Fruit, Veg, Flowers and Slugs

With the weather really rather nice, and a cheeky day off from work having been booked, I was able to get on and do some jobs on the Vegetable Patch last Friday. First job was to harvest some Leeks, Parsnips and Carrots that have been sitting happily in the ground despite the inclement weather of the last few weeks. I have mentioned before how impressed I have been with the Eskimo Carrots this year and they certainly lived up to their name, none the worst as they are for having been under about 4 inches of snow at one point.  The main job undertaken on the plot was hammering in a number of six-foot tree stakes that I have purchased  to be used as fence posts around the Vegetable Plot holding up the chicken wire fencing. This should, all being well, make the ' fencing ' considerably more stable than it was and insure visiting squirrels , cats, foxes and pet dogs of friends and family are unable to get on the patch and have a good dig around! Having had quite  the workout securin

It is that time of year when space in the Conservatory and on any sunny windowsill in the house is slowly but surely being taken up by things. I have the Potatoes currently chitting in the Conservatory sitting happily in old egg boxes for now until ready to plant, probably the second or third week of March. I often used the Cheltenham Festival as a guide for planting my spuds, horse racing being another love of mine, and the Monday of that week usually sees me planting spuds before the horse racing begins on the Tuesday.  This year I have chosen to try one of those 'kits' a number of the online sites offer. In the box delivered recently I have Charlotte , a tasty salad potato, Pentland Javelin, an early variety that will hopefully produce loads of small, tasty spuds, best simply boiled and Desiree which I am told is decent for chips and roasties. The kit comes complete with three thirty litre pots, which certainly look pretty solid,  and a bag of  Organic Potato Fertiliser. I

I managed to get a few hours out on the plot on Sunday, I admit in the afternoon when the temperatures had lifted slightly, but even then certain parts of the Vegetable Patch were still frozen to a depth of an inch or so from the frosts we have been suffering for the last few days. I have a store of wood from the Cherry Tree, pruned each year, and a few logs were thrown on the Chimenea whilst I was working away. The occasional coffee break was taken whilst standing in front of it to warm the cockles, and, of course, the ash is great as 'pot ash' and I have a bucket in the Potting Shed for emptying the content of the Chimenea into once cooled.  I was able to get a spade into the bed where I have grown the Runner Beans for the last couple of years and that was given a thorough weed and digging over as part of the process of preparing for the upcoming growing season. This year I am thinking of growing Tomatoes on that particular bed. my Greenhouse isn't that big and can really

Happy New Year! I will start this post with a look back and the feeling of satisfaction I felt when able to serve Christmas Dinner at mine last month with Carrots, Parsnips and Leeks all fresh from the vegetable patch. It is lovely to be able to simply wander down the garden to do the veg 'shop' and children and grown-ups alike all enjoy pulling a few veg out the ground for their lunch. The Eskimo Carrots have lived up to their name and hype and are beautiful despite being under several inches of snow a couple of weeks back and as you would expect the  Parsnip Gladiator  and the Leeks didn't mind the snow and cold at all.  There is little time to rest on the laurels mind you and as the New Year dawns, it is a great time to give the Greenhouse a thorough clean and wash down and on a mild day with a little winter sun shining down it can become quite an enjoyable hour or two spent. A bucket of soapy wat er, sp onge and a soft broom for those harder to reach places is p

I managed to get a few hours in the garden on Sunday, on a cold and frosty morning as they say, undertaking the usual winter tidy jobs and, as it happens, it was just in time.  Having cleared the greenhouse the non-hardy plants in pots such as the numerous Agapanthus and the French Lavender are all now tucked up in the relative warmth under the glass. An hour or so was spent raking leaves from around the garden, all added to the leaf mould bin, and a general tidy of the veg beds and flower beds was done. The entire garden was covered in frost and looked quite beautiful so wrapped-up nice warm in several layers it was actually quite an enjoyable few hours and in the crisp clean winter air certainly it certainly cleared the hangover from the football the night before. Within a couple of hours of me finishing the snow arrived, see below, and boy did it arrive with around four-inches falling in total overnight.  A few of the plants have probably suffered, the Salvia Hot Lips for example lo

I mentioned in my post of late October that I would be  planting my  Narcissi Paperwhite bulbs in the hope they would be in bloom indoors for Christmas.   A delicate Narcissi they actually don't do very well outdoors in the UK, it is native to the Mediterranean, but will grow happily in a pot indoors and, in theory, if sowed that last weekend of October should be in flower for Christmas - flowers 8-10 weeks after planting. The first flower bloomed 30th November, just four-and-a-half weeks after I popped them in the pot! All being well there are plenty more of the delicate little flowers to come, and I am tole they last some time, so fingers crossed they can still form part of the centrepiece  for the Christmas table.  Confession time, I am behind where I wanted to be clearing the plot and generally tidying up for winter. Late October and November have been wet to say the least, and it has been difficult to find the time to get all the jobs done in such rubbish conditions. I don'

I am writing this article on an unseasonably warm Saturday morning in October, the thermometer tells me it is twenty Celsius. The garden is still looking surprisingly fine considering the clocks go back this weekend and next week we are into November. The Salvia Hot Lips remain covered in bloom, Marigolds are still in flower in their pots, I have tomatoes ripening outdoors (hopefully anyway) and one of the Agapanthus still has a bloom on it!  I will be pruning the Climbing Rose this afternoon and as it is now pretty established it is a simple case of training the stems I want to keep horizontally to encourage flowering and cutting back where it has outgrown its support. As for new stem for next season which will carry the flowers, w hen pruning climbers, cut just above a bud that points in the direction that you want a new stem and let the rose do what it does.  I have already taken a few cuttings from my Zonal Geraniums,  P elargoniums to give them their correct name as I understand i