19th - 21st February

19^th February

Back to the allotment and to the task of finishing the raised bed frame for section 3.  The lengthwise borders were about 10 inches short of the desired length, and I did not want to have to join 2 narrow boards together then fix them to the long planks then to the end piece, so I found a large square of chipboard and cut that to fit. The end piece is, again, 2 of the narrower boards. So that is the first bed completed, and I started filling it with some of the soil from the sacks that have been sitting around all winter, and I can now give my brother-in-law those sacks so that he can give me more soil. I started to dig over section 6 but the soil was so wet it was sticking to the spade.

Exbury Gardens, Hampshire

20^th February

Again to the allotment and this time to start on the raised bed for section 2. For this one I am using recycled furniture. My work was throwing out some laminated covered chipboard that was an old service counter, and it was very large. As soon as I saw it I had a vision of it cut into slices and forming a raised bed wall. The only problem will be that it will soak up water quite well and thus become soft and probably start falling to pieces after one season, but it will be good enough, I hope, for now, given the supreme lack of cheap wood for the task. This wood is easier to screw together to make corners but not for joining together end to end on the long sides, and I rather resent the effort expended in trying to do so with material that will need replacing next year. Maybe the cordless drill was losing power, or maybe I was losing patience – probably both – but I left it for another day. Instead I emptied all the remaining bags of soil into section 3. There were quite a lot of bags and they were quite heavy and wet and dirty, so I was hoisting them up on to my thigh then to my trunk and carrying them, and then back down onto my thigh and emptying them thus caking my trousers in wet slimy clayey soil – great fun! Section 3 is for onions this year, so it will only be loaded up with this soil and more from my brother-in-law, and none of the leaf mould or rotted down wood from the back of the shed or material from the compost bin, as onions do not like good rich soil – that will be saved for the leeks in section 2 (once I get that finished!).

In the mail today was my sweet pea seed order from Unwins. As a free extra I was sent a packet of herb seeds with coriander, parsley and rocket.

21^st February

My Gardeners’ World Magazine came today. Buyers at the shop choose one of two free seed packet gifts; either a yellow California poppy (Golden Values) and a red variety sunflower (Velvet Queen) or a cayenne chilli pepper and a cherry tomato (Red Cherry). Subscribers get both! I now have all my flower seeds for the year. The sweet peas I have are ‘Duo Magenta’, ‘White Supreme’, ‘Scarlett’, ‘Blue Danube’, and ‘Supremo Mix’. I have the sunflowers that have just arrived plus remaining seed from last years’ ‘Vincent’s mixture’, nicotiana ‘Perfume Mix’, again a remaining lot from last year, and 3 types that I have never tried before but they looked good in the catalogue and are reputed to go together well. I have some Cineraria Maritima ‘Silverdust’ which is a silver foliaged plant for borders, edging, pots and for cut flower arrangements, ageratum ‘Blue Mink’ which has heads of small spiky blue flowers and Salvia ‘Blaze of Fire’ a plant with good green leaves that has brilliant red flower spikes. If I can get them all going well – or more to the point if I can squeeze them all in somehow – I reckon I’ll have a fantastic display! I’m looking forward to it.

16th - 18th February

16^th February

After work on a bright, warm and dry day I visited the allotment. It was with a due sense of purpose and steely determination that I stepped out of the car armed with boots, saw, gloves, screws, spade, rechargeable drill and clearance for a later dinner time to enable me to begin the task of making the raised beds. Through contacts of my Dad, we have some brand new timber, umpteen feet long for the purpose. As always, as it seems to me, there was a slight hitch. The wood was only 4 inches wide. I toyed with the idea of leaving it at that versus doubling up to make an 8 inch wall. In trying out a single piece, it was obvious that after allowing for the fact that what I have at present is a sunken bed, I would only have 2 inches clear of ground level if using only one board, so 2 it was. That meant extra time sawing batons to make joining beams and screwing them together onto the wood – 3 per double beam, then joining 2 doubled sections lengthwise then eventually putting on one end piece, and frankly I just ran out of my extended time to finish the other end. Time-wise I could have made 2 complete frames in the afternoon if the wood was 6 inches wide. It also means I need even more wood.

