10th March

10^th March

A thought crossed my mind to inaugurate the fire pit but as is often the case, this was a rushed, last minute idea that really did not warrant a quick blaze and me stinking of smoke in the short time available. I did go out into the garden with our 2 year old though – maybe it was the presence of such a young one that quashed my fire idea – and as he pottered about in that cute toddler fashion, I potted on some sweet peppers. The peppers came in 4 x 4 plug plant sections, and I wanted the pots to sow some chilli pepper seeds into. The pots in question are a square base for catching the drips, whilst the part that holds the compost is 4 plugs in one and each is far narrower at the base where the drainage hole is. This means a gentle squeeze is all you need to slide up the plant when you want to move it up a pot size. However, the even better aspect is that all together this pot contraption fits just perfectly between the gap at the top of the double radiator in the kitchen, thereby providing a good heat source which is essential when attempting to germinate pepper seeds. Hence 8 peppers had to move up into small yoghurt pots – well, fromage frais pots to be precise – not as large as yoghurt pots! This season’s new compost was broken into and piled into these recycled pots, they were watered and put back in the conservatory, and the old pots washed out and filled with new compost and the chilli seeds were sown later this evening and placed on the radiator. What I also do, especially with seeds that are not great germinators, is to water the compost with quite warm water, just to give them a head start. I’d hate to be sitting in a pot of compost that was wringing wet with cold water, well, more so than in warm compost!

Later on, and one day later than last year, I sowed the sweet peas. My wife had found a set of 5 trays with 20 pot holes in each. I happen to have 5 packets of sweet peas with 20 seeds in each, the match could not have been better, a marriage made in the finest greenhouse! So I set-to with filling them with compost and it is surprising how much you get through with these trays, and then watering well as you are not supposed to water again until the seedlings have emerged. Again I used warm water in an effort to aid germination. Last year I achieved a less than 50% germination rate. I was planning to sow only about 15 of each variety and sow extra if necessary, seeing that I did well with the few that did grow last year. Unfortunately I forgot this at the time and filled all 100 pots so in some ways I’m hoping for better results and in other ways, I’m not as I don’t know what I’ll do with them all – but rather more than less. Each of the Unwins packets contained 21 seeds, a bonus on the advertised 20, but the 1 Suttons packet which said it had 25 seeds actually had 37, so I am well insured on that variety, even some for next year perhaps.

The instructions for sweet peas say to sow 5 in a 5 inch pot. I did this last year and of course, many did not germinate, but those that did were competing with other plants and their roots were beginning to entangle by planting out time which meant there would be some root disturbance which checks growth a little. In sowing 1 seed per pot hole I can grow on in confidence knowing that this will not be an issue. I don’t know why you are told to sow 5 to a pot. If you’ve got individual pots you can take away the ones that don’t germinate and save space, whereas a whopping 5 inch pot with one plant rather takes up space. It’s not as if the professionals disagree with me. Look at these new root trainer pots that encourage good vertical root growth. The information on the product states they are ideal for sweet peas, and they are designed to put 1 seed in each pot!

A job that really needs to be done is the cleaning on the concrete area as I want to assemble the mini greenhouse, but I’d like to clean up the flooring first. A jet washer for a day costs £20 + VAT and seems a little expensive for what I need it for so I may have to resort to a scrubbing brush. I really need to get more space. Practically all the conservatory shelving is taken up with onions, the sweet peas are in the loft (it’s a converted one, not a cold, dark and dusty one) and I want to start sowing leeks and some brassicas, not to mention a few flower seeds that need starting off soon. That quiet, down time in winter is quickly fading away, I must get cracking!

6th - 9th March

6^th March

I completed building the raised bed for section 1 albeit a little ramshackle in appearance and a few days this week I have been collecting topsoil and filling up sections 2 and 3. Now that it has rained a fair amount, the soil in section 3 has settled somewhat and needed topping up. In the garden this week I have pruned the roses.

7^th March

I cleared away the small pile of tardy wood that is on my fire pit, so that now I have a small pile of tardy wood on the lawn. I have cleared the pit and levelled it once again and have started to put some recently acquired bricks in an oval arrangement to build a better brick container for the fire. Time did not permit me to finish though. I did manage to turn some compost and add some manure to it and fork in some rotting material from bin 2 into bin 1. I’m hoping to get more transferred and find some decent quality compost down at the base that I can take to the allotment.

Hilliers Gardens, Hampshire

9^th March

I had a really good lunchtime in the garden with my youngest boy, now a healthy 2 year old. I finished building the fire pit, so maybe I’ll have 1 less excuse for not getting rid of surplus wood. Mind you, the weather is my main excuse. It’s either too wet to enjoy a fire, or too windy and the smoke just goes everywhere, or it is really cold, and yes, I know a fire keeps you warm but . .  or it’s lovely weather and people have their washing on the line! Whilst out there I pruned the plumes from the grass plant (pretty sure it is a pampas grass) and realised I really need to trim it back as most of the leaves are looking worse for wear.

