greenbenchramblings

Big Parsnips etc.

We are never very good at growing parsnips, but we have been getting better in recent years. With our allotment getting flooded six times this year we were not hopeful of success with our root crops. When the seedling carrots, beetroots and parsnips were just a centimetre or so tall and very delicate they found themselves underwater. When the water drained away the little seedlings just shrugged the experience off and carried on growing. The season carried on with the crops periodically under water. Imagine our surprise when we began harvesting healthy young roots of carrot and beetroot. Once frost had sweetened the parsnips and celeriac we began harvesting them too. By Christmas they were most impressive! I included my secateurs in the pictures to give an idea of scale.

We haven’t used excessive amounts of fertiliser to get them to this size just simple organic gardening techniques. Lots of manure dug into the ground, deep mulches of garden compost and feeding with comfrey feed made from our own comfrey plants. Not root crops these but they did delight and surprise us with their size and flavour. Elephant Garlic is not garlic at all but more closely related to leeks. We eat them roasted when they taste of sweet, delicate garlic.

Now we definitely have something to live up to next year. Perhaps the weather will be nearer normal next year and we might even avoid the floods. Mind you of course, the crops above might have excelled because of the floods rather than in spite of them.

Tags allotments, carrots, celeriac, elephant garlic, fruit and veg, fruit and vegetable growing, gardening, garlic, grown your own, harvest, organic gardening, parsnips, root crops

garden photography garden wildlife gardening grasses hardy perennials ornamental grasses ornamental trees and shrubs photography

Looking back at 12 months of garden wanderings.

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date December 31, 2012
6 Comments on Looking back at 12 months of garden wanderings.

As 2012 ends and 2013 begins it seems appropriate to look back at the twelve posts I made based on monthly wanders around our garden. So please enjoy my selection of 12 shots. Just click on a photo to see a larger image and slide show.

Hope 2012 has been kind to you. Wishing you all a Happy, Healthy and Peaceful New Year.

Tags garden photography, garden wildlife, gardening, grasses

allotments fruit and veg gardening grow your own

Old Garden Tools

I just love old garden tools. I like using them and I like collecting them. They feel good in the hand, smooth and worn and I know I am holding a piece of gardening history. Every tool has a story to tell, a story I shall never know. But you can always imagine!

When you find old tools in antique centres, on market stalls or at garden or smallholder shows they seem dry and dull and lifeless. It is when I do them up that I feel in touch with the old gardeners who have used them for decades.

I have been amazed to find that for almost every old tool there is a modern equivalent and that today’s versions are often virtually identical. I enjoy trying out tools from my collection and find them just as easy to use. So it seems there are no new ideas in garden implements just new versions of the oldies.

The garden line below was used by Jude, The Undergardener’s Grandfather back in the early years of the twentieth century when he worked a market garden. We use it all the time on our allotment as it is far superior to any available today. It is a design that just could not be improved upon.

On a recent lottie visit we had hoeing and raking to do so I decided to take up my old triangular headed hoe and my “crome”. They worked really well, the sharp tines of the crome breaking down the soil to a fine tilth and with the hoe we could manouvre between winter onions and leeks a treat.

I enjoy trying out these oldies from my collection and I find them easy to use and often more comfortable than their new cousins. Perhaps it is the materials they are crafted from, the hardwood handles honed from local trees and the iron blades and tines. Today’s plastics and stainless steel give less and feel harder and colder. Of course the main difference is that old tools were individually made by craftsmen.

The art of repairing them and bringing them back to life is moat satisfying. I clean up the metal to prevent them getting any rustier and treat the wooden bits to a few coats of linseed oil well rubbed in. The smell brought back memories of my cricketing youth when I used to treat my bat handle in the same way.

Below is one of my pieces in need of some tender loving care, its handle dry and its blade rusted.

And here he is all spick and span!

This batch has been rust-treated, linseeded and given the first of two coats of satin finish varnish.

And here they all are in all their glory, decorating the back wall of our garage.

These two little hand tools are weeders better known as “daisy grubbers”. They seem so well designed with sharp forked tongues, a fulcrum point and beautifully shaped wooden handles, hand turned by a craftsman.

