Category: grow your own

Seed Sowing Starts

It felt oh so good today to be sowing the first seeds of the year! And to make things even better it was warm and cosy in the greenhouse. There are so many seeds waiting in my tin all organised in sowing date order.

So today I sowed seeds of tomatoes, peppers (sweet, cayenne and hot), basil, parsley and leeks.

We always sow a variety of tomatoes to ensure lots of different colours, textures and flavours, so for 2012 we have Gardeners Delight, Moneymaker, Red Cherry, Black Cherry, Harbinger and a heritage variety called Potentate. Of course to go with tomatoes we need basil so we have sown Basil Sweet Genovase.

All the seeds sown today need warmth to germinate so we have put them in my home-made propagator which gives bottom heat and maintains an average 20 degrees celsius. Here they are in their special warm environment waiting for the lid to be closed.

And the seed potatoes are “chitting” away in their egg trays. So the allotment year has been launched and it feels good!!

Tags allotments, chillies, fruit and veg, fruit and vegetable growing, gardening, greenhouse gardening, grown your own, peppers

allotments fruit and veg gardening grow your own half-hardy perennials winter gardens

Overwintering.

The greenhouse is a true haven when the temperatures drop so low that your hands feel the cold even with your gloves on and the top of your head feels it through your hat. We have just switched on the propagating units allowing the temperature in them to settle around the 18 degree mark in readiness for seed sowing. This should start in earnest any day now. The veggie seeds are all in their air-tight tin in sowing order. It won’t be long before we are transplanting some into the prepared soil on the allotment – just a couple of months!

But the main function for the protection the greenhouse affords us is to look after our less delicate specimens. With night-time temperatures varying from minus 1 to minus 12 this overwintering security is essential. Working away in the heated end of the greenhouse is a real relief from the cold outside. The unheated end still gives plenty of protection for half-hardy plants but still requires coats for the gardeners.

The Euphorbia mellifera enjoys having glass and bubblewrap over its head. This is our second Honey Spurge as we lost one even under cover last winter. We hope to keep it this year so that we can enjoy its wonderful honey scent when we return it to its place in the Secret Garden.

Aeonium and Echeveria keep us on tenterhooks through the winter months, as we have lost them so many times. Aeoniums are succulent sub-shrubs and those we have now are the largest and most long-lived we have ever had. The green leaved Aeoniums below are a variety inknow to us before we found these so we are unsure of their hardiness. We bought them as single rosettes – they have flourished in the Rill Garden. They are possibly Aeonium haworthii and if so we have every right to pamper them in winter as they hail from The Canary Isles.

The black leaved version is Aeonium arboreum “Zwartkop”, is a native of Morroco. The leaves get blacker as the summer gets hotter and drier, so as it rests in the greenhouse after a long dry summer it looks very dark. The early morning sun streaming in through the glass lights the rosettes from behind and tuens them fleshy red.

In a heated propagator cuttings are also being protected. this gives us another chance to keep delicate plants over winter. Salvias, tender Buddleia and the odd houseplant such as Kalenchoe.

Outside, salad leaf seedlings sown in December, are holding on until warmer weather. We cover them each night with fleece. Once better light and warmer temperatures arrive they will be triggered into rapid growth. We look forward to tasty, colourful mixed leaf salads.

So whenever it is too cold or the ground too frozen solid outside we always have the welcome of a warm greenhouse. After all the greenhouse isn’t just for overwintering plants, it overwinters the gardeners too! Hopefully within the next few days we shall revel in sowing seeds in there.

Tags aeomiums, echeverias, green house gardening, green houses

bird watching birds garden photography garden wildlife gardening grow your own hardy perennials ornamental trees and shrubs photography shrubs winter gardens

A Wander Around Our Garden in February

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date February 4, 2012
2 Comments on A Wander Around Our Garden in February

This is the second of our monthly garden wanders designed to give an insight into what is going on each month. Our February wander will be a colder one so don those thermal gloves and woolly hats with silly bobbles and join us. We hope you enjoy what our garden offers in the second month of 2012.

