.
Anyway, here's a close up of a fully opened winter aconite.
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01/16/2006
Two tons of compost
Well, a nice warm weekend (for January, anyway), so managed to get quite a bit done in the garden. Lot of help from the boys, too. Very nice to have them singing away while doing their little jobs and they actually did some useful jobs without much supervision and only a modicum of bribery, in the form of wheelbarrow rides.
First task was to cut down the asparagus and remove all the weeds from it. Should really have done this in autumn. Stuck the old fronds on the compost heap and applied compost to the bed as a mulch. Did the same to the Korean Chrysanthemums. Not sure if I'll keep these. They look nice enough in the veg patch and give nice cut flowers, but maybe it's time for a change.
I then dug over 4 beds and incorporated a load of manure and compost - also applied this to the other empty veg beds. The manure was horse manure from over 12 months ago which was already well rotted when I put it on the compost heap, so now very well rotted. Lovely compost. Anyway, over the course of the morning, pretty much emptied one of the compost bins - that's a volume of 6x6x5 ft, so a fair amount of material. Then forked the contents of the other bins into the empty space - so giving it a good mix. Should be ready to use by late spring, I'd have thought. No hedgehogs hiding anywhere - maybe they've slept somewhere else this year, or maybe they'd noticed it was warm and gone for a wander? There were hundreds of ladybirds everywhere, though. Hope the frost doesn't get too many of them.
Anyway, with all that digging and soil moving, reckon I'll be a bit stiff in the week! Couple of tons, by a very conservative estimate..
Allowed the boys to use the (not too sharp) secateurs to prune the ivy hedge at the bottom of the veg patch. They did a good job and meticulously tidied up all the prunings into one of the small compost bins.
We then got to work on the fruit cage. One of Jamie's friends damaged the roof by whacking it, so I'll need to fix that. We cut down all the fruited raspberry canes (shamefully late) and tied in the new growth. Pulled up plenty of weeds and had a bit of trim for the blackcurrant. Put the remains of last years Zinnias and brassicas that were in the cage onto the compost heap. Then got started on the strawberries - trimming off the old growth (much too late - should've been done after fruiting last year). Potted up a dozen runners, in case anyone we know wants some strawberry plants.
Still quite a bit to do in the fruit cage - various repairs to the wood and netting needed. Need to finish tying in the raspberries and still a lot of strawberry runners to pot up, or throw away. I noticed bindweed roots in there, too, so will have to keep an eye on that. Need to feed/mulch the actual fruit and put some more bark down on the paths.
We picked some parsnips, leeks and sprouts (plus a few old potatoes that Alexander found) and had those for Sunday lunch.
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01/12/2006
More seed sowing
Went out last night to get some more veg. We have parsnips, sprouts, leeks, rocket and swiss chard at the moment. Parsnips (white king) have done very well, so have the leeks (Musselburgh) - much bigger than previous years. The sprouts are a bit tiddly though, possibly due to the pigeon damage earlier in the year. Also had to put the heater on in the greenhouse - it was below 0 by 6pm. Everything in the greenhouses seems to be surviving OK so far.
Sowed some more seeds as well - mainly ones I'd collected myself or got for free. Not sure I have a use in mind for any of these plants, but nothing ventured, nothing gained - they're not going to grow left in the packet.
Smyrnium Olustratum (alexanders - mediterranean plant like cow parsley, which the romans introduced to Britain as a vegetable).
Smyrnium perfoliatum (a relative of the above)
Gentiana asclepiadea (willow gentian - really nice alpine flower)
Asclepias curassavica (these are indoors)
Mixed hosta (self collected) and mahonia (likewise), plus a couple of shrub/tree seeds - Myrtle (myrtus communis) and Cotinus coggygria
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01/10/2006
Another snowy weekend.
Well, Saturday morning saw some snow here, so not much opportunity to do much in the garden.
We put up a new bird-feeder which I'd made form bits of wood during the week. This allows the small birds (finches & tits mostly) to eat the seed I put out each day, rather than the pigeons who ate most of it previously. The pigeons weren't so keen on this change and spent some time chasing the chaffinches away from the food, but they seem to have got used to it now.
Alexande
r and I also painted a bird box I'd made and put that up above his den, in the middle of 
the conifer trees.
We (for a laugh) used up an old can of spray paint and painted the old christmas tree gold and put it in the garden. It looks quite naturalistic, which is not what I'd expected.
Finally, we spent a couple of hours in the rain collecting old leaves - got a total of 12 sacks of squashed up leaves, which were mixed into one of the compost heaps. Still rather a lot of leaves to collect, though!
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01/01/2006
1st gardening activity of the year
Well, managed to do three simple tasks in/around the garden today.
Sowed some seed of the following:
Anthericum lilago - collected by my dad from his garden when we visited on Dec 30.
Helleborus 'Miss Jekyll's hybrids'
These both need a period in the warm for a few weeks, then cold for a couple of months, then warmer conditions. So will leave inside until mid-Feb, then outside in the cold to overcome dormancy.
Also, Cordyline australis - I managed to germinate a few of these in the summer, so this was just using up what's left of the packet.
I moved some plants my dad gave me in small pots into the greenhouse - Lathyrus aureus (a golden flowered plant of the sweet pea family, from the Taurus Mountains originally it seems. Only a couple of feet high. Also, he gave me some Allium hybrids (flavum crossed with some other A. species, possibly olympiacium or similar?)
I also hung a bee's nest that mum & dad gave me for christmas. It's a wooden box stuffed with hollow bamboo tubes, which bees, lacewings and ladybirds can over-winter in.
This blog wouldn't be complete without giving details of a seed order. The final one for this winter, from Kings
Artichoke (Green Globe), Beetroot (Crimson King), Pumpkin (Jack O'Lantern), Florence Fennel (Romanesco), Parsnip (White King), Runner Bean (Prizetaker), Sweetcorn (Kelvedon Glory), Eucalyptus gunnii (for flower arranging) and Festuca Glauca.
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