24th June 2018 - Weeding

So far this year I've been pretty lazy about weeding the paths and particularly around the boundaries of my plot.  I don't know why especially but I've just always found something better to do.  

As you can see in the before picture there was some pretty long grass which had gone to seed as well as various other weeds having a riotous time in that area.  I remember being told never to let a weed see two Sundays but unfortunately these weeds have seen many many many Sundays!

I decided to set-to this weekend and get the paths and boundaries sorted - as you can see from this picture it really does make a big difference to how the plot looks; unfortunately however the other boundary is a bit more problematic.  My neighbour next door has an interesting way of working and one of the things that he does is have fences and boundaries that are like Fort Knox.  The fence between us is a mish-mash of chicken wire, tubing and other wire stuff.  It is at least 4 layers thick which means that the weeds just grow in-between an it's almost impossible to get them cleared.  A couple of weeks ago he informed me that it was my fault that it was such a mess because I don't dig the roots out and he proceeded to come and pull my membrane up while showing me how to dig the roots out along the fence line.  Of course, all that did was allow the weeds to grow where the membrane now can't be pulled back all the way to the fence line.

He is going to be moaning at me however because I am planning to remove the whole fence and replace it with a single layer of chicken wire fencing.  In the process I will then pull out all of the weeds and attempt to pull my membrane right under the fence before I replace it; which should stop the problem of getting any weeds grown up into the fence at all (as I say, he's not going to like that!)

I am also slightly giddy to tell you that my kiwi has flowered for the first time ever.  I've had it for about 4 years and it was a good size when I bought it so I'm guessing it was a couple of years old when I got it.  I was almost ready to give up on it but this year it is flowering and I've tried to give it a bit of a helping hand by using a cotton bud to pollinate them.

I have been told (after I bought this) that kiwi actually need to have another plant in order for fruit to grow.  I have therefore now bought 2 small kiwi, which I'm planning to grow in my new plot.  In the meantime I'm going to put them into a big pot with something for them to grow up.

I have also bought a wisteria, which is currently in a pot.  Unfortunately I put it into the pot and put it alongside my other potted plants near the polytunnel and then we had a really bad windstorm and the poor thing got battered.  It's looking a bit sad but I've given it a good soak and feed and I'm hoping it will come back.  

Yesterday I had a hedgehog on the plot, I was a bit worried about it because it was in the middle of the day and they shouldn't be out at that time.  I put him in my hedgehog house and put a dish of water outside.  I also found a couple of fat, juicy slugs that I put into the house with the hedgehog.  I left him there last night and when I got back this morning he'd gone so hopefully he just needed a rest and a drink and we'll see him back again on the wildlife camera in the future.  Funnily enough, having said that, it's not unusual for me to see the wildlife camera be activated during the night but I can't normally see what's set it off - I think now that it might be the hedgehog.

Everything is pretty much out of the polytunnel now, except for the tomatoes.  There are a few things still in there that I'm not sure I'll manage to get out.  Most of them are things that can be kept and continue to grow on over the summer because they will go into the new plot when it's ready.  I've got a couple of shrubs that I'm planning to use to fill the gap in the hedge and some carnations that are very happy in their individual pots.  I did have a problem with the tumbling toms because I wasn't able to get up and water in the week so when I did manage to get there on Friday they were really sad looking.  I've asked my neighbour to switch the water on for a short time before she leaves in an afternoon so that they get a good soak more regularly.  They are setting fruit so I really don't want to end up with them all splitting because of inconsistent watering.  

I'm really pleased with what I've achieved so far this year and while I'm leaving 86a covered to try and kill off as much of the perennial weeds as possible I'm really looking forwards to having things growing in the other plot so I can maximise my crops.  

Until next time then - Happy Gardening x  

17th June 2018 - Flowers and more flowers

Well it's been a couple of weeks since I last put my thoughts to paper (or screen) and so I have a few things to catch you up on, but they mostly seem to be about the flowers in my plot...

I have a Shirley Temple peony and I think that last time I mentioned that it had loads of buds; they started to open, looking and smelling amazing.  I love the fluffyness of them, prior to buying this one I'd only ever seen red peony's before but the pure white flower of this really pops in the bed.  I have some spiral supports that help to keep the flowers from flopping over.  The idea is that you put a stake in the middle of the plant and then twist the spiral around the stems.  Unfortunately I didn't put a long enough stake in this year and whilst I had supported the stems the plant put on a growth spurt a few days before we had a wind and rain storm.  When I went back to my plot all of the flowers had flopped over and a lot of them had simply been blown to bits all over the bed!  I rescued as many as I could and I've brought them home to enjoy them for a few more days.  The smell when you walk into the room is lovely.  I also quite like that the vase only has the peony's in it without any foliage or other flowers; it does make a bit of a statement.

