Carrot thinnings

Today I started to thin the carrots that are growing in a couple of large pots. I took out just enough for tonight's supper and will do the same over the next few days until the thinning is complete. It was quite exciting pulling them up. Even though the carrots were only small the smell was quite strong. I hope that it didn't reach the noses of any carrot flies! The little carrots would make great crudites. We ate some of them raw and the flavour was very intense but it was lessened with cooking.

Semi-standard Holly

A few years ago a Christmas magazine was handed on to me. In it there was an advert for standard holly bushes as Christmas decorations. I thought that a couple of these would look great either side of the front door in the winter. The following year I looked out for some, trawling the web etc but couldn't find any. It crossed my mind that I could grow my own but thought that I would have to grow a male plant as well as two females to get good berrying. Last year in a nearby garden centre I came across some self-pollinating holly. The variety is Ilex aquifolium JC Van Tol. It has dark, alost spineless green leaves and large red berries (yet to be seen on my specimens!). Last year I trained the main stem to a semi-standard height and I have now started to train the head. One of the plants has a few berries on it but I think that it will be another couple of years before they give a good display.

Oh no, I don't believe it!

Bad news from the garden. The tomatoes are succumbing to blight. I've removed one plant and put it in the bin but the plant that was next to it is beginning to look sick. I've cut off some of it's leaves in the desperate hope that it might be OK. I'm not alone with this problem. Everyone I've asked says the same is happening to their plants. It's very disappointing. I didn't grow tomatoes last year as I lost them all to blight the year before. Please, please, please can we have a dry spell.

The mammoth garlic has been something else that hasn't done well in the garden. I bought 6, very expensive, cloves. Only 4 came up and one of those died off. Of the 3 that were left one is the size of a small onion and the other two about the size of large shallots. I've yet to cook them so can't comment on their taste like yet.

The shallots however have done very well. I've lifted them to help them ripen and they are about the size of small onions. I guess that I won't be pickling any of them this year - I could only get 3 or 4 in a jar!

Spud update

I split open one of the sacks of potatoes yesterday evening. Disappointed with a yield of only a couple of pounds. In fact it took a bit of searching to find the potatoes at all. There were none in the top third of the bag. I'm not encouraged to start another bag at the present. There were some very funny shaped spuds! They tasted good though and no waste.

Garden News

Pond clearing and the weather have conspired to keep me from doing a great deal in the garden recently. I am now picking courgettes and beans are appearing on the Kenyan bean plants in the troughs but the tomatoes are going to need an Indian Summer. I had to remove the foliage from the potato plants growing in sacks as the leaves were showing signs of disease. I have been waiting for the weather to improve before splitting the sacks open to see what we've got. Maybe if it stays dry today I'll get to do that this evening. I have a few more seed potatoes that I was planning to start in bags but I'm now in two minds whether to or not. I'll make up my mind when I've opened the three remaining bags.

This year I tried growing spinach in a pot. I had three pickings before the plants began to bolt during the hot spell in June (remember that?!). Not a big success but I think I will give it another go over the autumn. I am also growing carrots in pots for the first time. I am growing a carrot fly resistant variety and have planted chives in the centre of the pot as a companion so that their smell will confuse the flies noses. It will be interesting to see how the carrots turn out. The pots certainly look attractive anyway.

Green shoots in Poole

The Kenyan beans that I sowed in the half barrel and squat pot on 4th July are coming through so we are hopeful of a harvest if a little later than usual!

The sweet peas have been glorious. It's lovely to have them to pick for the house and for friends. And the more you pick the more you get! They were so prolific that it has been possible have vases of them in several rooms. They've slowed down a bit now and the stems are shorter than they were but I'm hoping that they will come into a second wind. Unfortunately the greenfly found the plants and multiplied seemingly exponentially. This meant that in spite of blowing on them and giving them a good shake the greenfly got transferred indoors and made a horrible mess. Fortunately the local sparrows have come to the rescue paying me back for keeping them fed and watered through the winter. They find the greenfly delicious and have brought them down to a more bearable level. It always brings a smile to my face when I see the little birds amongst the flowers.

I have a vase of the sweet peas in our practice room. The fragrance seems much stronger when my head is upside down! I'm not sure if this is because the olfactory part of the brain is stimulated by the position or if the fragrance collects lower down.

This observation had been rolling around in my subconscious for a few days when I recalled a yoga exercise I did once with the late John Davis. In the exercise we placed the tongue in different positions in the mouth and noticed that changing the position amplified a different sense. Perhaps something related to this is happening when I invert my head. Unfortunately I can't remember the details. If you know the tongue positions and the senses that they relate to then please do let me know.

In the Garden #4

Well, when the weather permits I have spent at least 30 mins in the garden each day. It has been quite interesting psychologically! I have realised how normally when I work in the garden I am task orientated. I go to do a specific task and I allocate sufficient time to complete it and normally carry on until it is finished or rain or darkness stops play. On the days when I had a short amount of time to spend in the garden I found myself looking for jobs that fitted in the time available. Obviously that's not going to work out very often! I have found it quite difficult to start something that I won't be able to complete and then when I have started it's quite difficult to stop when the time is up! It's going to be interesting to work with this one.

