Garden 2012 no 19.

Garden  2012 no 19

I’ve missed being out in my garden but things are almost back to normal and I’ve spent a couple of days out there last week.
The seasons are changing and its time to start tidying up and sorting out ready for next year. All around here the fields are full of hay bales, the tractors are out in force, and once the hay is lifted the earth is ploughed. I like this time of year, it’s a good time to be in the garden. Already the Rowan berries are on the trees and the leaves begin to yellow.
The most noticeable thing in my garden at the moment is the geraniums. They are planted every year as a pest deterrent, and at the end of the year, once they have done their job, they bloom. Its ironic really, by the time they are blooming it’s almost time to lift them and bring them indoors. I don’t like having geraniums indoors because, although they bloom virtually all winter and are very pretty, they smell horrible. But if I left them outside they would all die and I would be buying new plants every year. If I ever get myself a greenhouse they would over winter out there, but until then, I have to put up with the smell indoors.
As I harvest the spinach, the lettuce and the last of the radishes, I sift the compost, add some chicken pellet fertiliser and organic feed and store it ready for spring. I’ve been doing this for so long now the soil I’ve salvaged together with the compost I’ll sift from the composter means I’ll not be buying big bags of compost in the spring. Being self sufficient in compost for the containers will make a huge difference to the finances, and as I’m retiring next year this is exactly the right time to reach this point.
I left the last container of rocket and mustard greens to go to seed and I think I have enough seeds to at least start growing in the spring.
I intended to grow two crops of potatoes this year but I didn’t lift the earlies in time to get another crop in, but rather than waste the space, I sowed a few carrots. These may be left to over winter until about February when I will need to prepare for next years potatoes.
The herbs picked up after all the rain and sunshine we had last month. I was surprised at the size of the herb harvest. I cut far more than I am ever going to need and now I have to think about what to do with it. I think I may well just freeze as much as I can because it keeps well if frozen and takes very little space in the freezer. I like to be prepared for every eventuality and I guess even the herb harvest could fail one year.
Rosemary had the haircut of her life. She was literally taking over, she looked more like a Christmas tree than a small rosemary shrub. I didn’t throw any of the cuttings away but I’m not at all sure what to do with it all, there is so much of it.
There is an awful lot of garden waste too. I was going to put it all in the garden waste bin to be taken away. At least that way it would eventually end up as good organic garden compost, But I decided to wait until I have taken this years compost out of the composter and see haw much I can compost down myself.
And so finally, yesterday evening, I ended up with a kitchen table full of assorted herbs, a few spring onions, a couple of packets of seeds and the biggest bag of rosemary I have ever seen. 

 

This morning my whole house smells of rosemary. I also picked all of the lavender and placed it head down in one of the grandchildrens sea side buckets, and sure enough, this morning most of the little flower heads have dropped off and are sitting in the bottom of the bucket. I usually pick some of the tansy flowers and keep them indoors over the winter but this year I was too late. They had all died off while I have been stuck indoors. But I gave the tansy bush a bit of a haircut too and I’m left with a big yellow bin full of tansy cutting which is supposed to be a natural insect deterrent for the house. I’m sure I will find a use for it somewhere. 
 

The question is..... what am I going to do with this???

Garden 2012 no18.

Garden 2012 no 18

Oh my poor garden. Hospital says I can now ‘resume normal activities’ (while taking care) and the eye is healing nicely. Therefore; this weekend is going to be a gardening weekend. I’m still getting fresh spinach leaves every couple of days and they are good either steamed as part of a hot meal or fresh as part of a salad.

 My lettuce is almost gone, I’ve another two or three and then that’s it. I am still picking spinach leaves, the last of the nasturtium leaves and the last of the spring onions to make up a bowl of salad every couple of days and I have the last of the shallots drying out ready to be spiced and pickled.
I’m a bit upset about the lavender and the tansy. I usually make up bowls of potpourri for the house with these. Unfortunately this year they flowered and died of in the couple of weeks I’ve been unable to get out there. I’m quite cross with myself for leaving them, they were ready to be cut a few days before I went into hospital but I decided to leave them until that weekend. Now I wish I had harvested them when I had the chance. But at least these will flower again next year and there is no real harm done. The more lasting damage is likely to be around the edge of the garden in amongst the wild flowers and hedgerow. I’ve always been very careful about removing deep rooting invasive weeds as they appeared. Particularly the thistles, dandelions, and those big tall dock leaves, they all have roots that quickly go deep and are a real problem to get out. I’ve taken a walk around the edge of the garden and there they all are, happily growing, spreading and depriving my plants of space and nutrition. This weekend it will be a war on those weeds. Its not even that I have any particular grudge against these plants, they are all part of the natural habitat and, in their own way are quite attractive, its just that left unchecked the garden would be full of these and little else. 

