Given up sowing salad leaves direct and found a strange moth..

All my attempts this year to sow my salad leaves and herbs direct have resulted in a disappointed patchy germination with hardly anything to show for it, so I have been sowing all my salads now in the greenhouse, in trays or guttering and planting them out when big enough. Here I’m planting some Cos, and a variety of Cos called Freckles, and some green oak leaf, and a herb Par-cel (a cross between parsley and celery).  

For cut and come again smaller leaves I’ve sowed them all into wooden wine boxes this year, and sow a box every few weeks which has worked really well,  they stay nice and undamaged, and it saves valuable ground space to grow something else.

Can anyone identify this moth?  We found this strange outside the greenhouse on the floor, never seen one before.

The Cutting garden is going strong at the moment, all the flowers on their own look good, but not in the groupings that I’ve put them in this year, so I’m, going to have to jig that around for next year. Love these Black Peony Poppies, they look stunning, so do the seed heads. They only last a day in water though, so aren’t really worth growing for cutting (although you can use the seed heads). Will be growing these again next year, as they are easy to grow from seed.

This is what the flower garden is looking like at the moment, the Ammi Majus I sowed last autumn reached 2 metres tall, then was almost flattened by the gale force winds we had, despite the staking that I did. I love it although a lot of people think it looks like cow parsley, but it looks lovely in arrangements with black cornflowers, and nigella.

Podding peas

We podded our first peas of the year this afternoon.

We grew a dwarf pea, Half Pint from Thompson & Morgan, in pots to have on the table outside, the idea being to try and encourage our 3 year old twins to pick & pod the peas themselves and eat them raw.  They ate a few peas each as we were podding them, so that’s encouraging!  They are quite fussy with vegetables, (despite all this homegrown produce we grow), so I was quite pleased.  

You don’t get loads of peas growing them this way, but they look good on the table, and make a nice snack when you’re sitting in the garden..

Purple peas and purple string

Following all the lovely rain we have had the Purple Podded Mange Touts are in flower and look fabulous. I grew these mainly for their flowers, this year I want to make the veggie plot look pretty as well as be productive, but of course we will eat the mange touts too. 

I tied them in (in the rain this week) with my lovely purple string, which I think was well worth the extra pennies!

The rain has done the whole garden so much good - everything is romping away, I’ve picked some of the artichokes for supper, which I’m going to braise in some white wine, garlic and chilli and have with some cheese and crusty bread! Yum…

Busy busy busy…

Despite best intentions, a couple of weeks have gone by without my finding time, or energy left (!) for my blog, which is a pity because I have done SO much work in the garden.  Every spare moment I have been planting out, weeding, hoeing, tying in and potting on…

As is often the case, whilst lying in bed I have written vivid accounts in my head of what we have been working on in and what we have been harvesting from the garden, but it has never made it to the computer (or Mac in this case)…

The hot weather we have had recently gave me confidence that hopefully the frosts are over now (fingers crossed) and last week I planted up half of the Dahlias, Cannas, and some half hardy annuals in the flower garden, and my squashes, courgettes and french beans in the vegetable garden.

Everything is so dry though, some of the beds are like dust.  The waterbutts have been dry for a a while now, and we haven’t had any rain for a couple of weeks.  

I think both gardens are looking really good though despite the lack of water, and last week we ate artichokes, asparagus and bucketfuls of spinach, sorrel, kale, lettuce and chard. These are definitely value for money, we have been eating them since early spring and are something we will be growing these again next year.  Maximum productivity/cost for minimum effort, and taste fantastic.  It helps having Sarah Ravens cookbook too, she has lots of recipes for nearly everything we grow, our favourite kale one at the moment is Kale and Mushroom Curry, which is delicious.

Above: French beans (gold and green).

 

A audience with…

I was told, not so long ago, that for ’she who must be obeyed’ (SWMBO)’s birthday I would be treating her to a ’surprise’ weekend away…I was also provided with the precise details as to what the ’surprise’ would entail. I soon realised that what might have been mistaken for a romantic weekend away was, in fact, more of a pilgrimage. Sarah Raven was having an open weekend at her garden at Perch Hill…we would also be visiting somewhere called Great Dixter, the home of (SWMBO informs me) a late Cristopher Lloyd or ‘Christo’ to his friends (more on that later). Now, I knew there was a danger that being subjected to repeats of Gardeners World that I would, even if only by osmosis, take in some horticultural knowledge…something I have long resisted out of principle. However, the entire weekend was to prove something of a revalation…SWMBO had provded me with details of a B&B close to both sites which turned out to be extremely pleasant, but populated by other SR devotees. Great Dixter was one of the best gardens I have ever been dragged round. The ladies who conducted the house tours were both interesting and informative, they even let small children climb on the furniture…a certain hanging offense in a NT property…it was all so, well, casual. We were informed in the parlour, where the music was played, that Mr Lloyd was also a concert standard pianist…the air was suddenly full of comments such as ‘oh, what it must be like to be blessed with two gifts etc etc. Now, never having met the chap, I am sure he was a lovely bloke but really, come on, he didn’t exactly inhabit the normal world of being pre-occupied by the need to earn a living, for example, or 

What a weekend!

