greenbenchramblings

The recycled veggie box

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date October 17, 2011

How about this for a nifty bit of recycling! A simple transformation from veggie box to coffee table for the garden. We were in search of something unusual to use in a newly created section of our garden so searched the web for wine boxes and came across this veg storage box.

The box was used by J &JH Goodley, fruit and veg growers from Upwell near Wisbech in Lincolnshire and is dated 1970. There is a red inked stamp on the side indicating that it was manufactured by W Groom Ltd, Boxmakers of Spalding also in Lincolnshire.

The box has a red ink note stamped onto its side indicating an 8 shillings deposit. This was a brilliant way to encourage re-use of packaging which seems to have faded away. Could it be a good time to re-introduce the idea?

Tags gardening, recycling. veg box

allotments fruit and veg gardening grow your own

Autumn Planting on the Lottie

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date October 17, 2011

The undergardener and I spent a busy day at the lottie yesterday making the most of a warm bright day and catching up on autumn plantings. We weren’t the only ones as there were lots of plotters beavering away on this bonus “summer’s” day. It was a day of two characters with the brightness and warmth of the sun giving the pretence of summer but the calls of the jays passing overhead on the way to our great old oak in search of acorns hinted at autumn. The warmth and gentleness of the day encouraged lottie holders to wander around the green spaces and sit with their coffee on the benches. Talk with other gardeners was all of the lack of rain and the dry state of the soil. We have had no appreciable rain since mid-July. Turning the soil over sends up dust.

We prepared the ground by digging over the soil and adding a good 2 inch deep layer of compost. The ground was desperate for some organic matter to hold the moisture that the rains of autumn will hopefully bring.

We sowed broad beans, Aquadulca Claudia of course, planted onion sets, Troy and Radar, French shallots Giselle and three types of garlic, Lautrec Wight, Solent Wight and elephant Garlic.

Last year we planted just two cloves of elephant garlic to provide enough for planting out a row this year. They proved to be a real success giving us enough for a row and a few to cook. We look forward to discovering their taste – if it is a good as their gentle scents then they will be worth the effort of growing. They are strange crops though as they are not garlic at all but more closely related to leeks. As the photo below shows the cloves are a lovely golden colour when harvested and they most definitely look like garlic!

Tags autumn, elephant garlic, garlic, onions

gardening trees

Monkey Puzzle

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date October 12, 2011

I am a real tree lover. I enjoy them in every season – their fresh spring growth, their luxuriance in summer, the colours of autumn and the structure of their skeletons in winter. There are not many trees I really dislike but the one I most definitely do dislike is the monkey Puzzle Tree. They are just too rigid and characterless for me. This one however I did like -it was dead! I couldn’t resist photographing it to send to my brother who loves them!

Tags gardening, ornamental trees

allotments fruit and veg gardening grow your own

Scrumptious Scrumping

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date October 10, 2011

What a harvest! Today we harvested the “Scrumptious” apples from the tree trained over a garden arch and these two baskets of deep rosy apples weighing in at just over 11lb are the result. The taste is sweet and juicy and the flesh white with red blushing close to the skin.

Tags apples, fruit and veg growing, grow your own

gardening

stripes and spikes

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date October 10, 2011

Galictites tomentosa! What a name! But just look at the beauty and presence it brings to our gravel garden! The grey and silver foliage arranged in dramatic star-bursts.

The seed heads sit through the autumn and most of the winter providing interest for us particularly on frosty days and food for the goldfinches who sit atop the stalks and pull the seeds out. Luckily some are left to drop in readiness for warmer spring weather when they germinate in the gravel to give us next year’s plants. We can enjoy feasting our eyes on their fresh new foliage, summer flowers and statuesque stalks topped off with fluffy seedheads. But there has to be a drawback – weeding out the excess seedlings is a painful business as the spikes on the end of each leaf spike can give the unwary gardener a prickly shock. They need a warning – handle with care!

Tags foliage plants, gardening

outdoor sculpture

Haughmond Hill Stones

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date October 10, 2011

Just enjoyed a slow ramble on Haughmond Hill just outside Shrewsbury. Near the top we came upon a real surprise – three beautiful stone blocks each textured, worked and marked in different ways but linked to each other. They felt so right – happy in their environment and adding to it richly.