Next to Shirley Temple is Lady Emma Hamilton, again  beautifully scented and a gorgeous flower.  Last year it got black spot and was very unhappy after I moved it from under the arch so it didn't flower.  This year I bought some Sulpher Rose, which is designed to stop black spot and it's obviously worked because not only do I have a flower already there are also lots of buds ready to bloom.  I think you can see that the spray hasn't really helped with the powdery mildew which appears to have started to bloom on the leaves, which is a bit frustrating.

As you know I have had various problems with pigeons and squirrels on my plot.  I like to feed the birds but of course that attracts the squirrels and pigeons and other bigger birds.  In fact when I've looked at the footage from my wildlife camera it's often filled with big birds all around my feeders.  I did have 1 squirrel proof feeder but when everything was stolen from my plot they took that too so I've been a bit reticent to buy another.  After shoo-ing away pigeons regularly I decided to bite the bullet and buy a couple anyway but I've actually run a chain through them and fastened them to the arch; it doesn't look brilliant but the little birds seem to like landing on it and (weirdly) hanging upside down from it.  It also means that gives me a little piece of mind that they aren't going to be stolen - although it's mad that people will actually steal bird feeders for goodness sake!

Some of you may remember from last year that I had an old bathroom sink that I had planted up.  This year I decided to use succulents, which I've not been particularly successful with before, to try and not kill them I used 1 part compost to 2 parts gravel and then mulched with gravel.  They're currently looking very happy so fingers crossed they stay that way!

I think it looks really pretty and although I don't know what they're all called but the pink flowers are absolutely gorgeous; I've never had one happy enough to flower before so I'm hoping this is a good sign.  I would quite like to make a stand for it and put it into 86a somewhere, maybe on the side of the shed so that it looks like a proper sink but filled with plants :-)

Just behind the sink growing on the fence is a honeysuckle which honestly is a bit leggy and has never flowered, I was considering removing it but this year it has flowered and surprisingly to me the flowers are yellow (I thought they were pink!)  Strangely it doesn't seem to have a strong scent so I'm still considering removing it but it's quite pretty, although I'm going to look at pruning it to get a better spread of flowers and leaves on the plant.  

I still haven't done any more work on 86a because I want to really let the membrane kill off as many of the perennial weeds on the plot as I can.  I have a long list, in my bullet journal, of jobs to do.  I am considering putting beds into the plot, even though I'm not planning to fill them yet, so that it's very clear what my plans are when we do the next inspection.  I have a shed in bits that I haven't been able to put up because I'm struggling to get flags for a base.  I do however have some matting that is usually used on car-parks that I could use, although Mr L doesn't think it will work I can't see why it won't so that's what I'm going to do!

Finally and just for interest, I had a dahlia in a pot next to my polytunnel that I had completely forgotten about over the winter and so it thought I'd probably killed it off.  As you know dahlia should be dug up and left to dry out naturally before packing into dry sand and storing in a cool, frost-free place.  This winter was pretty cold and we had a lot of snow, right into spring but somehow the tubers have not only survived but have started to grow again.  They will obviously be behind others that have been protected and grown properly but this is a really beautiful flower so I'm really glad it survived and I'll have to make sure that I look after it at the end of the season; if for no other reason than I'm pretty sure the tubers will need splitting this year.

It's that's time of year where everything is planted, I've been really rubbish at weeding along the fence-line and paths this year so that needs to be on my list of jobs to do in the next week or so because I simply have no excuse for not doing it!  Instead I've been busy doing fun thinks like making pyramids for my clematis to climb up; I used 3 bamboo sticks and tied a piece of garden twine at the bottom and wrapped it around them until I got to the top and then did a wrap to make it look nice.  I forgot to take a picture but I also used a terracotta reservoir in each of the pots that are really lovely; it's funny that they're so lovely because most of it is underground.  They are from  Wilko's and only £3.25 each, I use things like this a lot, especially in hanging baskets.  These ones are a bit big for hanging baskets but brilliant for bigger pots.

https://www.wilko.com/en-uk/wilko-hanging-basket-reservoir/p/0447645

I have 3 new clematis that are now all planted and will hopefully have a fabulous pyramid for them to climb.  I hope you're all doing interesting projects now that everything is planted out.

