Garden 2012, no 17

Garden 20112 no 17

So here I am, now 17 days post surgery and at last beginning to feel more like my normal self. So much like my normal self that I’m getting very agitated about the state of my garden. I may be feeling better, but heavy gardening is out of the question. I spent about an hour and a half out there today, the weather was lovely and it felt so good to be back outside.

The first thing I did was check the pond. Its now covered in duck weed but that’s ok, the water underneath is crystal clear, I think the duck weed actually helps clean the water, it puts long thread like roots down into the water and seems to suck up all the impurities.

And to my utter delight, I found a tiny baby frog; it’s so young it still has its baby tadpole tail attached.

I’m worried about the state of the weeds. I’ve kept on top of it all year and now the combination of a couple of weeks neglect and excess rainfall has resulted in weed heaven. I’m afraid by the time I’m fit enough to weed the garden the weeds will have sent down those long roots that are impossible to get rid of. My tub of nasturtiums is completely overrun with weeds and grass. I think the only thing I can do with that tub is too empty it out, remove the weeds, feed the compost and get ready to start again next year. I’m waiting a little while before emptying it out because its producing a lot of seed ready for next year.

The grass was so long you could lose things in it; I did manage to cut the grass because I only have a little strip around the veg plot. It was long and wet and took forever to cut, but I managed. It needs another cut and the edges need doing but it looks better than it did.

I also cut all the dead flowers off the buddleia, that tree is only about 3 or 4 years old and its taking over all ready. If it gets any taller I won’t be able to reach to cut it so I guess next year it will have to be cut right back.

I found myself getting tired in the garden, and I came indoors to make the yoghurt. 

Todays harvest was Lettuce, spinach, beetroot, spring onions, a few nasturtium leaves and a little chocolate mint. The chocolate mint was cut right back before I went into hospital and already it’s covered in new growth. 

Garden 2012 no 14 ( a little late)

I’ve just found a garden blog ( Garden 2012 no 14 ) that has never been posted, not on Multiply where it was intended, or on any of the other blogs I’ve started recently. This is one that was missed in the chaos that is/ was my surgery combined with the scramble to set up a new online base. This must have been one of the last things I wrote before we were told of Multiplies eminent demise.

Written on 31.07.2012

After my weekend away the first thing I did was to admire the garden. Every time I leave the house the first thing I do when I return is to check the pond. I’m not sure why I’ve developed this habit, or what I expect to see, but it’s always the first thing I do. 

This time I checked the pond and found far fewer tadpoles than I expected. Before I left for the weekend lots of them had legs, now I’m thinking a whole bunch of them grew more legs and felt brave enough to hop out of the pond and explore. Guess I won’t be seeing a lot of them until next year when they should return to spawn. 

Having stood over the pond, I then took a good look around the garden. Suddenly every thing is in bloom. My garden has been blooming for a while, but not like this. 

Despite the weather, summer is now officially in residence in my garden. In fact the rain seems to have encouraged every thing to grow more. 

There’s not a lot more to say really, I’ve been away for 4 days and I’ve lots to catch up with both indoors and out. But for now………..I just enjoy looking at my blooming garden. 

Garden 2012 no16

Garden2012 no 16

So now I’m 11 days post surgery and absolutely NOT supposed to be gardening. But I needed to go to the shop which is only across the road and that meant walking though the garden. The first thing I did was to fall over my tub of beetroot, while I was down there, sitting beside it, rubbing my knees and feeling very foolish, I was close enough to notice how badly it needed watering. I thought ‘just doing a bit of watering couldn’t hurt’, and that’s what I intended to do, just a little bit of watering. 

That is until my friend arrived, she’s not a gardener but she knows how much my garden means to me. She agreed to pick the last of the broad beans and pull what was left of the bean plants ready for composting. 

Some of the beans were already going black on the plants, they wouldn’t have lasted much longer. Picking the beans, pulling the plants, collecting the canes and then doing some watering was the only work that was done today, plus pulling a few of the biggest shallots and   beetroot, but it was enough to stop me getting really frantic. 

I couldn’t help noticing the rhubarb needed pulling, some of the lettuce has to come up and some of the Tay berries are ripe. 

The nasturtiums have mostly gone to seed and there is grass growing in their tub.   

And of course the weeds are thriving in my absence.  After my friend helped me out we just sat outside, enjoyed the sunshine and admired the plants. The pond is looking good. It is covered in duckweed now which, as far as establishing a wildlife pond goes, is a very good thing. The water under the duckweed is crystal clear and the tadpoles and baby frogs are loving the cover it gives them.

Today is the first time I have sat in my garden, in the midst of my plants and enjoyed being there for almost two weeks, It was lovely, until big black clouds appeared and blocked the sunshine.

This evening I have bottled my first jar of beetroot and my first jar of shallots. It’s a start and the rest will be OK in the ground for a little longer. I hope I can get back out there soon, my garden needs me.