The day dawns frosty but with a bright blue hat on. A lovely fresh winter’s day, with the quiet plaintive song of the Robin as company – he always comes around the garden with us and entertains us with a song. Overhead Buzzards call from their thermals high above the slope of the hill. It feels a perfectly calm day to us but these big, broad winged predators always find movement in the air. Why does the call of the buzzard always sound further away than the bird itself? Have they mastered the art of ventriloquy? We see them most days but we never lose the desire to watch them enjoying their freeform flight.

I fed the chucks and topped up their frozen water with some warm, before collecting their eggs from the nest boxes. Today the hens’ contribution to our larder had added benefits. Handwarmers! Holding these little warm parcels of food felt more special than usual. As I passed the shed on my way down to the chuck pen three Wrens burst out of their roosting pocket – late risers. A pair nested in here in the summer just a few inches above the shed door. They took no notice of our comings and goings. They filled the roosting pouch with moss, feathers and delicate grasses which now insulate them on cold nights.

The garden is full of birds once more after a quiet few months. We were beginning to wonder where all the birds had gone, but today Goldfinches have reappeared in busy red and gold flecked flocks. mixed feeding flocks of titmice invade every tree and shrub and Linnets sit on the highest branches. Long Tailed Tits in groups of a dozen or more flit from tree to shrub and from feeder to feeder, never still, always fidgeting like a class of infant pupils awaiting a favourite story. The odd Bullfinch and Blackcap conduct their business more quietly.

On the feeders Jackdaws attack the peanuts dropping morsels for the Dunnocks and Chaffinches waiting below. Jackdaws are long-lived and today two old favourites are to be seen, one with a white wing and one with a wing that droops low when he settles. Overhead their much larger relatives pass over, a “cronking” trio of Raven flying effortlessly with outstretched fingers.

It is noticeable that the clusters of berries on the Hollies and Cotoneasters are much depleted as greedy groups of resident Blackbird and Mistle Thrush are joined by migrant members of the thrush family, the winter visiting Redwing and Fieldfare. The small yellow crab apples on Malus “Butterball” have now been stripped by these members of the thrush family.

Our horizontal cotoneaster is a favourite of Blackbirds, Redwing and Mistle Thrush.

There has simply been plenty of natural food for our avian friends this winter. It has been mild enough for insects to be on the wing, for invertebrates to be creeping and crawling, and the hedges and trees have heavy berry crops. We want to see them in our garden but we are being selfish. They come to us when they need to and not before!

The blackbirds have finally discovered the windfalls.

The re-appearance of the Goldfinches gives us close-up entertainment as close to the conservatory window grow Onopordon, the Scotch Thistle, and its seed heads tower into the blue sky. Goldfinches love them and soon dig in for seeds, bursting the heads open as they do so, and the white fluffy insides overflow like raw cotton.

Scotch Thistle seed heads towering into the blue.

The intensifying of the cold sucks structure from leaves and hardens the ground beneath them. The accompanying frost layers the ground and plants with lines and layers of frozen crystals. The blueness of the skies on a clear February day is more intense than earlier in the winter. The sunlight seems brighter.

The deep cold has taken the structure out of the young self-seeded sunlit Hypericum.

Fennel seed heads still stand strong while its delicate bright green seedlings shelter below.

The deep blue February sky increases the purple tints in the tracery of the Birch's finest branches.

The frost gives an extra line of silver along the leaf edges of these grasses.

