Garden Blogs

Tuesday, 26 May 2009

The beauty of sticks

You know, I’ve come to realise that sticks are a bit like shoes – you can never have too many of them. Sticks for beans, sticks for peas, sticks for tomatoes, sticks as props, sticks as markers, sticks for protection, etc. I spent a happy Sunday this weekend "sticking" stuff. Last year’s collected buddleia shoots, cut and dried before the plant died off, are just the right height as pea sticks, and my neighbour’s overgrown apple trees found a use after they had been felled, in wood for my fire and bean poles for my garden – not as neat as the traditional cane structures you generally see, but I rather like the organic and haphazard form my less ordered alternatives take. A bit like a Womble, I’ll collect up anything that I think I might be able to use in the garden. Where as some of my fellow bloggers need to protect their gardens from the attentions of their canine friends, I have to protect mine from the local feline population, so more sticks help make my raised beds impenetrable, coupled with willow trellis either as side barriers or laid directly over the beds while they are dormant, or growing the type of crops that can shoot up through them.

I look at the beds and see huge gaps in them and it feels as though I’ve done little to fill them. And then I look at the not insubstantial list of what I’ve grown and realise that I still have some way to go my planning of what goes where and when for optimum use of the precious space. Three 3ft x 8ft beds don’t give as much room as I need in order to grow all I want to, so I have pots galore for all sorts of plants and am experimenting with sweetcorn in pots instead of in the beds this year – the key to their pollination being proximity, so I’ve happily crammed them together and will see how they fair. Obvious others are tomatoes, peppers and herbs, but this year I was intrigued to find climbing courgettes – a great space saving idea if it works. I’ve also got turnips in an old butler sink and nine potato bags (up from 3 last year which gave me potatoes for only about a month). A friend of mine at work is growing strawberries in hanging baskets which must be an ingenious way of keeping the slugs off. My risky experiment is runner beans in containers. The containers are only about 12 inches deep which I think will be deep enough for the roots, but my error was in not considering how deep and firm the supporting sticks need to be. Having put poles into the newly composted bean troughs, I arrived home one windy evening to a scene of devastation with the poles over, uprooting the young bean plants I’d so carefully positioned them next to. Not quite Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but I did have to drop my bags and stop immediately to put order back into the garden before going inside. My neighbours think I’m a bit potty (no pun intended) but they’ll see, when I’m eating fresh candy-floss smelling strawberries straight off the plant like sweets.

With the exception of one brave early radish that defied the cold (unlike the rest of its fellow seedlings) and actually produced something worth eating, I’ve not had any yield from the garden until this weekend. Lettuces started by mum and planted out at a size of about 2 inches in diameter back in April are now ready to be eaten, and the obligatory Bank Holiday Weekend BBQ has to have salad doesn’t it? Two Little Gem lettuces formed the basis of said salad, and to my huge relief and delight my friends, without prompting, commented on how sweet and fresh they tasted. Hurrah for picking and eating within an hour – it really is so much better. I’ve struggled a bit with my own lack of desire for lettuce in the past – I’ve either seen too many slimy slugs crawling across them to bear the thought of eating them, or have left it to late in picking them and ended up with bitter leaves instead of sweet ones, but I’ve now seen the lettuce "light", and planted some more seeds today (woefully late to have an ongoing supply I realise) which will hopefully be ready in about 6 weeks time.

