Gardening 2021

[SteveH]

Just pricked out the 'Red Baron' onions into fibre pots. The rosemary seedlings need to be a bit bigger before I do them.
https://flic.kr/s/aHsmUpyzMe

[SteveH]

Continued digging my deep beds. I will be doing more later. Pricked out my rosemary seedlings into individual pots. Yesterday, I planted more primulas and two pinks, a white pink and a pink pink, in the front garden, and sowed tropaeolum (nasturtium) seeds in fibre pots. I have just ordered online two big bags of shredded horse sh - er - manure, as I haven't got any compost ready to use.

[SteveH]

Two big, very heavy bags of shredded horse sh manure arrived today. I will spread it on the spud bed tomorrow.

[SteveH]

The front garden, this morning, primulas and 'Tete-a-tete' narcissi in bloom. I've also recently planted lavender, which will bloom later, and tropaeolum ("nasturtium") seedlings, which will also bloom later. I've got some rosemary seedlings to plant out when they're bigger, and two small plants of rosemary in the garden. Rosemary and lavender are bee-friendly, as is apple-blossom, of which I have lots later in the Spring. I discovered a few weeks ago that the pretty and edible annual that I've been calling "nasturtium" all my life is really called tropaeolum, the true nasturtiums being watercresses, and unrelated.

https://flic.kr/s/aHsmUWQcHW

[SteveH]

Third deep bed - the nearest one - finally dug. It's jolly hard work, because as well as digging - hard work in itself - I had to remove nettle and couch-grass roots as I went, which is also hard work. I didn't get all the roots up by any means, but I got all the thick, tough ones, and as much of the thinner ones as practicable, which will at least give them a major set-back. After that, I'll have to hoe off any that appear above ground, which will keep them under control and gradually weaken them. Fortunately, I don't have to re-dig the beds every year: once every 2-3 years is recommended for deep beds, so I might do one every year, in rotation (like the crops). I think the logical thing to do would be to dig the coming year's spud bed every winter, since it's a different bed each year.
In order from the furthest bed towards the camera, they are for potatoes and tomatoes (closely related); legumes (peas and beans); brassicas (cabbages, kale, etc., and possible turnips and/or swede, which are also brassicas); and the as yet undug bed nearer to the camera will be for everything else (mainly onions and chard this year). The rotation is away from the camera: spuds & toms will be followed by legumes, then brassicas, then everything else. The spud and tom bed has had horse manure on it, and the legume bed compost, both purchased. I may buy some more - you can't have too much.
Note the piled-up weed roots on the camera side of the nearest bed!

https://flic.kr/p/2kMCjce

[Spud]

Will,

Should it be illegal to cut down a tree or hedge, unless it is dead, dying or causing damage? I hate seeing trees cut down.

My Mum's front hedge was Leylandi, it wasn't trimmed properly by the previous owners, so stuck out over the neighbours driveway and the pavement. Eventually we had to cut the lower branches back to the wood, so they would never sprout again, but had a couple of feet of growth at the top. Mum recently decided she wanted a new hedge. I've been pruning this one for 20 years, so I was a bit gutted. Some men came and chainsawed it down, promising to remove the stumps as well (17 of them).

They came with the stump grinder and ground down to a few inches below the surface, saying they couldn't go any further. The stumps are still there. They want £400 for that! Ripped off or what. Some people are just out to make a quick buck. Well I'm now going to show them how to do their job, I have already excavated and dug out 4 of them and hope to do the rest this week.

[Roses]

We were charged £1,500 for a large tree to be cut down, which was too close to the house at our previous property.

[SteveH]

I hate seeing trees cut down (with the possible exception of Leylandii, which is the world's biggest weed, and a bloody menace), but sometimes it has to happen.

I've finally got something in the ground: my spuds (Salad Blue and Pink Fir Apple) in the solenaceae bed (haven't left any room for toms, so I won't grow them this year), and my kale (Scarlet, a red variety, obv.) and radishes (French Breakfast 3) in the brassica bed. Continued digging the last bed, the "everything else" one, which this year will be onions and Swiss Chard. Next job: sow runner beans in individual fibre pots. That'll have to wait until I buy more fibre pots and seed compost.

[Roses]

I agree that trees shouldn't be cut down unless it is absolutely necessary. We were sad to see a monkey puzzle tree I had planted at our previous property had been cut down. It was about 20ft high, when we left there, it nowhere near the house and not doing any harm at all. 

[SteveH]

Just dug a bit more of the everything-else bed, and planted out the onion seedlings in the bit I'd dug, as they'd been in fibre pots too long already.

[Spud]

I hate seeing trees cut down (with the possible exception of Leylandii, which is the world's biggest weed, and a bloody menace), but sometimes it has to happen.

In defence of the Leyland Cypress, if pruned properly they make excellent screens and eliminate the need for fencing, which of course has to be replaced every so often.

[SteveH]

In defence of the Leyland Cypress, if pruned properly they make excellent screens and eliminate the need for fencing, which of course has to be replaced every so often.

There are other good screening and hedging plants, which don't shoot up into the stratosphere the second you turn your back.

[Roses]

There are a lot of those trees as hedges in our neighbourhood. The neighbours spend a lot of  time in spring and summer clipping them.