Tags allotments, fruit and vegetable growing, garden tools, gardening

architecture buildings conservation Shropshire South Shropshire

Rural Shropshire – Architecture Old and New

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date December 28, 2012
2 Comments on Rural Shropshire – Architecture Old and New

Visitors come to Shropshire for its wonderful countryside, beautiful old market towns and for the peaceful atmosphere. Rural areas of Shropshire are dotted with old farms with ramshackle buildings, barns, cattle biers, cottages and farm houses, but there are isolated examples of good modern architecture. The Ludlow Food Centre provides a good example of this based around old farm buildings and a row of cottages but given a new use and so a new lease of life.

I have always liked their sign seen in the photo above, with the simple representation of fields in natural colours. Sadly recently it has changed to just lettering which is nowhere near as interesting.

There is now just the row of cottages left which have been renovated recently and are lived in once again. The walls show an attractive combination of brick and wood and the chimneys are most impressive.

Behind the cottages is the new Food Centre and Garden Centre and these sit alongside a coffee shop and post office in old farm buildings. They have certainly been given a new lease of life. Needless to say we visit the coffee shop whenever we are close by.

The Food Centre itself is housed in a building that reflects the property’s farming past, with a huge entrance reminiscent of the old barn doorways that allowed loaded carts through and it is clad in darkly painted wood a popular finish for old farm buildings especially barns. Inside local food producers, a baker, a butcher, cheese maker etc, sell their wares and glass walls allow visitors to see food being made and packed before they decide to purchase.

At the side of the food centre a naturally planted wildlife pool with colourful shrubs enhances the peaceful atmosphere here.

The new plant centre is housed in a new building built just as you would imagine a new upmarket barn would be built. Modern materials are used in a traditional building style. Beautiful local products such as metal sculpture are displayed inside alongside organic gardening fertilisers, bird feeding equipment, books and a rich mixture of gardening sundries. All very tempting! Out back can be found a plant nursery.

Tags architecture, barns, Ludlow, Shropshire Hills

bird watching birds garden wildlife gardening wildlife

Winter Birds in our Garden

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date December 26, 2012
17 Comments on Winter Birds in our Garden

(Hope you like the new look! Please let me know what you think.)

In recent years we have seen the numbers of most birds visiting our garden, even the commonest, dropping most drastically. Goldfinches, House Sparrows, House Martins, Swallows and Starlings seem particularly badly affected. We try to help by providing food, shelter and nest boxes but our actions must be a drop in the ocean. What would make a real difference would be for some serious research to find the root causes of this sad decline, and then putting it to rights.

For a change I thought I would add some of my drawings and paintings to the usual photos I include in my postings. The pencil sketch below is of the multi-coloured Goldfinch.

This year the flocks of Goldfinches are showing signs of improvement, the sparrows are back cheerily entertaining us with their constant chatterings and the tit family seem more numerous. We notice these changes just by observing activity on and around our three feeding stations.

Some birds though still seem to be suffering especially Chaffinches and Greenfinches which until a few years ago were two of our garden’s commonest species.

Happily the Great Tit population here appears stable and their cousins the Coal Tits seem more numerous. These related birds display very different characters when visiting the feeders. The larger Great Tits are confident and stay feeding for long periods often chasing away other birds with wing-flaring and threatening shouting, while the Coal Tit comes quickly and quietly, selects its nourishment and disappears into nearby vegetation.

Many birds come into the garden to feed even when we are around, confidently feeding and foraging as we go about our business.

Winter brings into our garden for our enjoyment birds that we rarely see for the rest of the year. Winter visitors like the continental thrushes are the most obvious as they arrive in great numbers noisily and feed voraciously on berries and bits and pieces dropped from the bird table by the residents. Smaller less obvious visitors are Blackcaps and Siskins and these are welcomed with open arms. They are lovely to watch in the shrubs and trees. Goldcrests move in from the local woodlands and add wonderful bright splashes of colour.

A strange happening that we have observed this winter for the first time kept us amused for while. Our Nuthatches have started hiding peanuts away under the edges of the roofing felt of the garage and sheds. They ram them in a long way and very firmly. We wonder if they will recall where they left them when they need them in the future. It seems more likely that the Bluetits will discover them as they search all nooks and crannies in search of bugs.