Something special happens to light in February. There is something about the quality of light that changes. It makes you feel better. It makes plants look better, their flower colours intensify. If, like both “The Undergardener” and I, you suffer from SAD (Seasonally Affected Disorder) then you will feel and experience this change. You feel the tunnel of winter has brightness at its end. Monty Don, in the book “Fork to Fork” refers to this improvement in light quality, writing that February displays a “tangible promise of a better time” and talks of a “surge of energy and hope running through the garden”. This will be tangible from about the middle of the month but even now the hint of that promise is in the air. It isn’t just S.A.D. gardeners who believe in the wonder of February however, as we have a pair of Blue Tits taking up residence in one nest box and a pair of House Sparrows in another. Spring is in the air! Well, maybe not! No, these two pairs are just like serious sun-bathers on a busy sandy beach, just getting there early to “bag” the best spots.

Nowhere is this new hope more obvious than in the flowering of the bulbs and the bright green signs of new growth of perennials. Snowdrops, Crocus and Aconite, the pearls of the month.

Marbled foliage of Cyclamen with golden flowers of Winter Aconite

New growth on the oriental poppies - promises!

The leaves of Day Lilies spear the frozen mulch.

But some new life is out of sinc. Buds appear and surprise. The blue anemone with its metallic sheen on its indigo bud is a special treat and is reflected in the blue berries of the Viburnum davidii. The last of the rose buds however that gave promise of flowers have given in to winter’s grasp.

The promise of a rose flower stopped by the frost.

No February garden can be complete without Hellebores so here are just two of ours. But my true favourites to finish our February wander around our garden are the Witch Hazel “Jelena” and Cornus mas.

Upright growth and rich reds and purples make this a special Hellebore.

Cornus mas, the Cornelian Cherry, a modest beauty.

Tags birds, foliage, fruit and veg, fruit and vegetable growing, fruit., garden photography, garden wildlife, gardening, shrubs, trees, wildlife, winter, winter gardens

allotments birds community gardening conservation fruit and veg garden photography garden wildlife gardening grow your own meadows natural pest control ornamental trees and shrubs photography trees winter gardens

A Wander Around the Allotments in January

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date January 18, 2012
10 Comments on A Wander Around the Allotments in January

As I decided to create a blog at the beginning of each month illustrating what is going on in our garden, so I have also decided to publish a blog in the middle of each month to show what is happening on our allotment site.

So today we braved the cold and went for a wander. The weather although cold, at five below, was bright sunshine in a clear blue sky. the air felt freezing as it entered my lungs but the sight of the lotties cheered me. As we stepped from the car a kestrel was hunting low between the sheds in search of the abundant field voles. A day never goes by without seeing at least one kestrel quartering the site. A buzzard soared overhead in the thermals created by the warmer air above the cultivated plots.

First job was to fill the bird feeders at the two feeding stations. They were busy with blue tits, coal tits and great tits feeding from the hanging feeders and blackbirds, dunnocks and robins beneath picking up the feed dropped by the clumsy birds above them. All the while we could hear the call of nuthatches in the site’s mature oak and sycamore trees.

Frost sits on the bare ground and helps the gardeners by breaking it down and improving the texture in readiness for a final preparatory rake over. The fine tilth can then be home to seeds.

The plots themselves look very sad at this time of the year, drooping brassicas, frosted leeks and steaming muck heaps and compost bins, the warmest spots of all. The scarecrows have fallen in the recent strong winds, their clothes wet and bedraggled and their structures weakened. Frost emphasises leaf structures, settling deepest along the veins.

The strongly veined wrinkled leaves of the Savoy Cabbages withstand the cold wrapped into tight balls.

Kale defies the cold and stands upright and proud even with ice droplets and frost splattered on their tightly curled leaves.

Sunlight makes the old runner bean pods translucent as they hang on the dead remnants of last year’s plants.

On our own plot the rows of Mooli, Broad Beans and Leeks look delicate in the frozen soil but will sit until spring arrives when they will have growth spurts and give us early crops.

Plastic bottles on canes support last year’s netting and still protect any overwintering crops from hungry Wood Pigeons.

Blackbirds move low across the lotties settling onto any sun-warmed soil and dig for grubs, but this one sat looking sad.