For a belated birthday treat (me) we went for a weekend away, to visit Great Dixter and then Sarah Raven’s garden at Perch Hill, with a nice bit of dinner in between. Both gardens were FANTASTIC (see photos below). The weather was amazing both days, lovely sunshine and about 20 degrees.  

The planting combinations and colours that Christopher Lloyd used in his garden were stunning, and totally inspirational. Probably the best garden I have ever visited. Around every corner was something totally brilliant and beautiful.  (I took 140 photographs!).  As we had gone without the children, I was able to really look around properly and take my time, a rare treat!

And of course Sarah Raven’s garden was brilliant and vibrant as ever.

 This is the garden that I am trying to achieve at home, one that produces vegetables and flowers all year round for harvesting and cutting. I have read all of SR’s books, and have visited the garden twice before (last June and August), so it was great to see it at the beginning of the growing season and see the tulips and spring planting, and also get some tips on what I should be doing in my garden now by way of preparation, staking, planting etc.  

1. I must stake my broad beans (did this when I came back - tick)

2. Put out my hardy annuals that are growing too big in the greenhouse (calendulas, poppies, chard, the list is too long to mention) and also perennials.. eryngium, globe artichokes.. 

3. SR let her Kale flower, it looked quite pretty with all the yellow flowers, so I think instead of ripping mine out as usual as soon as it flowers I will leave it in a bit longer. I don’t need the space in that bit of the veg patch just yet..

4. I’m going to steal some of her tulip planting combinations for next year.. (I took over 200 photographs of her various gardens!).

Came away with lots of ideas and inspiration, and also lots of plants - despite husband warning me not to buy any more because they wouldn’t fit in the car when we had to pick up the children from their grandparents on the way home - I managed!  There was NO WAY I was leaving without them.

Another two bite the dust..

We have been away for a week on hols in the Lake District, great walking & climbing but far too much cake… 

Must have been warm weather here whilst we were away because everything has put on loads of growth. Two casualties in the greenhouse though, both cucumbers which seem to have withered and died..  

The two on the right have withered away which just leaves one healthy one… Every year some of the cucumbers seem to get sudden death when they get to about this high. Does anyone know why?!  I’ve only got one left the same size which I don’t want to lose, and four that I sowed a week or so ago as a backup.  The only thing I can see is that the compost is a little bit on the wet side?

There is more to pick in the flower garden now, managed to pick a couple of small bunches for the house.

Cerinthe Major and Lunaria Alba (Honesty - White)

Lettuce, rocket and chives picked for tonight’s tea..

‘Im-outside V ‘Er-in-doors

There is a famous sketch by Rowan Atkinson where he plays the father of the bride at his daughters wedding…’there comes a time in every wedding ceremony when the man who paid for it all gets to say a few words…’ the same is true of gardens and that time appears to have arrived sooner than I expected! As Yesper Lynd (Casino Royale) says ‘I am the money’ but I am also the grunt. I am in charge of the hard work…sorry, the hard landscaping. Oh boy, do I have to thank Sarah Raven and others for a lot of it this year. Whilst my wife is tucked up nice and warm planning borders, veggie plots and buying seeds etc off the internet or even venturing out to her heated greenhouse, I am coppicing hazel (in the rain), building raised beds (in the rain) and shoveling horse poo (in the rain and hail)…believe me, you ask a few questions of yourself doing that job. Fortunately the money and the grunt are not mutually exclusive and the more I do of one the less we spend of the other…it has been a very frugal year!

