Garden 2013 no 9

Garden 2013 no 9

The harvest is completely finished and I seem to have spent the last month or so re-painting my blue gates, fences, doors and garden edging. 

I’ve not done the outside painting for a couple of years and the blue was looking quite worn. I figured if I do it this year and give every thing a couple of coats, maybe it will last another two, or at a push, even three years.

I painted the fence my daughter made a couple of years ago and I painted the new gate that her partner made earlier this year. The old one blew away one stormy day. 

This one has gaps between the wood so the wind blows right through it instead of blowing it off its hinges. It also has a wide strip of rubber nailed to the bottom that touches the ground; this stops the rabbits from coming under the gate into my garden.

I still have all the white walls to paint and retouch, but I’m having a bit of a break from garden painting for a while, I’ll go back and repaint the white later. This hansom couple were loitering in the fence, I didn't see them at first. Glad I noticed them before painting them. They even posed or a photo before diving for cover.
 

I’ve been so busy since retirement I’ve realised I have to prioritise on my activities. The two things I really want to spend my time doing is travel and painting, and I don’t mean painting garden fences either, I mean painting canvases. Therefore the plan is to cut down on the gardening for the next year or so. I want to dig the little vegetable garden and turn the whole thing back into lawn. Actually I’m quite looking forward to it. My lawn never was the pristine golf course sort of lawn, it always was a bit lumpy and bumpy and then I dug up most of it and turned it into a vegetable plot.

So if I carefully dig and level the whole thing and seed it, sometime next summer I should have a pristine lawn that needs a gentle mow every couple of weeks. Or at least that’s the plan. I’ve even bought this little machine to help me.

Before starting the painting I cut back the Tayberries.

I read up on this and found out that you have to cut back in the autumn after the fruit has finished.  All old wood has to go and the strong new canes have to be tied up and trained ready for the fruit they will produce the following year. I know I’ve done mine a bit early but I’ve already had quite a lot of fruit from it. There was some fruit left but it had something wrong with it. The fruit that was left was small, green and hard, and instead of ripening it was going moldy and rotting on the cane. I’m not sure  why this happened, maybe because I didn’t cut it back as I was supposed to last year; but I hope by cutting it back and training it along the fence, the same thing will not happen again next year.  Anyway………..if I had left it until all those little green fruits had gone mouldy and fallen off, I wouldn’t have been able to paint that bit of the fence. I’ve also been dead heading the buddleia, I know this has to be pruned back in the spring not the autumn, but I hate all the old, dead, brown flowers so I cut them off as they appear. I think this actually makes the flowers last longer, as soon as I cut the dead ones off, new ones appear. But, I’m sure I’ve seen the last of them for this year. I’ve cut the bush back a little, just enough to get rid of all the dead flowers and next year, I’m going to prune it quite hard to make sure it doesn’t grow too big and get too out of control.

The other thing I’ve been doing is using the harvest in the kitchen.

I have made loads and loads of rhubarb chutney ( with added red wine),

more jars of pickled onions than I can possibly eat and a whole batch of carrot and coriander soup for the freezer.

I’ve also made more herb oil. The herbs, onions and garlic all came from my garden and the red chillies came from my daughters greenhouse. I can’t grow chillies because I don’t have a greenhouse.

I tried to grow them in the windows last year but even that didn’t work, they really need the warmth of a greenhouse to grow properly here. I have a freezer full of fruit and only half a pot of jam left which means the next big kitchen venture is going to be a mammoth jam making session.
So; that’s my garden almost ready for winter. I still have the white painting to do, and I would like to get the lawn sorted out before winter, but apart from that, the garden is definitely winding down for winter.