Another regret is the way my herb collection has gone to seed and is past its best for harvesting. But I still have quite a lot of frozen herbs collected last year and if I cut the herbs back now they should all grow again next year and I’ll be able to collect them then. I bought Mace for the first time this year and didn't even get to save a little. It smelt wondefull, harvesting my first Mace will be something to look forward to next year.

The dainty little purple flower growing in the midst of chaos is…….actually I don’t know what it is. I think it was part of the mixed wild flower seeds I sprinkled there. As you can see.....the wind was getting up and the little flowers were waving wildly in the wind.

This yellow flower is another attractive but unknown addition to the garden. It has grown tall and flowered in the couple of weeks I’ve been away from the garden, and now I’m busy looking up pictures of yellow flowers and trying to identify it. 

This is something I am pleased with. I brought back a whole load of Mullen seeds from my last visit to my sister and this is where I sprinkled them. At this point I’m not sure if these new plants are self seeded Digitalis (foxglove) or, if some of the Mullen seeds have started to grow.  To my non-expert eye, Mullen and Foxglove look too similar to decide, but which ever it is, I’m happy with it.

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. 

Oct 2011, Garden no 15

GARDEN 2011 N0 15
Rain stopped play today

Rain stopped play today. It was windy when I went out, that would have been OK, but then it poured with rain, so here I am back indoors with out finishing off in the garden.
I opened up the shed, took every thing out and then the rain came down, I was soaked putting every thing away and once wet………….I thought I may as well take a couple more photos.
This is my new garden bench, it’s my old fish tank stand covered with a slab of reclaimed marble. What a lucky coincidence, my son-in-law had this slab of marble sitting in his shed, he doesn’t even know where it originally came from, and it’s a perfect fit. It’s a totally recycled/ reclaimed piece of garden furniture, its too heavy for any one to take away, it doesn’t need to be put away at the end of the day and it's multifunctional. I can sit here, watch the world go by and take a break, or I can use it as a work bench. In the winter when I’m not likely to be out enjoying the view, it can be used to stand pots on to keep them off the ground. As a bonus………….its a dam good looking  garden feature.
This is my new corner garden. Maybe you remember I heaped all the turf that was removed to create the vegetable patch into an unused corner of the garden and covered it with garden membrane and plastic for a few months. It didn’t take long for the grass to die off and the soil to settle. I dug it over, removed what was left of the grass roots and planted it up with new lavender and  heather. I added all the old lavender that was scattered around the garden in pots or odd corners. In the past I've lost lavender over the winter because its feet become too wet in the pots. This is a well drained site and I’m hoping the lavender  thrives here.
The new flower bed along the side is more established now, it should really come into its own next year. I have honeysuckle, jasmine, hydrangea, and a couple of other purple/ pink shrubs that I can’t remember the names of right now.
And it’s too wet to go out to the garden and check.
I wanted to do three things today, I wanted to prune back all the fruit canes, remove the grass and unwanted weeds from the ‘wild flower’ bed and bring in my geraniums to take cuttings and re-pot for over wintering indoors. I still have a good show of colour with the geraniums but if I leave them much longer I risk losing the whole lot to frost. Rain stopped play and I achieved none of that. The geraniums are still out there. They must be my priority now, they need to come indoors urgently.
The water in the pond is looking good, its clear, I can see the bottom and the duck weed is doing a good job of covering the surface. I'm quietly confident, as they say, of being able to put tadpoles back in again next year.
Lastly…………..can any one identify this for me please? I planted it from a packet of mixed herb seeds; it’s a good looking delicate, woody stemmed, aromatic plant. It stands about 8 inches tall and I recognise the smell, I just can’t quite identify exactly what it is.

Tags: garden, garden2011, plants, pond

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delete reply mitchylr wrote on Oct 17, '11 Excellent piece of recycling!! And it loooks good too!! I really like that corner garden :-))

delete reply bernardv wrote on Oct 17, '11 It looks lovely. I'm afraid I'm dreadful at gardening.

delete reply brendainmad wrote on Oct 17, '11 Have you tried looking online at a gardening site that has photos and descriptions of herbs?

delete reply kathyinozarks wrote on Oct 17, '11 Loved the garden tour--and I love that bench as well-yeh-love reuse for special items

delete reply greenwytch wrote on Oct 17, '11 LOVE LOVE LOVE the bench! and free is always a good thing, so well done! your new garden is looking very lovely. heather and lavender.....perfect! the border is looking great, everything looks quite healthy and happy. hopefully you will be able to tend to those geraniums. i just love them, too. the pond is looking really good and i sure do hope the frogs will come back and thrive for you. i honestly have no idea what that mystery plant is....it almost looks like a basil to me, but the leaves are quite different. pretty blossom....i will be curious to know if someone can identify it for you. happy Monday!