Feeding the birds in our gardens may be drops in the ocean, but lots of drops may make a big wave!

Tags birds, conservation, garden wildlife, organic gardening, ornamental trees, wildlife, winter, winter gardens

Uncategorized

Greenbench Greetings

A Berry Merry Christmas,

with love from Malc and Jude

aka Mr and Mrs Greenbench aka Headgardener and Undergardener.

photography Shropshire

Shropshire Architecture – Part 1. A Taste of Ludlow

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date December 23, 2012
6 Comments on Shropshire Architecture – Part 1. A Taste of Ludlow

This series of posts all about architecture in Shropshire is in response to a challenge after a fellow blogger’s request for some photos of architecture. So Margie, if no-one likes these it is all your fault! Only joking!

A morning in Ludlow to visit a craft exhibition in which our daughter was showing her silver jewelery (see earlier posting), afforded us a few hours to walk a few of the narrow streets of this South Shropshire market town. This is a taste of some more detailed posts to come both of Ludlow and other towns and villages of our county.

A “taste of Ludlow” means different things to different people. For foodies the first ideas to spring to their minds, or stomachs, will be the number of restaurants with Michelin Stars and Egon Ronay mentions. Ludlow to many is the capital city of food, bettered only by London. But it is only a small market town. To historians and the architecturally minded it would be the buildings that popped up. Ludlow is well-known for ancient buildings going back in history for centuries. The streets boast a juxtaposition of styles and ages. Facades hide older gems.

Ludlow was the UK’s first town ever to be designated a “Slow City”.

Saturday is a busy time for the streets of Ludlow so most of these pics are looking up to avoid traffic and people.

The most important building in Ludlow though is really the Orvis Store where us fishermen can buy our fly fishing gear.

Most streets here are steep, some very steep! It is so lucky that there are lots of coffee shops as well as gourmet restaurants.

Here is a fine example of Ludlow’s hidden gems. This ancient window and patch of wall sits inside a much later building.

To most people especially calendar designers, holiday tour operators, the writers of gazeteers of the towns of England and TV crews, Ludlow is known for this one old building. The Feathers Hotel is featured in so many books and magazines. The path opposite it is worn away by the feet of photographers! It is pretty good but there is so much more!

There is even the odd modern piece of corporate architecture hidden away behind the historic street frontages and away from tourists’ glances. The new library and museum building is impossible to find, signed from nowhere but quite a handsome building of its type.

Ludlow architecture holds little details to delight the photographer’s lens. Just look through open gateways and up alleyways and there they hide.

And so I can only hope this little taster showing the variety that exists within the architecture of Ludlow will leave you wishing for more. If not there is more on its way anyway! I am thinking “Gates, Doors and Windows”, “Little Details”, ……………

Tags architecture, Go Slow, Ludlow, Slow City, South Shropshire

garden photography gardening photography roses winter gardens

Happy Winter Solstice – A Bouquet of Frosted Roses

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date December 21, 2012
5 Comments on Happy Winter Solstice – A Bouquet of Frosted Roses

Today is the Winter Solstice! A day to celebrate! From tomorrow each day will get a little longer, giving a bonus of extra light. So here is a present of a bouquet of frosted roses.

We delight in every rose bud that appears in the winter months and celebrate each and every one that opens out to present us with a bloom. When iced with a crystal layer of white frost they look even better.

I suppose I shall have to prune them down by half to stop the wind rocking the roots loose before too long, and then it will be a long wait until next May to appreciate these delicious blooms once again.

Tags David Austin, frost, garden photography, gardening, roses, winter, winter garden, winter solstice

birds garden photography garden wildlife gardening grasses hardy perennials ornamental grasses ornamental trees and shrubs roses shrubs trees winter gardens

A Wander around our Garden in December

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date December 18, 2012
8 Comments on A Wander around our Garden in December

The last month of 2012 and therefore here is the last post in the “wander around our garden” series. December was a month that started wet and cold and quickly got wetter and colder. We have found ourselves carrying on regardless – we weren’t going to let the weather beat us. So we donned warm waterproofs and busied ourselves clearing soggy perennials and pruning shrubs.