I notice from last year’s journal that I sowed the sweet peas on this date and I did plan to do it today as a celebration of the anniversary, but events overtook me.

The garden is looking promising with a number of tulips coming up and some daffodils ready to bloom, although I’m sure there were far more last year - did I mistreat them? There are buds on the roses and the trees, and the fennel plant is a small mass of bright healthy green leaves, and even the sage is sprouting back into life – all looking well.  Inside, the onion sets are growing. There are quite a few of them which have developed a green shoot, so life for them is beginning earlier as planned.

23rd - 28th February

23^rd February

I had a quick visit to the allotment and found out that my Dad has dug over sections 6 and 7 – well done Dad! Back at home I did plan to plant the onion sets into little pots or modular trays and get the boys to help, but the call of a DVD showing a certain SpongeBob Squarepants was, strangely, more alluring. By the time I got outside after fortifying myself with a cup of gardeners’ tea, it was not quite enough time for me to be sure of getting all the onions sorted before teatime, so I pottered around doing other jobs. I pruned the remaining fuchsia stems from the front garden and sawed the last of the larger sycamore branches. I love getting the big bow saw out onto real wood straight from a tree. When I clip away at the finer branches and twigs with secateurs, not only is it a little tedious, but I fear I will wear out the secateurs with all that snipping. The bow saw, however, simply glides through the wood in a very satisfying manner. After that, I transplanted the extra strawberry plants into the wooden tub that last year I grew the salad leaves in. I had to move out 3 rocket plants that were sown last May and even now are only the size of an egg, yet their roots were amazingly long for the amount and length of leaf on top. Perhaps they will spring into life this year. All this effort fitted exactly into the time available before tea – good planning!

 

Exbury Gardens, Hampshire

24^th February

I collected 8 more bags of soil from my brother-in-law and emptied that out onto section 3 at the allotment, and dug about three quarters of section 2. I saw that my Dad has been digging some more – almost all of section 8. I just can’t stop him! Back home I noticed that the 3 fuchsias that I took in from last years’ hanging baskets are beginning to show signs of new shoots.

26^th February

I’ve planted the onions! 58 sturons and 64 settons, all in modules, watered, and covered with a cloche and placed on the shelves in the conservatory. I only found 1 rotten set in each batch, so that wasn’t bad. What was strange was that 2 x 200g yielded 124 sets yet last year and the 400g bag had 161. I realise that due to size and weight of individual sets – and there were tiny ones and large ones – there will not be exactly twice as many in a double weight bag, but a difference of 37 seems way too few. Seeing as last year I had space after planting up all 161, I might get another bag to fill in the gap, or maybe I’ll try shallots. They have the bonus of giving numerous bulbs per set, unlike an onion which simply grows bigger. It will also add width to our home-grown culinary range.

27^th February

I went to the allotment after work and took all manner of tools – except the saw for the wood.  The completed raised bed for section 2 is about 8-10 inches short. Never mind, that space will be used as a dedicated flower bed! The chipboard sections, although prone to water damage, are a real pain to fix together end to end and it is a little bit of a rough job so maybe it is just as well they won’t last too many seasons. I also finished off digging over section 2 and so now it too is ready for some topsoil when that is available again.  Section 2 is the one I can fill in with quite a bit of organic matter as it is for the leeks that like that, but section 1, like section 3, will have to be mainly topsoil as it is for carrots which will fork in manured soil. If I can get these 3 sections fitted out as raised beds, and there is every reason to suggest I will, then that is all the roots and alliums beds ready. That will then give me breathing space to get some decent wood (I may even pay out for some) and work on section 9. This will mean, firstly, that the other end section is completed which is key for sorting out the wire mesh fencing as it will go tightly round 3 edges of that section, and secondly, I can pile in loads of manure for this years’ crops – the squashes, then re-manure it in the autumn for next years alliums – onions don’t mind manure from the previous year!

Saturday 28^th February

I popped into Hilliers and bought a packet of courgette seeds as last seasons’ green ones have been used up. I got F1 Defender which is reputed to be a heavy cropper. I looked at shallots and for £1.99 I could buy a bag of 15 shallot bulbs which would require a fair few bags to fill the potential space, or I could buy 50 Centurion onion sets for £1.49. Need I explain why I went for more onions? All in all it was £3.94 well spent I feel. Once home I headed straight for the garden and planted up the 50 sets in a tray of soil. I now have all space filled on the conservatory shelves with a few seeds to plant over the next few weeks!

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!