How to eat your own new potatoes on Christmas Day
As a woman, I move in a strange world. Filled with ladders, vans, dust, men and the occasional dog that observes me closely as I pass by. There are very few women at the builder's merchants where I buy my paint. In fact I have never seen one buying anything alone. A woman is always accompanied by a man. So my progression in the builder's merchants from Oddity to UBOK (Unusual But OK) has been a bit of a rocky one. Finally, after five years, I know and like the guys behind the desk. We chat when I need to have paint mixed. Sometimes about paint...
read moreIncrease pollination by planting sweet peas with your runner beans
We have had bumper crops of runner beans for three years now. I am sure that part of the reason for this is because I have planted sweet peas with my runner beans. The combination is beneficial for both. The scented sweet pea flowers attract insects and this increases the pollination and yield of the runner beans. They are perfect companions. Both are greedy and flourish in a border rich in home made compost. They need quite a bit of watering so the automatic watering system is doubled in this section of the kitchen garden. They both need to...
read moreGrowing your own tomatoes and coping with blight
Each year we marvel when the first tomato seedlings appear. It's hard to believe that they should grow into sturdy plants almost as tall as me and provide us with pounds and pounds of fruit. Out of 80 potential finalists, only forty will make it to the next round. Usually we end up with around thirty plants. These make up the cast of our grand tomato opera. A few divas and supporting roles and at least twenty less showy plants that make up the chorus. The main cast bask against the sunny side of the cottage and the rest are in the sunniest...
read moreThe shrub that slept all summer
If you plant a shrub that has been grafted onto root stock too deeply in the soil, the root stock can take over. This happened to my pretty viburnum. It fought back and was eventually dwarfed by a tall ugly shrubby tree. "We have to remove this and start again!" "But it has formed a perfect arch with the viburnum on the other side of the path. It doesn't look ugly to me." Danny did have a point so I kept the louche shrub for a couple of years and finally asked John to remove it and replace it with a pretty variegated philadelphus that was...
read moreThe best piece of gardening advice
"Never plant two of anything in a group. Even numbers just don't work. Stick to odd numbers one, three, five or a drift." Roger Sagger (R & R Saggers Nursery Garden, Newport, Essex). This is probably the best piece of gardening advice that I have ever been given. If you think about it, Roger Sagger is right. Imagine four tulips in a border and then consider how five would look. The odd number gives a natural feel to the group. Unless they are planted in a straight line. I have only one Mahonia x media Charity. It grows in a rather dry...
read moreTaking water cuttings of pelargoniums
The kitchen is sweet with the smell of lemon scented geraniums. I finally hoicked out our two giant 3.5 feet plants and put them in the greenhouse. We are hoping that they will survive the winter and delight us again next summer. We are planning to plant them in the half barrels either side of the front door. I rarely take cuttings but this year we have taken quite a few from the scented geraniums. We are hoping that we have discovered a giant strain. The cuttings are insurance. Years ago, Bunty taught me how to take water cuttings. I have...
read moreThe best way to ripen green tomatoes
Danny loves guzzling our ripe tomatoes straight from the vine. This is partly why I grow them. It's great to see my tomatoes savoured and relished. Now the evenings are drawing in, I often see him out with a torch when I swing in from work, searching to see if any have ripened in the autumn sunshine. The ripening process is slow at this stage of the season. We have managed to keep the tomato blight at bay by removing blighty leaves, stalks and fruit as soon as they appear. This has to be done daily and the blighty bits burnt. We haven't used...
read moreGuest Spot: How to build a hedgehog villa and nurture hedgehogs in your garden by The Mildred Mittens Manufactory
I like hedgehogs. Even though they are partial to eating frogs. The few that have visited our garden caused a first night opening uproar with the Min Pins and had to be escorted off the premises in a cardboard box. Clearly intelligent beasts, hedgehogs no longer visit our garden. Only an Einstein amongst hedgehogs could coexist safely beside a Min Pin. This week I had an interesting exchange of emails with Mildred who happened to mention, in passing "And last night we watched our 7 hedgehogs trooping round the garden looking for the tasty...
read moreTomato harvest
I have been bewailing my fate on the comments section of our first tomato blight post . I can't find organic remedies for tomato blight or sterilising the greenhouse (soil and general environment) or the soil in the kitchen garden. If we have a cold winter with a decent length of hard frosts, the soil in the kitchen garden should be OK as the spores are killed by prolonged frosty weather (But how long is prolonged?). Then peter m gave us the link to a great site with organic treatments for vegetables. I can't wait to try them on our...
read moreSeven random garden facts
Ten days ago, Sara from Farming Friends tagged me for seven random facts about my garden. I have lived here for fifteen years now, creating and maintaining my garden is how I keep vaguely sane. When I first moved here it was just after I had been released from a short, unhappy marriage. A marriage that was so brief that all I tottered away with was half the wedding presents and a tattered heart. I am extremely lucky in "The boy stood on the burning deck" sort of way. My aunt had unexpectedly died and left me some money. I could move to this...
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{ I ran the draw this morning. Mechanical and impartial as always. The two winners, in the order in which they "came out of the hat"... } – Tue 7 :04 am
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