The birds are suffering from lack of natural food in the surrounding countryside so are flocking to our feeders. They add so much colour and song. This year’s flocks of Long Tailed Tits and Goldfinches are much larger than in recent times. Mixed tit flocks have reached over 70 in number at times and finch flocks up to 25. So we are kept busy regularly topping up the seeds, nuts and fatballs. As a result of the poor harvests of berries and fruit in the woods and hedgerows we have had invasions of large flocks of Blackbirds into the garden and already our shrubs are stripped of their produce. The blackbirds are aided in their berry stripping by Thrushes, Redwings and Fieldfares. All the red berried shrubs were denuded first, leaving not a single berry on our Cotoneasters, Hollies and Mountain Ashes so they are looking a little less colourful. They have now started on their second choice berries – yellows and whites.

There is still an amazing amount of colour in the garden with some flowers still going strong. This Hebe just ignores whatever the weather throws at it and keeps on flowering. When a frost comes these delicate looking flowers prove they are not delicate at all. They stand to attention even when coated in frost.

These small Hypericum shrubs, similar in size to the Hebes, perform on several fronts with flowers still apparent, berries showing several colours on the same plant and leaf colour which gets richer as the weather gets colder.

Odd flowers of Rudbeckias appear throughout the winter way outside their peak flowering period. They are like little bursts of sunshine.

Other plants are meant to be winter flowering and we look forward to these each year. Mahonia japonica exhibits its long thin upright racemes of buttercup yellow flowers with the added luxury of a beautiful warm scent, somewhat reminiscent of pineapples.

The glossy, dark hand shaped leaves of Fatshedera are a perfect foil for bright summer flowers in our Shed Bed, but it produces its own much more subtle flowers throught the winter. They are the palest of cream with a dull orange centre. They look as if they should emit the mouth-watering aroma of vanilla but that is sadly only in my imagination.

After a deep frost these flowers loose substance and flop, hanging lifelessly until warmed by the sun.

The starkness of winter structure exposes simple shapes and patterns working together. This yellowed sword shaped leaf of a Crocosmia cuts dramatically across the curved metal seat back.

Sculptures take on a new life. Our ironwork ferns rimmed with frost particles curls through the whitened grasses in the Stump Garden.

Seating areas look less inviting!

Right down at the bottom of the garden the summerhouse looks sadly at the pool which sits frozen solid at its feet.

Similarly the water in the birdbaths is often frozen. Each morning as I wander down the garden to feed the chucks I take a detour to add warm water to the birdbaths to melt the ice.

Frost decorates ornamental features giving them a new winter look.

Frost highlights the overnight toils of spiders who weave webs around sheds, nest boxes and insect homes.

There is little to harvest in December but we harvest various prunings. Taller thicker branches will be used as bean poles, smaller branches as pea sticks and to support perennials next year, and these spiral willow stems will be part of some sculpture that I am planning. Bamboo prunings will give us our own bamboo canes. Our first real crop of canes! That should save a few air miles!

Whatever the winter has in store for us, we are well-prepared. This pile of hardwood logs, oak and birch, will keep us warm and cosy and its scent of woodlands give a good welcome. And outside the chimenia patiently waits with its own fuel supply for us to venture outside to garden and enjoy a coffee break in the winter sun. Alongside the sculptural fire bowl adds further interest.

And what is happening in our borrowed landscape in December? Sheep seek nourishment in the paddock and provide a little natural fertiliser for the grass, and the wheat fields sadly sits waterlogged, growth at a standstill.

Tags birds, garden photography, garden wildlife, grasses, ornamental trees, roses, winter

allotments autumn colours birds community gardening conservation garden wildlife gardening grow your own hardy perennials meadows ornamental trees and shrubs trees wildlife

A Wander around the Allotments in December

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date December 15, 2012
5 Comments on A Wander around the Allotments in December

December hasn’t afforded us many days suitable for lottie gardening, sending us too much rain and flooding the site again for a while early on in the month . In fact the first attempt at working on our plot this month resulted in that too well-known sinking feeling. Algae has turned the soil green again.

We arranged to meet council officers and contractors on site one morning to start sorting out the flooding issues. It was of course raining when we met! Four trucks full of machinery and fluorescent coated workers arrived soon after, champing at the bit to start. Sods law came into play. The floods reappeared and water began lapping at our feet and at the wheels of the vehicles. One tractor got stuck in the mud!