On a brighter side, I stocked up on sweet bell pepper plug plants. They were £1.99 for a box of 4 plugs so I bought 3 boxes of red peppers and 1 of yellow. £7.96 spent.

Exbury Gardens, Hampshire

17^th February

As the council collect our green waste bags tomorrow, I set about snipping up the sycamore branches that were cut down last week. Why? Well, it is well known that legally, if your plants infringe a neighbour’s property they have full liberty to cut them at the point of entry into their property or air space but that it remains the property of the person from whose garden it grew so has to be deposited back over the boundary. Add to this information the concern my neighbour has that a branch or 2 of my tree hovers about 4-5 feet above his flat roofed shed and that it will, at any time now, pierce the roof and run amok with his building, and you have the requirement for him to ask me how I would like my tree trimmed. I kept to the law and said ‘at the boundary line’, and he kept to the law and put 3 branches over my fence for me to sort out. I can imagine he will soon be asking me for the larger diameter wood for his wood burner. It may seem from this that I have a fraught relationship with ‘him next door’ but this is far from the case. We have a good symbiotic relationship of paying each other with gifts of kind that would make us both a good deal of cash were it to be reduced to such a lowly level. It’s strange really, with a few of our neighbours how it is a case of ‘one good turn deserves another’ in that there has to be pay back. I’m quite happy to lend a hand or do a job for free as a friend, because that is what community/friendship/neighbourliness is all about – why do we have to keep count? It would become pretty obvious if someone was taking it to extreme and always taking and never giving. Anyway, this particular gentleman and his wife are good neighbours and certainly his professional carpentry and building skills have done us well, and they look out for us, especially when I’m at work and door-to-door sales people come calling (those blood sucking non-producers I mentioned in last years’ journal).

18^th February

No gardening today, but I did notice that 3 garlic shoots are now coming through the soil in their tray. This means I must crack on with those raised beds. Elsewhere in the garden, things are looking like spring is coming. The myriad shoots of bluebells, crocuses, daffodils and tulips are looking fine and healthy and not suffering from the 2 days of snow we had a few weeks ago – yes, for once we actually had 2 inches of snow! There are about half a dozen bright yellow crocuses in bloom, there are buds on the roses and on the weeping willow and on the sycamore – I noticed them as I trimmed the thinner branches off yesterday. It brings to mind the fact that I must get a move on and wash the remaining pots and get final preparations in order for the start of the sowing season.

13 - 14th February

13^th February

It was last July that we ordered a pine shelf with 6 layers for the conservatory to go just inside the back door to keep tidy all those things that just seem to get to a position where they are lying around, messing up the place and getting in everybody’s way. Tonight, I assembled them and they look grand. The top 2 shelves are for seedlings. What about the mini greenhouse you may ask? Well, these shelves were thought of and ordered months before my wife had the thought to buy me that piece of equipment, and only a short while after I had moved trays and trays of seedlings from the conservatory floor to the outside world. This year I can start off seeds early in the conservatory where they will not be trodden on or run over by scooters, then move them out to the greenhouse whence I can sow others inside. The greenhouse can house far more than the conservatory shelves can so there will be no backlog there.

This week I received my second delivery of onion sets. I ordered 2 x 200g bags of setton and sturon, rather than 1 x 400g bag like last year. My thinking is that if I grow 2 varieties then I am hedging my bets in case one variety does not do so well. I will start these off in the conservatory in little plugs – my yoghurt pot collection - and if I do that next week sometime then it will be a good 7 weeks earlier than last year which means 7 weeks extra growth, plus more protection  from rabbits by the new wire mesh that I bought via ebay – 50m for £19.99 plus postage which still made it better value than anything I saw last year. The fact that I did not buy any mesh last year is testimony to how expensive it was.