May 9 2011, Garden no 5

Garden 2011 No 5

Typical !! It rained and rained and rained all weekend and then as soon as we all have to get up and go to work…………………..the sun shines. I couldn’t wait to get home and potter around the garden, and then when I did eventually get home, the rain came back and I spent the evening dodging the showers.
I was pleased to see my Fence has survived the monsoon and the winds, in fact I was very impressed, it seems rock solid despite not having enough concrete in the post holes and being battered by the elements these last few days. It’s about half done, the plan is to remove the second half of the hedge during the week and build the rest of the fence over the weekend.
This is the size of debris pile, my guess is it will at least double in size by the time all this work is finished, and then I suppose I have to find a way of disposing of it.
But on a brighter note………….all this rain has done wonders for the plants, my little decorative corner garden is looking good and with no fear of frost I’ve bought the geraniums out again.
These red geraniums have sat on my living room windowsill all winter where they have cheered me up with their constant display of red flowers.
The rain has bought the onions and garlic on, last time I looked (before the deluge of rain) there were no shoots and just look at them now.  The lovage has also flourished in the rain, in fact I think this is the most prolific my lovage has ever been. The fruit canes are doing really well, but unfortunately something seems to have used my cherry tree as a scratching post. I’m not sure what has caused this damage, neither am I sure what, if any thing, I can do bout it. I just hope the tree recovers and there is no lasting damage.  Looking up into the old apple tree I can see the pink blossom already beginning to show, think I could be in for a good crop of apples this year. And lastly, this is my lawn; take a good look because this may well be the last photo ever taken of the grass. The area marked off with string is destined to be my new veggie plot.

Tags: garden, plants

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delete reply acousticeagle wrote on May 10, '11 You've pulled the privet for every good reason. When they get old, tatty and scruffy and you know nothing is going to fix it, then it really freshens things up to reef stuff out.

delete reply bennett1 wrote on May 10, '11 Vegetables are ever so much better than grass. Your picture of the apple blossoms is very lovely indeed.

delete reply djdx wrote on May 10, '11 Our hedge was starting to get away from me. I didn't get the top trimmed and with the snow we had this winter, it's falling over, but I had a go at it today. I would have planted something else but make do with what's here; it is lonicera nitida. I look forward to following your garden.

edit delete reply forgetmenot525 wrote on May 10, '11 PRIVET http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privet ''Privet is also an invasive species. Many environmental volunteer groups seek out to remove it because it will take over most habitats''.

edit delete reply forgetmenot525 wrote on May 10, '11 acousticeagle said Just asking about the hedge. You decided to get rid of it, why was that? LONG STORY.......lots of reasons, mostly its a very old privet hedge and some of the bushes had totally died, I always seemed to be dragging old dead wood out, some of the roots were dead and just lifted out. Also it was bare at the bottom and bushy at the top and no amount of trimming changed that. There were big holes where dead bits had been taken out. By taking it out I have gained a lot of extra ground. And I have to admit, I have a bit of a 'thing' about privet, its not a native of this country, it was introduced as decorative hedging and if you HAVE to have a hedge, I think it should be native hedgerow, which is exactly what I am going to plant on the inside of the fence once the fence is finished. I have some baby hawthorn, dog rose, dog wood and holly saplings sitting in a bucket of water waiting to be planted along the inside of the fence. They will take a few years to make a good hedgerow hence the need for a fence and while they are growing I get to use the extra ground. By the time my little bit of old fashioned native hedgerow is fully grown I don't suppose I will be here to see it, but its a nice to think it will be there. I like to think it will encourage more birds and wildlife into the garden.

delete reply acousticeagle wrote on May 10, '11 Hey, all that looks super. Something used your new cherry tree as a scatching post - nooooo! Could that be a neighbour's cat? Maybe a little bit of plastic pipe curled around it while it's growing? Just asking about the hedge. You decided to get rid of it, why was that?

edit delete reply forgetmenot525 wrote on May 10, '11 brendainmad said I do love your garden. thanks Brenda... i love it too when I can get out there and not be stuck indoors watching the rain :-)

edit delete reply forgetmenot525 wrote on May 10, '11 esoterika713 said wish to do the same with a spot of grass on our co-op property I have read several reports recently which all seem to be saying that turning gardens and waste land over to food production is becoming more and more common. Seems to be one of the positives of people having to cope on less and less money.

delete reply brendainmad wrote on May 10, '11 I do love your garden.

delete reply esoterika713 wrote on May 9, '11 I wish to do the same with a spot of grass on our co-op property. I need help with the design and the building. I hope to find someone who is handy. :)