Garden Blogs

Saturday, 30 May 2009

Hens can't be trusted...

Hi there Well, I’m back from a few days away with work (Hedgerow Safari-ing, let me know if you’re interested, there are still a couple more to go….) - the first thing I discover in the garden upon my return is that Cicely & Buttercup have eaten all the salad rocket! I am hoping that as it is a cut & come again, it will treat it as a cut, if somewhat drastic, & duly recover. It’s not that I’m bitter about it, but I have been looking up chicken casserole recipes…. I’m also slightly disappointed to find that nothing has grown much in the time I’ve been away. The beardy weirdy has pointed out that I shouldn’t have expected too much as it’s only been 3 days. However, at least I was able to reassure the veg man down the road that he isn’t going to be losing our business any time soon! Today has been glorious, so I’ve got all excited & planted out my climbing beans, squash & courgette plants. This has filled the beds out a bit & made it all look a bit more proper, however I am now worrying that slugs will chomp through everything overnight, so I’ve popped plastic bottles over everything - whole area now resembles a bottle factory…. I am experimenting a bit with a few things this year - permaculture suggests that you plant things closer together than usual, also that you companion plant. This gives better ground cover to keep in moisture & suppress weeds, also attracts beneficial insects, & hopefully should give better yields from smaller areas. I think it will also look quite pretty, so I’m going for it! I’ve also built(!) a “salad house” on the lawn, using 3 pieces of clear plastic left over from the lean-to roof & an old plastic compost bag - I appreciate this may be a bit difficult to visualise, so I have included a couple of photos… I’ve piled in a load of home-made compost, & I’ve planted tomatoes, a cucumber & some mixed basil seeds. I think I may also pop some salad leaves in there as well, since it should be pretty much hen proof!!!! My other experiment is with the carrots - I’ve never grown them before & I keep reading about carrot fly (I sometimes think that you’re better off not knowing …!) - it seems that carrot fly is attracted to the smell of the carrots, so you can plant onions, chives or leeks as a deterrent, or put a barrier around the crop up to 30 cm high (apparently the flies can’t fly higher than this - how do they know?!!), or put fleece over the whole crop. To be honest, the jury still seems to be out regarding the allium thing (although I have planted some chives nearby), I can’t really be bothered to erect a barrier all the way round, & I don’t really want to use fleece because it’s a bit difficult to keep an eye on slug damage (& it looks a bit weird…). Soooo - to the cunning plan! I’ve popped a few short bamboo canes in the ground, tied a few strips of the (now redundant!) fleece to them & impregnated them with citronella oil - it’s good for keeping flies & mosquitoes away, so perhaps will work with carrot fly? I’ll let you know….. Hoping your garden is proving as much fun/work/worry as mine! J x

Friday, 29 May 2009

A few(!) garden photos....

Hi everybody, sorry to take so long, but here are a few photos of the garden taken last weekend, hope it gives you a flavour of the place...

Thursday, 21 May 2009

Welcome to the Smallest Smallholding in Somerset!

Hello & welcome to our garden. Maybe I'd better start by introducing us & describing the garden a bit... (Pictures will follow when I've worked out how to use Flikr!!)

Well, I think I can safely say that it's not the kind of garden mother-in-laws like!! I live in a 1930's bungalow in between the somewhat faded beach resort of Weston-super-Mare & the new-build nightmare that used to be the village of Worle. I share this suburban utopia with my recently-made-redundant-long-haired-beardy-weirdy-husband Gary (affectionately known as Bums, for reasons that are too lengthy to go into, but don't be scared, it's nothing nasty!), a rescue cat called Coco, 2 rabbits, Gert & Daisy, a guineapig, Merry (who are kept for their compost value - & they are also very cute!!), plus 5 hens - Hermione, Harriet, Valentine, Cicely & Buttercup.

I suppose what I've really been aiming for is a kind of suburban smallholding (I watched The Good Life at a very formative age!) - food is a really important thing for us, Gary is a brilliant cook & I love to grow food so it works really well. I've been gradually digging up the lawn for about 5 years now - & we would still starve if it wasn't for the veg chap down the road!!! So, still a lot to learn.... The garden itself is about 65 x 40 feet & is a muddle mix of seats, slabs, veg & herb patches, wood piles, lawn, fruit trees, pond & pets - Ground Force makeover it aint!!!!

I was lucky enough to do a permaculture design course over the winter - I'd never heard of permaculture before last summer, when a friend at work suggested we did an introductory course that a local village allotment society had arranged. She ended up only doing the first day -I was totally hooked. It really seemed that much of what I had believed & practised over the years suddenly took shape for me - & I could even give it a name! In practice it means trying to apply the 3 main permacuture principles - Earth care, people care & fair shares. Which sounds a bit airy fairy, but in fact just means trying to live in harmony with the land & the people around you. Look for the resources that you already have, rather than defaulting to going out & buying them - make do & mend really. Work with nature, not against it, & try to share skills....

So I'm now working my design into the garden, & looking forward to the Forest Garden course I'm doing into July so I can transform the rest of the lawn! Well, we're well into May now & it's been a really busy couple of weeks - salad rocket, herbs & nettle tops are pickable & I'm looking forward to an omelette for breakfast at the weekend made with our own eggs & assorted leaves. Bliss! I'll be back soon to share experiences of planting out carrots in the rain, doing it again 2 days later after the slugs have eaten them, & why planting in pots is not an option when you have hens....!! Love & light, Janey x