Exbury Gardens, Hampshire

14^th February

It has been a good day for me and the garden. After breakfast, as my wife lay sleeping enjoying a well earned rest (I get my lay-in on a Sunday when she gets up with the boys), I got to work with a sheet of paper and planned out the allotment for this year. In section 1 will be carrots growing in loose soil in a new raised bed (hopefully), with space for a few flowers at the other end and a row of garlic. Section 2 will be leeks and section 3 will be onions, all in raised beds. Sections 4, 5 and 6 will be brassicas. The ones I aim to grow are the same as last year – sprouts, sprouting broccoli and cauliflower, but this time with some anti-butterfly netting! Section 7 will be courgettes and cucumbers, section 8 will be sweet peppers and pumpkins and section 9 will be crown prince and butternut squash and sweetcorn. Chard will be dotted about as will a few flowers.

Back home will be the strawberries, the usual herbs, a chilli or 2 and a few pots of salad leaves.

I was able to spend some decent time in the garden this afternoon. I finished sieving the compost in bin number 2 and mulching the border with it, and then I started emptying compost from the full bin number 1 into the empty bin 2, mixing it with sawdust, shredded paper and horse manure and giving it all a good stir. I’ll leave it at that for a while and add a week or two’s worth of vegetable peelings as that will add more nitrogen based green material into what is a pretty heavily laden carbon based brown material bin at present. Having a good mix promotes decomposition. The main thing is that I now have space in which to put the kitchen waste again.

Even better was that I have now crossed off a long standing item on my ‘to-do’ list in that I have not only assembled the shelves and put them in the conservatory, but I have also cleared out the space, swept and vacuumed and moved many toys, balls, plastic buckets and spades to the garage compartment of the playhouse. One can now walk freely through our conservatory to the back garden – apart from my exercise bike that is right in front of the door which was where the shelves are now but will be going upstairs (as soon as we’ve cleared that area!) What is more, for once my work was timed to perfection. Almost spookily, the moment I’d finished, my wife called to say dinner would be in 5 minutes – the right amount of time to lock up the shed and back door, get changed, wash my hands and sit up for a meal – perfect.

23rd - 29th January

My apologies for the long gap in posting. I have had some computer issues as well as other things crowding out my time.

23^rd January

My compost bin is very nearly full, and it’s not the weather for fast breakdowns so I must get the other bin load sieved and distributed fast. Trouble is I’ve lent my sieve to my Dad for a while. There are now 2 crocuses showing orange, plus many more green shoots of various bulbs poking through the mulch and soil. It all looks promising and reminds you that spring is on the way – albeit in another 2 months. It is also a reminder to wash the pots, buy the seeds, buy some sowing compost, plan and prepare, not to mention tidy the garden plus get on with those raised beds at the allotment!

28^th January

I had a quick session sieving more compost and spreading it about the border, then collecting up some pots for cleaning that for some reason had been distributed around the garden. I also moved a few items from the conservatory into the playhouse. I have a set of wooden stand-alone shelves that I need to put up but first I need to make the space!