                                                                                                      

Aug 5 2012, Garden no 15

I’ve spent the day alternating between sitting here and playing in the garden, and then sitting here, and then playing in the garden, etc etc etc…..
And considering I haven’t spent the WHOLE day out there, I think I achieved quiet a lot. I had a space in the veg garden where the first of the broad beans were. I’ve dug it over and removed a bucket full of stones. I’ve no idea where all these stones keep coming from because I keep removing them and they keep coming back. In my garden stones are more prolific than weeds. I dug in some pellets and fed the earth because I know the soil must be pretty tired by now but I want to try to get a little bit more done this season. I’ve sown a whole row of carrots. I know it’s a bit late but all the books and all the packets say you can sow up until the end of July and we are only a few days into August so I figured it would be OK. Also, my sister left her late carrots in over the winter and they were fine when she lifted them in the spring so maybe I’ll do the same.
I took the last of the radishes from this box, fed the soil and then sowed a few more beetroot. Again the books say you can sow up until the end of July so I figured it would be OK. These are the lettuce, radishes and rocket I sowed a couple of weeks ago. I’ve still got plenty of lettuce to last until they are ready but I’ve run out of radish until these grow. And I decided to use up the last of the carrot seed in the potato barrels. The potatoes came up a couple of weeks ago and the compost has been fed so I’m hoping it will be OK. Even if I get nothing from the seeds I’ve put in today I’ve not really lost any thing because I didn’t want to keep the seeds for next year anyway. All the books say you shouldn’t keep seeds from one season to the next because they are not as good if used the year after purchase. That could just be a ploy to get us all to buy more seeds but it could be true, so I like to get fresh seeds every season.  And this is today’s harvest. From left to right, tonight’s harvest is; a little lettuce, nasturtium leaves, spring onion and radish for tonight’s salad, the first of the beetroot, the first garlic and the first clump of shallots, more broad beans and dill for the freezer. Looks like I’m off to buy pickling spices tomorrow. I’ve left the rest of the shallots, garlic and beetroot in the ground because I think they will benefit from a little more time. I had to take these few, they were pushing their way out of the ground.
Oh and also………..a little more fruit that’s heading straight for the freezer ready for my jam making weekend sometime soon.

This rather out of focus picture is lavender and tansy. I’ve picked about half of what is there to make these years sachets for the draws. The smell is so very, very good. Decided to leave the out of focus photo, I quite like the effect.And…………..did you know that Buddleia blooms smell like hyacinths,  well even if that’s not normal, mine do.

delete reply brendainmad wrote on Aug 6 Your garden looks lovelier every blog.

delete reply nemo4sun wrote on Aug 5 boy ~ for a lousy summer it sure looks good :)

delete reply rabbitfriendhere wrote on Aug 5 I found with my honesty seeds that I planted a year after I'd collected them that they looked a little rattier than the original. However, the honesty seems to have recovered and taken over. Go super worms! They're heroes to me! :-)

edit delete reply forgetmenot525 wrote on Aug 5 greenwytch said well done, Loretta! thanks Deb :-))

delete reply aaranaardvark wrote on Aug 5 forgetmenot525 said actually.............stones in my garden, their origin and their means of migrating are some of the random thoughts I experience while out there playing in the dirt. I've discovered I know absolutely nothing about how stones are made and how they get into my garden. BUT...........if worms are pushing those stones around, I have mega strong worms in my earth, some of my stones are very big. LOL maybe you have superworms ....but then again maybe not Loretta? In just one acre there can be a million or more worms, eating 10 tons of leaves, stems, and dead roots a year and turning over 40 tons of soil. Imagine them all over the world -- billions and billions of earthworms, tunneling through soil, chewing up fallen leaves and animal remains, pushing heavy stones. http://kids.discovery.com/tell-me/animals/bug-world/worm-world/the-earthworm Charles Darwin calculated that worms push up eight tonnes of earth through the casts at the entrances of their burrows. He even carried out experiments to show this could happen within a human lifetime, he laid a stone in his garden, which was not to be disturbed, and measured the rate at which the earth was raised around it. http://www.christs.cam.ac.uk/darwin200/pages/index.php?page_id=c7 This excavating could be what reveals the stones....I'm hard pressed for any other answer as to how they get there Loretta?

delete reply greenwytch wrote on Aug 5 well done, Loretta!

edit delete reply forgetmenot525 wrote on Aug 5 aaranaardvark said Those stones must be pushed up by worms which has to be a good sign surely Loretta? actually.............stones in my garden, their origin and their means of migrating are some of the random thoughts I experience while out there playing in the dirt. I've discovered I know absolutely nothing about how stones are made and how they get into my garden. BUT...........if worms are pushing those stones around, I have mega strong worms in my earth, some of my stones are very big.

delete reply aaranaardvark wrote on Aug 5 Another fantastic little harvest here, you eat very well Loretta, the fruit and veg is doing well and I'm sure the planting instructions on the carrot seeds pack is for southern England, so its only right that you plant them a little later in your own northern latitudes...sounds logical to me anyway. Those stones must be pushed up by worms which has to be a good sign surely Loretta?

edit delete reply forgetmenot525 wrote on Aug 5 mitchylr said ! I think you're right about them saying don't use seeds from one year to the next to make you buy more seeds. I kinda think so too, and if I do have seeds left I probably will use them next year, but I am going to start planning a bit better and try to use most if not all the seeds in the year they are bought.

delete reply mitchylr wrote on Aug 5 The garden looks just great!! I think you're right about them saying don't use seeds from one year to the next to make you buy more seeds. When I had a garden, I often used ones left over from previous years, more often than not the results were just as good.

edit delete reply forgetmenot525 wrote on Aug 5 hedgewitch9 said Oh Loretta, I LOVE your garden :))) Thank you Emma.............I rather love my garden too :-))

delete reply hedgewitch9 wrote on Aug 5 Oh Loretta, I LOVE your garden :)))