A few years ago I planted a Wintersweet near the back door. I thought that it would be nice to have something fragrant in the garden in the winter. And so it is and I love the witch hazel like flowers. But it is a very vigorous plant. Every year I cut it back strongly but finally have to admit that it's just not in the right place and will have to go. So today I cut it down to the ground. It was growing between the patio and the back wall and there is no way that we will be able to dig it out. Plus there is a huge bole at the base with young stems already growing from it. So I have had to treat it with stump killer. Next year I will grow something trailing over it to hide the stump. As I was lopping the branches back my trousers occasionally brushed against the lemon verbena growing in a pot on the patio releasing a delicious lemon sherbet fragrance.

In the Garden #3

It rained overnight and on and off through the day giving the garden the good soaking it needed but making it to soggy to work outside. In between showers I fed the compost bin.

The thick cloud also meant that this mornings lunar eclipse was eclipsed!

In the Garden #2

Feeling pleased with myself as I did manage to do 30 mins in the garden today. I washed some more pots and seeds trays. Then later I collected them from all over the garden as quite a wind blew up while I left them to dry!

Also spent a few minutes picking some sweetpeas for our practice room and some strawberries and spinach for our tea. I'm just off now to water the pots.

In the Garden

For years there have been a couple of box plants in pots at the top of the steps. A few years ago lots of the leaves turned orange (possibly because the plants dried out sometime?). The leaves never fell off but the plants didn't green up either. I thought they would have to go but decided to give them one last chance. So a few months ago I cut them back very hard and put them to one side. The plants decided they wanted to grow although it was hard to see them though the weeds. My intention this morning was to repot them. However it soon became apparent that the only way to get them out of the pots would be to break the pots! One of the pots already has a crack but as I didn't have any replacements to hand I simply removed the weeds, excavated around the plants and added some slow release fertiliser and fresh compost to the top.

New this year are 6 strawberry plants in pots on top of the wall. I have been suprised and delighted that we have had some large, tasty strawberries in this their first year. But disappointed that the woodlice often seem to get there first - advice as to how to deter them would be apreciated. They are now sending out runners. I cut them back so the plants put their energy into growing rather than reproducing. Some little plantlets had a few small roots so I stuck them into pots to give them a chance to grow - and hopefully reward us with more fruit next year.

I finished off today's sojourn in the garden by washing up some plant pots.

Garden Note #1

I remember reading an article, many years ago now, about an elderly lady who said that by spending 30 minutes in her garden every day she kept on top of things and her garden had never been a problem to her.

This seemed like a sensible way of going about things and every few years it comes to mind but it's never really taken root. I guess like all things you have to make the time to begin with. Once things get on top of you it's all to easy to think 'well just 30 minutes won't make much difference... there's not much point' and not bother to get started.

Over the next few weeks I am going to spend a little time working in the garden every day and see what a difference it makes. (Maybe I could try that with the housework as well - but not just yet!)

So what did I do today?

Well, the French beans that I sowed directly into the ground failed to materialise (old seeds) and only about 2/3rds of the Kenyan beans that I sowed in pots germinated. I decided to have one more try with the Kenyan beans. I cleared out the old 1/2 barrel, lifting the hyacinth bulbs to dry and store to replant later and replacing the top few inches of compost. I also emptied a squat pot in which I have been growing crocus for the last couple of years. I then sowed more beans in both of these - fingers crossed!

Years ago I grew poached egg plants (limnanthes) as companion plants. I remember being told that you would only ever need to buy one packet of seeds because they seed themselves readily. What they meant was 'you will never be rid of them'. They are attractive flowers and the bees love them but they don't last for long. They have died down now so I scooped up several bucket fulls of their remains and underneath the ground was carpeted with seeds...

I also rescued some primulas growing in a pot that were being suffocated by some beefy weeds. I took them out of the pot and replanted them.

Being in the town it is always a treat when nature pays a visit. Today there was a chaffinch singing beautifully from it's perch on the neighbours T.V. ariel.

The bee and the heuchera

Last night I watched a bumble bee feeding on the heuchera. The heuchera has tiny flowers borne on long, slender stems. You would imagine that the weight of the bee would pull the stem down - but no. When the bee landed the individual flower bent over so that the bee was hanging upside down as it fed. Then when the bee flew off the flower sprang back.

I guess big things needn't disturb us either if we learn to give a bit and as I write I am reminded of a line in the Tao Te Ching 'The flexible are preserved unbroken'.

Mmmm...

I'm not a fan of new potatoes generally but boiled, topped with a knob of butter and some freshly ground black pepper those little potatoes tasted real good!

Potato Harvest

I have been growing potatoes in bags. As we have house guests this weekend I decided to rip open one of the bags to see what we've got. It was exciting to see the tubers emerge. Since the potatoes were grown in compost they came out lovely and clean. There were a little over three pounds of potatoes. Not bad but I think that it would have been better to leave another couple of weeks or so as some of the tubers were very small.

You can buy new potatoes for less that it has cost me to grow these so it wasn't a success as a way of saving pennies. However you may be able to buy potatoes but you can't buy these potatoes!