The weather won the first round as work was abandoned even before it started, but at least everyone knows what to do now. We were promised that work would commence as soon as the weather allowed.

Things had improved a little by the end of the first week of the month, enough to arrange a day for Jude and I to meet our friend Pete to get some site tasks done in the communal gardens. We planted trees that had been donated by members in the new coppice we are developing, plus two others in the Autumn Garden. These were purchased with the prize money we had received when we won an award as the Best Community Garden in Shropshire by the National Garden Scheme.

As Pete looks after the Autumn Garden he chose the trees. Two great specimens arrived in the back of his car, an Acer rubra and a Gleditsia Sungold. In the photo above Pete is planting the Gleditsia and below is the Acer with its red stems. We can now look forward to the golden foliage of the Gleditsia and the red petioles of the Acer which contrast so well with the yellow autumn leaf colour.

We also transplanted some wild flowers and wildlife friendly plants kindly donated by a member, Dee. They were on her plot and we transplanted them to the meadows and orchards. Wild Hypericum, Red and White Campion, Mallows, Plantain, Foxgloves and Teasles plus a selection of Verbascum. In the picture below Jude is busily planting verbascum in the orchard meadows. The insect homes look so much bigger when plants die down for the winter. We just hope they are full of our friends, the overwintering pest controllers.

In the first few days of December I completed constructing the Tawny Owl nesting box which I had started weeks ago. It is by far the biggest nest box I have ever attempted to make. Each year I ask members to donate their spare wood for nest box construction and plenty came in this year so I hope to make several boxes. My next challenge is to make a box for House Sparrows.

On our own plot we have dug over the plot and given it a deep duvet mulch of manure. Now we will let the worms and other little critters get to work on it. We have pruned our fruit bushes and brambles, and are mid-point through cutting down and digging up a blackberry which refuses to produce any fruit. We gave it our “three chance and out” treatment which we allow every failing plant in our gardens.

At the mid-point of December the weather turned cold with clear ” blue-skied” days and deep frosty nights. The workers came back to get started on the flood prevention work. They are getting on well. We met them early one morning to sort things out and I took advantage of the bright conditions to get some photos taken. Having just my Samsung Galaxy with me the rest of the pics in this post are taken with its camera – a great camera for a phone.

Spiders appeared to have been industrious all through the hours of darkness creating works of art for Jack Frost to add the finishing touches. In the first pic we can admire how they have decorated a shed’s gable end and the second and third show where they have added a feature to the Communal Hut.

It looks as though the spider population of the lotties have taken to using the picnic benches when it is too cold on the rear end for us gardeners to enjoy our coffee breaks on them.

On Wendy’s plot Jack Frost had iced the rose hips.

We have had some beautiful new trees delivered to the site ready for planting when the soil is not frozen. At the moment we would not get a spade in. We have been given a Weeping Silver Lime which we selected to celebrate the Queen’s Jubilee Year, plus two crab apples Malus “Evereste” and Malus “Golden Hornet” to plant, one in each orchard to improve fruit pollination, and two ornamental Hawthorns.

The individual plots are looking bare and forgotten. Some have been well dug for the winter, others await better weather. Where water sits in puddles it had frozen solid. On one plot a double digging session had been interrupted by the weather.

On one plot next to the new coppice area the seed heads of Angelica, left for the Goldfinches and Bullfinches to feast upon, were covered in frost.

In the coppice area itself, our newly planted Hollies had attracted spiders.

The communal gardens looked monochrome with frost covering the herbage.

As befits the season, our Winter Garden is looking good! Pete was with me as I took these photos and he and I created this garden less than two years ago, so we keep admiring our handy work.

Splashes of colour sprang up to shine out in the gloom of the misty grey day, the fruit of the Malus “Evereste”, and the fire-coloured leaves of a Hawthorn in the hedge and a Raspberry on a plot.

As we wandered taking these pictures we were followed around by the resident Robins who were waiting for us to start work turning soil over and exposing bugs for them to pounce upon. But no gardening was done, the soil being too solid with frost so no sod could be turned. We found time to top up the bird feeders in our feeding stations. These are busy with tits, finches, Nuthatches and Woodpeckers.