We took a leisurely walk around the “Interest Trail” which took us through or close to most of the community gardens – the orchards, wildlife borders, seasonal gardens and meadows. Near the car park the first green bursts of new life have appeared, the leaves and catkins forming on the birches. The young catkins stand bolt upright at this stage but will soften in colour and structure when they dangle down in the spring.

The purple catkins of the alder sit on the branches with the darker cones.

In the Autumn Garden seed heads of Asters remain long after the flowers of autumn, like tiny dandelion “clocks”.

In the first orchard th frost still lingered strongly on the logpile especially on this old chunk of bark.

When we reached the Spring Garden we were struck by the contrasting leaf texture, shapes and structures.

At the back of this garden the silver tassels of the Garrya hung in profusion and the new buds of the Amelanchier promised early flowers and foliage.

Further round the trail we arrived at the “Winter Garden” where the low rays of the sun sent long shadow lines of the fence right across the border between the coloured stems of the Betulas and the Dogwoods. It also illuminated this peeling bark, giving it the impression of slithers of orange brittle toffee.

The blue spruce looked bluer than ever with the whiteness of the frost laying on its needles.

Our Winter Garden has so much of interest that I shall publish a blog just featuring it within the next few days, so for now we shall move on to the second orchard where the golden fruits of Malus “Evereste” have escaped the attentions of the winter visiting thrushes but I suspect they will soon be discovered and devoured. The insect stack in the orchard is there to attract beneficial insects who provide our very wildlife-friendly pesticide. The stack should give them some shelter to help them survive the winter cold and wet.

As we wandered back towards the car park we passed through the wildflowers meadows long since cut to the ground, but showing promise for next summer in its tiny seedlings. One lone flower braved the cold – a pale blue cornflower. Leaving the lotties we noticed promises of flowers from the bulbs in the car park border and in the half-barrels in the gateway.

Tags allotments, community gardening, cornus, foliage, fruit and veg, fruit and vegetable growing, fruit., garden photography, garden wildlife, gardening, insects, meadows, organic gardening, ornamental trees, trees, wildlife, winter, winter gardens

gardening grow your own outdoor sculpture

Meet The Chickens

I often mention feeding the chucks in my blogs, so I think it is about time they were introduced. I decided to take a portrait of each one but they just do not stay still long enough to take a photo. So I gave them a new bale of straw to play with and took shots of them distributing it all over their run.They are a right mixed bunch, my two remaining bantams from my original bantam flock and all sorts of hybrids. the banties lay just an occasional egg in the summer months now as they are old age pensioner hens, but the hybrids keep us, and friends, family and neighbours, in eggs all year.

We had better begin with the leader of the flock, the hen at the top of the pecking order, who is aptly called “Jude” named after my wife, usually referred to as “The Undergardener” in my blogs. Jude the hen is a New Hampshire Red bantam.

The next shot shows “Swampy” in the foreground with “Royella” behind. Swampy is one of our two hybrids called Fenton Blues, so called because they lay blue-shelled eggs. She is called Swampy as she spends a lot of time up in the trees – you might have to think about that for a moment! The Fentons have small crests of feathers which stick out all over the place on windy days making them look like they are experiencing a “bad hair day”.

The next photo is of “Royella” our remaining Silver Laced Wyandotte Bantam from our original pair, who were named Val and Royella after our next door neighbours, Roy and Valerie because their foliage was the same colour as our neighbours hair!

Next we have a group with two more hybrids in the foreground, “Em” the black chuck on the right and “V”, the Sussex Hybrid on the left. The two Fenton blues are behind them with Swampy on the left and “Jo” on the right. Jo is named after our daughter as she has the same coloured hair as the hen’s feathers.

This scraggy bird is “Bluebell”, a Bluebelle Hybrid, who has rather unwisely decided that January is the right time to moult! She is usually a stunning looking hen with lots of shades of bluish grey feathers with a contrasting ginger-bronze breast.