My big disappointment so far is my spectacular failure at achieving germination for my courgettes and dwarf runner beans. I have to admit, that part of this is ignorance, and part is probably laziness. I vaguely remember one of the packets advising early propagation under a plastic cover but I can’t remember which one so clearly haven’t done that; and I was waterng in the evenings which (I’m now advised) probably made the compost cold overnight and hindered the germination process. Sadly, knowing that hasn’t made me get up any earlier in the morning to water before work – just too difficult…. So what have I got growing? The images hopefully show runner beans in the white tubs (two types to compare); peas and mange-tout just out of the ground in a forest of sticks – ongoing soaking and planting will hopefully give me a crop over a month or two, instead of a coupled weeks – there’s a big gap in the middle though where I over-soaked, and whilst trying to pick up and plant these small mushy blobs though "I’m not sure these ones will make it – either that or they’ll give me mushy peas straight from the plant". They duly didn’t. Still, it’s given me the opportunity to extend my pea planting (and hopefully harvesting) season over a longer period; lettuce, as mentioned, ready to eat; strawberries which were bedded down this weekend (a very satisfying job – as a horse rider there’s nothing nicer than putting your horse to bed at night on a fresh, deep bed of clean straw – and the same could be said of the strawberries); onions planted last October which I’m now poking regularly in the hope that they may be nearly ready for lifting, but they’ve not flowered yet so I’m just getting impatient I think; the fenced in bed has asparagus grown by mum from seed – another waiting game as they’re young and I won’t have any to eat for a couple of years – I might not live here by then….; between the asparagus are (space saving) onions which will be ready later in the summer; behind them far more purple sprouting broccoli than any girl can eat (with more seedlings ready to be planted out as last year I managed to kill all my seedlings apart from one, which was, quite frankly pathetic); seven different sorts of potato; three types of tomato; two types of courgette; peppers; cabbage, sprouts, mini sweetcorn; radishes; plus fennel, spinach, carrots and beetroot not yet out of the ground; and herbs inside on the windowsill. I’ve also got some nasturtiums in my veg garden – the leaves give the most intense peppery flavour when eaten in salads, and look stunning just after rain, holding the water like silver drops. The flowers are also edible so I’ll give them a try later in the year.

So eight hours of gardening over the weekend was a most enjoyable way to spend my time, and I’m happy to leave the garden to it’s growing until next weekend.

Wednesday, 20 May 2009

Hello – a bit about me to start…..

I’m probably the most annoying type of gardener out there: beginner, enthusiastic and short of time – experiencing the full highs and lows that come with pursuing a new hobby. I’m in my mid 30’s and realise that I’m turning into my mum. Rest assured I don’t see that as a bad thing, but understand that I’d rather stay home and poke about in the soil than go out clubbing: a far different situation than five years ago. The reason I’m annoying is that, instead of reading all the back issues of Kitchen Garden my mum has bestowed upon me for knowledge, it’s much easier to phone up and ask, isn’t it? So weeks will pass with little contact, then six calls within an afternoon as various confusing or frustrating aspects of my garden that I don’t know what to do with come to light. "Head Gardner" as my dad calls her is repeatedly summonsed (probably away from her own gardening tasks) and with unending patience, and no doubt some raised eyebrows, sorts me out. And if my mother is not available, I have a handful of other put-upon friends who are on the list – a strict rotation ensures I don’t annoy any of them too much to result withdrawal of the critical advice service.

So, driven by my disdain for tasteless, "un-local", food-mile hungry, chemical covered supermarket vegetables I decided to start growing my own. My postage stamp size front garden was converted one back-breaking day into a series of raised beds (and guess who helped with the digging and design of the beds). The most fantastic thing about the location of these, is that I walk past them at least twice a day without fail as I leave for and return from work, making wilting plants (yes, occasionally I’ve been guilty of not given adequate water amongst other garden sins), garden pests, straying trusses, unwanted side-shoots, weeds and all those other things that need keeping an eye on daily easy to manage. The therapeutic benefits of gardening, I’m sure, will be well documented elsewhere (I’m just too busy / lazy to go and read about them). But I don’t need to read to understand this – I am never happier than after a good session potting on those precious seedlings that miraculously popped out of the soil with little or no help from me (last year I ended up with in excess of 40 tomato plants because they somehow self seeded and kept popping up everywhere, and so I just kept lovingly potting them on). Occasionally, just a cursory glance around the garden is all that’s required and with nothing to be done, I can leave it to grow; and that’s just as therapeutic. In the busy world of work winning for a large company in London, I need all the therapy I can get…. So my blog will document my garden’s journey through this summer season and if along the way I inspire other novices to give it a go, well that’s just an added bonus I wouldn’t have normally had the chance to enjoy – thank you Rachel’s.