I appreciate that this is in danger of spiraling out of control into a full blown winge but I can end that here by confirming officially and in print that it has actually been quite good fun (horse poo excepted) and extremely rewarding. Being able to say I coppiced the wood from which I built the structures for the veggie patch is a long way from the day job and it must score me some ‘good husband’ points at the coffee mornings. So, armed with no more than a printed photo from Sarah Raven’s garden (note, no breach of copyright…we took the photo) I managed to reconstruct something that, even if I do say so myself, looks better than the original. You will know from the previous entries (few as they are so far) that SR is regarded in somewhat high regard round here. In fact, it would not be unfair to regard ’she who must be obeyed’ as something of a ‘follower’ rather than an normal admirer of her work. Expect the full Salman Rushdie treatment if you ‘disrespect’ the leader…

You may have seen the fruits of my labours in some of the photos already posted but I thought a couple of specific non-plant related images might be of interest. Firstly, I must point out that if I can do this then so can anyone. I have no particular skills other than a small amount of common sense which can also frequently be called into question. I have power tools that I dare not remove from their boxes for fear of important bits of me suddenly and without provocation dropping off. I work with someone who is ruthlessly practical and he laughs at me regularly. I am sure you now have the picture.

So it is that I have discovered that I can no longer live without cable ties, 2 by 2 (technical speak, used at my local Jewsons) and 25mm blue water pipe! I have Geoff Hamilton to thank for the cloches. I managed to knock up 4 for a very reasonable price in an hour or so. The only expensive bit is the dowling which in future I intend to replace with straight 18mm grey water pipe at a fraction of the cost. Other than that they are highly recommended. The bricks and string you can see are an improvised 2am fix to finding them blown all round the garden in the recent high winds, which they survived I must add…a testiment to GH’s design or my execution is still subject to debate. Anyway here is a picture…

 

I mentioned earlier that my wife spends much of her time at the moment planning and purchasing in our office and potting up seeds in a nice warm greenhouse…this is my centre of operations. A little more exposed and not quite so well insulated but the ventilation helps with the two large bags of horse poo…

 

 

Ok, so it doesn’t rain all the time…and I haven’t finished the paving off before it gets mentioned…unfinished project No: 24357…re-scheduled for 2009.

A major project recently was to replace the fencing in the flower garden. The concrete fence posts which never decay, erm, crumbled like fresh cheese…the winds took care of the rest. Now I’ve never done fencing before so I decided to draft in some help in the form of my Dad who, thankfully (being a surveyor) is able to read a tape measure and promptly turned up and moved all my canes marking the spots where I believed the posts needed to go…I still maintain that I knew he would check my calculations and spot my deliberate error in not allowing for the posts themselves between the panels. Anyway, I think they turned out ok considering that we couldn’t always dig down as far as we wanted to because of previously discarded bags of cement, metal straps and what I think was either an old oil tank or the casing of an unexploded bomb…either way, we weren’t digging through it.

 

I would like to thank my Dad for all his help and guidance. A mention should also go to my work colleague, Richard, who supplied all the heavy duty gear…6ft steel ram pole and bolt cutters…don’t ask. But don’t struggle to dig a post out if you don’t have to. Just knock it down to below ground level and snip the reinforcing steel with the bolt cutters, set your new posts to one side (if you can)…an invaluable bit of advice and without it I suspect I would still be there digging now!

In this photo you can also see the final stages of the flower garden refurbishment. The beds used to be bordered by wine bottles but they had started to look like the Pogues frontman’s teeth (his name escapes me…Shane something, I think). They have now gone to the bottle bank (4 car loads to the local pub, very embarrassing) to be replaced by 1 inch treated board which if set into the ground should look pretty good…same as used in the new borders below…

Mercifully, I am nearing then end of my slot. It been a long one but I am not planning on doing it again…too many unfinished jobs as you can no doubt see. However, I would just like to indulge myself with a few last looks at the veggie plot and my finest moment…the hazel…

And another…

And the last…

It is now time for a celebratory cold beer. The only thing left to do is to thank my long suffering wife for giving me this opportunity to recognise and enjoy the truly finer things in life.

 

Planting out our 2nd lot of broad beans

We love broad beans and like to cropping them as long as possible, so this morning we planted out our second sowing.  

I grow them in Root Trainers as I like to grow most things under cover first before planting out. Seems to work well, so I stick with it. I read in Sarah Raven’s book that a successional sowing is best done when the first ones reach 5cm, so this was when we sowed this batch.

I also read (SR again) that if you plant summer savoury among the rows it helps discourage blackfly, so if its not too late I might try that and sow some seeds next week.  I seem to always get blackfly, as I usually forget to pinch out the tips and then see that the tops are covered, but it doesn’t seem to affect the beans. Mental note - must be more vigilent this year.  We’ll stake them when they get a bit bigger, I’ve got some birch pea sticks which will be perfect for the job round the back by the compost heap.

The dahlias are alive!

 

Hurrah! The first signs of life from two of the dahlias. Two of my dahlias, Sam Hopkins (left) and New Baby (right) have started to emerge from under the compost (only 16 other varieties to make an appearance).  

The greenhouse is full..