In the foreground of this pic is our original brown hybrid, the friendliest of the bunch, insisting on being picked up every time anyone enters their run.

These next two photos prove that taking portraits of chickens is not an easy task, certainly much harder than I imagined it would be. Firstly here is Swampy with her head a high-speed blur as she attacks the straw,

…. and here is the one that got away!

The easiest hens to photograph are the ornaments in the garden, such as this very round terra-cotta version sat on an old hazel stump on the poolside with a backdrop of grasses and dogwoods ………

…… and this cockerel weather forecaster.

Tags bantams, chickens, garden fowl

allotments fruit and veg grow your own

Kale on Parade

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date December 22, 2011

While wandering around the lottie site and having a nose at other gardeners’ plots, I spotted these kales which immediately reminded me of soldiers on parade. Standing tall at three feet, straight as can be and in neat rows they were on parade. Kales standing to attention!

Although now when I look at the photos, I am more inclined to think of Dad’s Army and the kale on the left of the back row is Corporal Jones!

Tags allotments, kale

allotments fruit and veg garden photography gardening grow your own

Winter Solstice Harvest

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date December 21, 2011

What better thing for a gardener to do on the shortest day of the year than to harvest home-grown produce!! Today we harvested our Charlotte potatoes that we have been growing in potato bags, planted in early September and moved into the cool unheated end of the greenhouse when the temperatures dropped.

We also had the privilege of cutting the last of our chillies and capsicums also growing in the greenhouse following the same regime as for the potatoes. The capsicums were pretty small and still green but the chillies were large and brightly coloured. We have been using them straight from the plants for months now but night-time temperatures have made the plants look as if they are exhausted or fed up of the cold.

A couple of hours on the allotment harvesting and hoeing made the shortest day worthwhile. Just think from now on every day will be a little bit longer. Great!!!

The “Undergardener” got busy with the hoe before harvesting leeks, while I dug up mooli, parsnips, swede and two roots of purple sprouts. We pulled up some Florence Fennel, radicchio and chicory. The chicory will have its leaves trimmed off and the roots replanted into a deep pot with a matching pot on top for forcing.

One row of parsnips produced a crop of reasonably sized roots whereas the second row we dug up produced just disappointment. Sad skinny little roots the size of my little finger! I think I shall blame the dry weather! No, I exaggerate, they are nowhere near as big as my little finger. We could start a new trend – bootlace parsnips!

Fennel foliage like feathery ferns treats us to a warm aniseed scent. The little “bulbs”, swollen stems really will add a warming flavour to veg soups.

Purple sprouts taste no different but their colour gives extra interest to a winter roast. but of course the real reason we grow them is because they look so good on the lottie.

Tags chillies, florence fennel, greenhouse gardening, leeks, parsnips, potatoes, sprouts

allotments community gardening fruit and veg garden photography gardening grow your own meadows

Lottie Leaves

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date December 8, 2011

What a crazy day to be on the lottie with gale force icy cold winds howling across and freezing fingers, toes and cheeks. But when the sun burst through the clouds – very short but bright bursts – it acted as a spotlight that featured wonderful coloured leaves. Salad leaves provide the real stars of the show like these ruby leaved radicchio. They enjoy being in the spotlight, being the centre of attraction, glowing with pride.

The brassica family are not to be outdone with their contribution coming from kales. The final shot is of a bunch of chard leaves that I plucked for the chickens. The light shows the glossiness and rich red-purple colouring of the leaves and stems.

The wonderful thing about these dark colourful leaves especially those with red and purple featured in their make-up is that in addition to being good to look and tasty to eat they are also better for us than their green-leaved relatives.

After putting away our tools and closing up our shed we took a few moments to wander around the site and see what was happening. we found surprise bonus flashes of colour. Flowers blooming out of seasons calendula and violas in the Winter Garden and a catanache the last bloom in the wildflower meadow.