[Spud]

I agree that trees shouldn't be cut down unless it is absolutely necessary. We were sad to see a monkey puzzle tree I had planted at our previous property had been cut down. It was about 20ft high, when we left there, it nowhere near the house and not doing any harm at all. 

Same here - a hedge my Dad and I planted in our old garden in the 1980s recently disappeared. Mind you, it was a leylandii!

[Spud]

It's probably in a hedge museum, somewhere, £20 to see it.

[SteveH]

Beautiful, sunny day, so I'm finishing building my compost heap. I've just got back from a trip out to pick weeds from beside country roads, and have almost filled one bin. I will go out again later and get a load more. I try to complete filling a bin in a few days, so that I can get a hot composting process going. I tore up two big cardboard boxes (which originally contained two bags of composted horse manure, hence the word "compost" rather appropriately printed on one piece) and screwed them up to make 3-D shapes, and put them in the bottom to encourage air flow, then piled the greenery, plus some more bits of cardboard and tougher stuff to provide structure, on top.

https://flic.kr/s/aHsmVdzPUF

[SteveH]

I have finally finished digging the "everything else" bed, and sown Swiss Chard and "Lollo Rossa" Lettuce. The previously-dug half of the bed contains my onions. I don't know how much of what I've planted and sown will come up; it may have a lot of competition from perennial weeds. I've been removing roots as I dig, but have inevitably left some behind. At some stage, I may have to temporarily forget my organic principles, zap them all with weedkiller, and then go back to being organic.
Yesterday, I finished filling one compost bin, with weeds gathered from beside footpaths. I watered that heap this morning, and also the beds, as we haven't had significant rain for some time.
I don't think I'll grow onions in the future; I'll grow shallots instead, as they are much easier than onions: you plant whole shallots, and each one multiplies underground, so that you harvest a bunch of them. I read somewhere that the word "onion" is related to "union", "one", etc., because it is the only member of the allium family which doesn't multiply, providing many bulbs or cloves from one, unlike shallots, garlic, etc. That may be a load of Ronnie Rollocks, but it makes sense.

[SteveH]

Just bought an oscillating sprinkler hose attachment, which sprays a rectangular area, from Wilco, and set it up to water the veg. plot for an hour or so, because we haven't had any significant rain for some time.
I hope the weather warms up soon - my apple trees are on the verge of blossoming, and I want warm weather to encourage the bees and other pollenating insects.

[SteveH]

Filled the second compost bin with stuff collected from beside footpaths, plus screwed-up newspaper and cardboard to provide roughage. Weeded veg. beds. I have 12 runner bean seeds and 12 climbing bean seeds in fibre pots, to be planted out in May, but they have yet to germinate. Also collected seeds from hips on my old rose 'Honorine De Brabant', and sowed them, to see what comes up. Rose seeds are notoriously slow to germinate, so I may have to wait. a while. Split a big bag of compost between the two apple trees in the front garden, as a mulch, yesterday. I wish something other than my radishes would appear above ground! I think my onions have died.

[SteveH]

A pink (Dianthus) plant in my front garden, variety unknown, with one flower bigger and pinker than all the others. I wonder if it's a sport (genetic mutation), or a normal variation. I must find out how to propagate pinks, in case it's the former. (It could also be a reversion, which is the opposite of a sport: when a variety that began as a sport throws out a branch which reverts to the original variety. 'Rosa Mundi', a sport of the very old rose 'Rosa gallica "officinalis"' is a frequent reverter.)

https://flic.kr/p/2kUdGZJ

[SteveH]

My runner and climbing beans are germinating in their fibre pots on the windowsill. I will have to get some bamboo poles to grow them up. In the beds, something has finally appeared above ground apart from the radishes: a few of my 'Salad Blue' spuds have appeared, though none of the 'Pink Fir Apple' so far. I think all my onions, planted out a few weeks ago, are dead.
My compost heaps were showing no sign of heating up, probably because the material was too coarse. They had both sunk, so this morning I combined them in one bin, shredding everything by hand, which was tedious and took some time, but everything is now much more finely shredded. Bunged in a couple of spadefuls of soil to get the bacteria off to a head start.

[Spud]

17 tree stumps removed - some quite small, others so big I had to use a masonry chisel and hammer to cut the main root out, as I couldn't fit a saw into the hole. Loppers great for roots. 

[SteveH]

17?! Fuckest thou me - getting one out is an exhausting all-day job, in my book! How long did that take?

[SteveH]

Bought five rosemary plants for £10 a few days ago, and planted them in a row along the front of the front garden, in line with the two I planted a month or two ago. Today, I bought a large lavender plant for £8, and planted it in the back garden, between two apple trees. I may buy two more, and plant them in the other two gaps between trees. Both lavender and rosemary are great bee-attractors, which is good news both for the environment and for my apple trees, since their flowering periods overlap. Rosemary is also a useful culinary herb. Discovered that the Linnaean name for rosemary is not, as I thought, Rosmarinus officinalis, but Salvia rosmarinus - it was officially changed in 2017.

[SteveH]

It is an immutable law of gardening that however much compost material you collect, and however quickly you collect it, you will never fill a bin to the brim. I've been proving it again this afternoon.