First entry in this blog!

noreply@blogspirit.com (Ceratonia) — Tue, 6 Dec 2005 13:32:55 +0000

Well, I'm starting this blog mainly as an easy way to keep a diary of the stuff I do in the garden. The advantage compared with a paper diary is that it's simple to include pictures, but also because I can include links to all the garden related sites I look at.

Not much happening outside in December. I've got quite a lot of tidying up to do, after a summer of neglect, but there's no great rush to do it, as all the mess is providing a habitat for over-wintering insects etc. Feeding the birds every day and making sure they have water, keeping one of the greenhouses frost-free at night, that's about all I can do in the time before and after work. Can't do much at weekends either - hours of daylight are not that long and lots of other things to do. This weekend, I mulched the dahlias (brought a few inside for the winter, but I'll risk the rest - removed the dead stems and covered the tubers with a few cm of compost). I also put a few cm of compost over the rhubarb. I grow most of my fruit and veg in raised beds. It's surprising how much the soil level drops due to removing plant material, so I add organic material every year to each bed. Also cleaned the glass of one of the greenhouses. Surprising what a difference it makes - light levels inside are much higher and that is one of the factors that can limit plant growth, especially in early spring. At the moment, with bubblewrap attached to the greenhouse sides anyway, not much happening in there.

My other current gardening activity is looking through the seed catalogues. I'm using Kings Seeds for my veg/herb requirements. I'll probably put in an order with Chiltern Seeds too. They are more expensive, but offer an amazingly wide range of plants - offering seed from various places around the world eg Chile & New Zealand. I love reading their catalogue, although comments on hardiness or otherwise are sometimes a little optimistic. Also have the possibility of selecting some seed from the RHS seedlist. I'm thinking of growing more plants than I need with the aim of selling some at various school fairs etc. Managed to raise a reasonable amount of cash for the school with not much effort last year, so may try a bit harder this year.

Talking about the RHS, one of my other reasons for starting this blog is to find somewhere to put the various sets of notes I made for my RHS General Certificate in Hortitculture exam which I passed this year (with a distinction!) Having gone to the trouble of typing these up, I might as well make these available to other people. (Especially as some correspondence course type places will charge a few hundred quid for material which isn't much better from what I've seen).

Ceratonia - blog

Newest seed order

First entry in this blog!