In the small orchard the yellow of the crab apple, Malus “Evereste”, glowed like beacons hanging on defying the sharp cold and strong winds. In the turf spiral maze clumps of fungi take advantage of the protection form the turves They emerge from the bark chips we use as the walkway through the maze. They begin their life a colouful yellow but as they age their edges turn chocolate brown and they look like burnt buns until they begin to go over and dry. Then their caps split and let yellow cracks appear giving them the appearance of flowers.

Tags allotments, chard, fungi, grow your own, kales, radicchio

allotments community gardening fruit and veg garden photography gardening grow your own

Day on the Lottie

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date December 5, 2011

We spent today on the lottie catching up on a few jobs and taking advantage of some sun and warmth, a December treat. We popped up for half an hour to plant 3 rose bushes owed to us from our big delivery of David Austin roses last year. So we added three Wenlock roses to our site’s community Summer Garden. The half hour became an afternoon as we planted whips of native trees and shrubs in the native hedge and “Edible Hedge”, rowan, elder, dogwood, wild cherry, cherry plum etc.

Then we turned our attention to our own lottie where the blackberry and tayberry were crying out for attention. The blackberry had put on masses of growth last year so I set to pruning out the brambles that had fruited this year and thinned out some of the new growth. Luckily it is a thornless variety. Once tied back in it all looked much more tidy and we looked at it willing it to be productive for us next year. The tayberry, although not thornless, is still a young bramble so took less work.

Meanwhile as I tackled the brambles, Jude the undergardener hoed between the rows of overwintering crops. This is the most efficient way of keeping an allotment plot looking tidy as well as killing any tiny seedlings even those yet to emerge from the soil.

The fresh growth of garlic, onions and shallots spear the soil and its compost topping with bright green freshness, a real treat in the winter cold. The broad beans planted in early autumn and the mooli sown in late summer add a welcome lushness of growth.

Broad bean plants patiently waiting out winter.

Moolii, the radish with white icicle roots for winter enjoyment.

Ground left bare through the winter would be thrashed by winter rains and its goodness leached out so we cover such patches with green manure such as winter tares. This year when we sowed it in early autumn the weather was so dry that germination was delayed and growth of the seedlings has been so slow that they are still small. We are hoping they will catch up if the weather allows. The Phacelia in the photo below however germinated well and has grown on healthily. It was self-sown from a patch of wildflowers sown as a bug bank.

So as we are now officially in winter and temperatures are dropping to nearer seasonal norms, the plot is looking good. Next year’s seeds are ordered as are the seed potatoes so we are well ahead of ourselves. The photo below looks through the newly pruned tayberry at the rows of leeks, mooli and broad beans.

Tags allotments, fruit pruning, green manures, pruning fruit, wildlife hedge

allotments autumn community gardening gardening grow your own meadows

November Working Party

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date November 23, 2011

The final working party of the year at the lottie site at the weekend. The hardy members worked hard under dull November skies stopping frequently for coffee and laughter. We cleared our list of jobs to be done so went home exhausted, aching but satisfied.

The first job was to weed the Summer Garden, collect up the fallen leaves, give the roses a good dose of good old-fashioned cow muck and finish off by mulching the surface with woodchip to protect the bed from the winter cold and rain. One of the Charles Darwin rose bushes was still in flower so gave a glimpse of yellow and a burst of scent as we worked.

We then treated the three Buddleja Beds and the sensory garden to a weed and mulch. So now all the beds on the site have been weeded and have a protective duvet of woodchip on them.

We then split up with Geoff giving the small meadow a haircut and weed. We were amazed by how many seedling of wildflowers decorated its surface. this job would normally be done much earlier in the year but this meadow has only just finished flowering. The rest of us planted bulbs in one of our orchards including Camassia and crocus, and took hardwood cuttings of coloured stemmed dogwoods and willows.