Garden 2012 no 20.

Garden 2012, no 20

A brief update, the seasons are changing, the temperature has dropped and the nights are longer. When I wake up there is a chill in the air, we still have nice days, in fact we have some extraordinarily nice days for this time of year, we have had a true Indian Sumner. But however warm and sunny the day, by late afternoon its over, the shadows are long, the temperature drops, the sun lowers, the light begins to fade and the sky turns red.
I spent a couple of hours in the garden yesterday, which as it turns out was exactly the right thing to do because today it’s too cold, wet and windy to even think about gardening. The wind has been getting higher all evening and now I can hear it howling around the houses, slamming gates shut and bouncing bins down the street. When the weather is like this I’m so grateful to be warm and dry indoors. 
Yesterday was different; it was a perfect gardening day. The little strip of grass around the vegetable plot was overgrown and took forever to trim back with my hand mower. Most of the veg is finished now, I still have a few onions to dig and the strawberry runners need to be sorted, but virtually every thing else is gone except the pest deterrent geraniums.

 I’ve hardly been out since surgery and things are quite neglected out there. Something I will have to do soon is empty out one of the compost bins, sift and store the compost and make the bin ready for the next lot. 

I have so much garden waste lying in heaps around the garden I do need to get it sorted before the temperature plummets too far and it all freezes.  I even tidied up the shed, and while emptying every thing out, came across my old bike right at the back. 

I’ve not ridden a bike in years, as a young person I used to cycle every where. I should get this old bike serviced and start using it again, cycling is supposed to be excellent exercise and I’m sure a couple of new tires and some brake cables wouldn’t cost too much. Maybe cycling should be something else to plan for my retirement.This is the amount of shallots and beetroot I have bottled so far, the shallots have finished bow but there is more beetroot still in the ground.  

My next kitchen project will be to make herb oil. I’m still drying the bag full of rosemary and yesterday I lifted the garlic from the ground. I think garlic and rosemary oil sounds like an excellent idea. Oh…………..and yesterday I saw my first robin of the year, he sat in the apple tree and watched while I worked.

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???

April 25 2012, Garden no 9

Garden 2012 no 9

My cactus is flowering AGAIN, this is the first time it has EVER flowered twice in one year.

I think there was torrential rain for the whole of the three weeks I was away. Wetlands are a precious natural environment but not one I  expected to find in my garden.
By the time I arrived home, the water barrel was actually overflowing,
 my early potatoes had black and damaged leaves,
some of the pots were more suitable for aquatic life than seedlings
and the geraniums, which I grow as a pest deterrent and had put out  the day before I left, looked dead.
But on the plus side, the pond is doing well. There are tadpoles a plenty
and mother frog can be seen sitting at the bottom of the pond keeping an eye on things.
The wild area behind the pond has thrived in the wet weather. This is the area I intend to cultivate and use for more veg plus raspberry canes. Raspberry is the only soft fruit I don’t have and I’m running out of space which is why I’m reclaiming this little bit of land. I’m going to wait until all the bulbs have finished and relocate them before I dig this small corner of the garden. I love the way it’s so wild and does its own thing, but I need the space.
Not every thing suffered in the rain, the radishes are great,
delicious in fact and all the vegetables seem to be doing well.
The rosemary is in bloom,
you can smell it as soon as you enter the garden,
and the strawberry plants already have lots of flowers.
This plant, which I think is a Heuchera, is bigger brighter and all together better than when I left.
I missed most of these little guys ( fritillaria)
but looks like I’m in time for these  bigger guys (Allium).
In fact most of the spring flowers seem to be doing well,
some of the bluebells are out already,
the first forgetmenots have appeared, and the
primroses are still flowering. The London Pride is looks better already than it did during the whole of last year.
When I took this the honey bee was happily gathering pollen, it wasn’t until I saw it on the computer that I realised she had taken off and was heading for the next available pollen when I clicked.
Now all I need is a couple of dry hours over the weekend to sort those waterlogged pots and put some more bark around my soft fruit canes.

Tags: garden, garden 2012, plants, pond

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delete reply aaranaardvark wrote on Apr 28 It looks great, things are developing nicely in your little ecosystem loretta, its a credit to your hard work.

delete reply rabbitfriendhere wrote on Apr 28 I really like the mid air shot of the bee! You're probably lucky that it wasn't too dry while you were gone. I have a wild spot in my backyard as well. I had put raspberries there, but they got choked out by weeds. I'm thinking of putting in some Concord grape vines and I will try to keep the weeds to a manageable minimum in future. Like you, I am sorry to say farewell to the wild bits, but I am running out of space as well. I will miss seeing the goldfinches eat the seeds of these weeds.

delete reply pestep55 wrote on Apr 28 Lovely garden, enjoyed seeing it /:-)

delete reply djdx wrote on Apr 26 Thanks for the visit of your garden. What you think is a heuchera looks like one to me too. The schlumbergera on the window sill here has made a couple extra flowers recently. It usually blooms in November. It feels like it's been raining for 3 weeks here and our garden is quite waterlogged also, with peas I put in small pots swimming in their tray. I have bailed them out twice already.

delete reply veryfrank wrote on Apr 26 All things considered, it appears that the rain did more good than damage. So many of your plants look great and are doing well. I plant marigolds and geraniums for pest control, insects, rabbits and deer. The marigolds, like geraniums, smell and taste awful, but marigolds seem to be near indestructible.

delete reply greenwytch wrote on Apr 26 a beautiful photographic essay as always, my dear. gardening can be quite a mixed bag, but it looks like most things fared well. looks like there was quite a substantial rainfall while you were on holiday.

delete reply brendainmad wrote on Apr 26 I love seeing your garden grow. Have you given your pond a name?

delete reply wendyj59 wrote on Apr 26 Your garden must keep you busy :) We certainly needed rain but we have had loads since they declared the hosepipe ban! Who needs to raindance lol

delete reply nemo4sun wrote on Apr 25 that she is :)

edit delete reply forgetmenot525 wrote on Apr 25 but your honey bee is a very special honey bee...............we don't all have honey bees like yours. :-)

delete reply nemo4sun wrote on Apr 25 those honeybees have a way of ducking out of the shot my does lol :)

edit delete reply forgetmenot525 wrote on Apr 25 yes I planted the columbines but ( and considering the weather I'm glad I thought to do this), I sowed the seeds in a seed tray indoors which is where they still are. lol the bee was an accident, I thought I'd taken him in the flower collecting pollen.

delete reply bennett1 wrote on Apr 25 I love the picture with the bee in flight!! And the radishes. Did you ever plant those columbines?

delete reply nemo4sun wrote on Apr 25 very very nice and the tadpoles are aplenty