Although the sculptures are worked by the hand of man they fit within their “habitat”, their colours, textures and the materials from which they are carved.

Early autumn is the ideal time to visit them as their colours perfectly reflect the colours of the season.

It will be interesting to see how they weather and to watch out for lichens and mosses taking up residence on their surfaces.

Tags art on the environment, Haughmond Hill.sculpture

allotments community gardening meadows Uncategorized

Mini Flower Meadow

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date September 27, 2011

This year we created a new meadow from scratch on the Bowbrook Allotment Community green spaces. The area was cleared of turf which we used on our loam pile and dug over removing as many roots of pernicious weeds as possible as we went along. We then rotavated the area and left it to let weed seedlings appear. As they did so we hoed them off.

We sowed with a mixture called “Pictorial Mix” which included annuals, biennials and perennials which were mostly British natives but we added other wildflowers were included to extend the season and add extra colour. The result can be seen below, but it did keep us on tenterhooks as the seeds germinated very slowly in the dry weather we have experienced here in Shropshire all year.

We have been so pleased with the result! It is the most photographed border on the site. Now in late September it is still showing some flower.

Tags allotments, community gardening, wildflower meadows

allotments community gardening garden wildlife meadows

Lottie Meadows

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date September 24, 2011

One of the most popular features of our green spaces at Bowbrook allotments is the meadow development. We have simply left some grass to grow long and cut paths through them to give the opportunity to wander, appreciating the sounds of grasshoppers, bees, hoverflies and the multitude of other insects, enjoying the sight of butterflies hovering over the grasses and the birds feeding on the insects and seeds and on occasion our resident kestrels hovering overhead and hunting the voles. Before the allotments were established the site was pastureland so the wildflowers that have appeared within our long grass areas are few in number, but we aim to improve this over the next few years by planting plugs of wildflowers.

Other areas have been planted up with wildflower seed mixes with varying degrees of success and this will be the subject of my next blog from my green bench.

Tags allotments, meadows, wildfloers

garden wildlife

Garden Birds of Prey

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date September 21, 2011

This week has been a busy one for birds of prey in or close to our garden here in Plealey. While working in the borders in the back garden yesterday we delighted in the site, and it has to be said sounds, of a dog fight between a Red Kite and two Jackdaws. This all went on right above our heads as the Jackies forced the kite low over the garden and then the kite fought back gaining a few metres of height. It gave us the chance to watch the kite’s long wing and tail feathers twisting and turning which gave it extra manoevrability which the jackies matched with their persistence and stubborness.

In the lane near our garden we watched a hobby flying almost at ground level looking like an oversized swift. It was a beautiful grey-backed male. He maintained a constant, and very rapid, flying height of only about 12 inches or so above the tarmac.

This morning we watched our local male merlin hunting through the garden and later found the feathers of a greenfinch – his breakfast – on the lawn. More gruesome was the remains of a peregrine kill – just the wings and tail of a wood pigeon – scattered on the grass path down to the chickens. Why do peregrines always leave the tail and wings but consume every other bit of flesh and bone?

Tags garden wildlife

allotments community gardening fruit and veg grow your own meadows

Lottie Working Party

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date September 7, 2011

At the weekend we took part in a working party at the allotment. These are held regularly aiming to maintain the shared green spaces around the site. The main task for this day was to give the meadows and long grass areas their annual haircut. The photo below shows members strimming the turf spiral maze and mowing the long grass under the fruit trees in one of the community orchards.

Once the orchard has been treated to its annual trim it looks so flat and dull. The tall grasses always sway gently in the slightest breeze and attract insects and butterflies. Cutting these grasses down really emphasise that summer is coming to an end.

We hope next year to be able to plant plugs of wildflowers into the grass of the meadows and orchards. We have already planted bulbs in the meadows, daffodils into the one and alliums, muscari and crocus into the other. The photo below shows one of our orchards in early summer when the purple globes flowers of the alliums look stunning with the dainty yellow flowers of the meadow buttercups. This picnic is particularly popular with plotters when they take their coffee-breaks or wish to sit and quietly read a book.