Until next time, happy gardening x

3rd June 2018 - Plant Swap

This weekend was the 2nd annual plant swap for our allotment society.  Everyone brings along any excess seedlings they have and swaps them for something they don't have.  It's a really good way of reducing waste and getting everyone together for a chin wag and to share experience, a cup of tea and a slice of cake!

I had loads of tomatoes and some Jack O Lantern pumpkins that I was able to give away and I took a Black Russian tomato and some nigella.  When I got back up to my plot I realised that I'd forgotten to take some savoy cabbage so I gave those to my neighbours.  

I was therefore able to clear out quite a lot of things from the polytunnel which meant I could sort out the bed and decide what to do.  I'd already planted some of the tomatoes into pots and I've been trying to water them through the terracotta pots but they don't seem to be particularly happy with that.  The leaves have slightly yellowed so I have decided to sink the pots into the bed in the polytunnel.  That way the canes aren't touching the poly but the tomatoes aren't in the bed, which had tomatoes in it a couple of years ago and so shouldn't be planted in there again this year.  I also sunk the pots with the aubergines and the cucumber into the bed as well. I'm hoping that by doing it this way I'll be utilising the bed but also that I'll be able to keep the plants healthy.  

The tumbling tomatoes are doing well in their hanging basket.  I used my compost mix that I mentioned in a previous blog but as a reminder...

- 3 parts multi purpose compost

 - 1 part horti grit (or vermiculite)

 - 1 scoop Richard Jackson's Root Booster

 - 3 scoops Richard Jackson's Easy Feed

 - 1 scoop water retaining granules

The easy feed is a plant food that keeps going for the whole season so the idea is that I won't need to feed them again all season.  They certainly seem to be thriving, I have loads of flowers, which will hopefully turn into fruit.  People often ask about nipping out the side shoots of tomatoes, you only do that with cordon tomatoes for bush and tumbling tomatoes you don't need to nip out any shoots.  That's the reason that this looks so bushy and full.

All of the bedding plants and fuscia's that I had in the polytunnel I've been hardening off and I got them all planted into the hanging baskets today.  I have done a mix this year rather than just having baskets full of fuscia.  I had lots of nemesia, which is one of my favourite bedding plants, some verbena,  bacopa and lobelia.  I also had some red and white pansies.  I used fuscia in 2 of them as the hanging elements.  In the first basket I used the red and white pansies to make a St. George Cross.  I had 5 red to make the cross and then put 3 white in each of the spaces in between.  For the other with the fuscia I used a mix of lobelia, bacopa and verbena.  The middle basket has nemesia and bacopa as the hanging element and 2 fuscia in the top, filled in with verbena.  Apart from the George's Cross there is no colour matching or theme, most of the bedding plants are mixed colours so you never know what you're going to get until they flower.  

Another job that I had needed to do this weekend was get my carrots and parsnips planted.  I bought some seed tapes which have membrane on the bottom to keep the weeds down while the seeds germinate.  As last year I have used the screen to keep the carrot fly away.  It seemed to work last year so fingers crossed I'll have the same success this year.  

I'm not sure this bed is as good as the one I used last year for the carrots.  I should probably have sieved it a bit because as I was making a mini trench for the screen I had to remove a few stones, which I'm hoping aren't in the rest of the bed.  


You'll be able to see there are pink planters in each corner of the bed.  They have a petunia vanilla raspberry and verbena mickey magenta pink and a bidens bee super star in them.  They are called the 'carnival collection' from QVC and they came with the pink planters as well.  Once they grow they should look like the picture to the right; it's just 3 plants but they are supposed to grow and fill the pot so fingers crossed.

I'll finish with the flowers that are blooming at the moment in the flower bed closest to my shed.  I have 3 giant alliums that are fully blooming and had loads of bees on them today, which was really great because I don't feel like I've seen many bees so far this year.  The ladybird poppies are also out and looking lovely.  I planted a few of these and this is the only one that's flowering.  I have always liked them so I'm really glad to have at least one of them flowering.  I'll be hoping they self seed in the bed and I'll probably save some seeds to put in the new plot as well.

The final flower I'm sharing today is my Shirley Temple Peony.  I picked up some more peony's in the plant swap but this one is the first I had.  This is its 3rd year, in the first year I think I had a couple of flowers; last year I had a few more but this year it is teeming with buds.  I have a support that twists around to hold the flower stems up.  Peony flowers have a tendency to flop over because the flowers are too heavy, especially if there's been a rain storm.  I can't wait for them to bloom and share them with you all.

I hope you all have a great week - until next time then...
Happy Gardening x