29^th January

Wow, can’t I shop when I get going. I had a 10%-off voucher for Hilliers to be used by Saturday, plus Hilliers are selling seeds at 20% off. I bought 3 flower seeds packets, and one of butternut squash. Unfortunately they did not have the sweet pea varieties I wanted from the Unwins catalogue, but they did have a mixed sweet pea collection from Suttons that I was after. I found some Christmas candles and candle holders going cheap, as too was a butterfly feeding platform to encourage and help them. I bought some plug plants for the hanging baskets, as well as 2 new baskets so that we’ll have five dangling in the sunshine this year. I got a red petunia for the front basket to go with the white fuchsia again as that worked last year. There are 3 purple surfinas and 1 white one and 2 plum coloured verbena aztecs. The 3 fuchsias saved over from last year will be reused and I’ll throw in some nicotiana to fill any gaps. I wanted to buy some weed suppressing membrane (the 2 sections covered last year have proved its efficacy) and I was going to buy it off the roll, but then I saw that it came in pre-packed rolls that worked out cheaper than off the roll. I took advantage of another offer – 3 x 75 litre bags of multi purpose compost for £10, and the crowning glory was a miniature greenhouse – basically a stacking shelf unit with a heavy duty plastic cover with a zip up door. Apparently these are very good, and this one was £24.99 not to mention the 10% discount. All this, with discount, came to £64.25. Phew!

20th January

We were out in the garden again, with the boys churning up the sodden lawn by the playhouse and me sieving compost.  I have put down a compost mulch on nearly half of the border and it certainly makes it look better – it covers up the soil that has so many stones on the top of it. You always get that, no matter how much you remove them or cover with compost or other top dressing. It’s those worms taking down the good stuff that exposes them, I think, that plus the rain effect. I noticed one solitary crocus in colour – a bright orange one whose leaves are still wrapped up, but there is a little flame of colour there.

January 8th

Another spell wrapped up in the garden, mainly sieving compost for the borders. There was still frost on the lawn even in late afternoon. Apart from when we’ve had snow – many years before, I can’t remember seeing frost that lasted all day. In a way, it is good to see a proper winter, a real shut down and time of dormancy. Mind you, crocus and bluebell shoots are appearing.

January 3rd

I never did get the garden tidied up within the bounds of last year. Two months of almost no activity helped to ensure that. I was, however, very pleased with myself that I had completed a project I had set myself at the beginning of last year, which was to keep a gardening journal. It won’t set the horticultural world alight with its advice or instruction, but it was an accurate record of some ordinary chap trying to do better in his garden and taking on an allotment. I found the project of journal keeping a bonus and so I’m repeating it hoping that this year will be more successful in the vegetable growing stakes.
Today it was as cold as it has been for about 2 weeks which had been enough to keep me inside unless I had to go out, but my boys wanted time in the garden so we all wrapped up and went out.  I set about dragging old bags of rotted leaf mould from behind the shed and putting new ones in their place. Some of the material was pretty good, others need longer to rot down. What was good was the shredded wood from 1995. Back in the early days of being a home owner, my Dad hired a wood chipper for the masses of wood we cleared in the garden. The chipped wood was of a really rough quality and so most got thrown, but 2 bags were neglected and have mulched down brilliantly over the past 13 years. Even the large lumps simply crumbled between my fingers whilst finer material looked like commercial composts in colour, tilth and texture. I think it will be put to use on the allotment with the new raised beds I sincerely hope I will be making before spring.  Some of the leaf mould was placed around the fuchsias, the rest is for other soil improving either at home or at the allotment.

 

Other jobs were snipping back a few branches on the rear lilac tree to gain a more straightforward and less scratchy path to behind the shed, trimming the chives of their dead stalks, finding pots all over the place and stacking them on the water butt for cleaning later, emptying the larger pots of spent compost that had the chilli and sweet peppers growing in them to also go down to the allotment and collecting all sorts of tiny bits of non compostable rubbish to go in the bin. One big achievement was to finally get 26 garlic bulbs planted in a tray. Apparently they need a week of temperatures between 0 and 10°C, so that should not be a problem. So my first planting has been done. Garlic can be put in from the autumn onward, even up to the shortest day. I am 13 days late although much earlier than last year when I planted on the 12^th January which in itself was about 2 months earlier than the year before! Maybe at the end of this year I will finally get round to planting before Christmas. Imagine that – to make 2 plantings in one year. You never know, I may even sow them at the right time in the autumn!

 

One other job was that I moved about 4 of the self seeded grass plants to the front garden.