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.

May 30 2011, Garden no 8

 

Garden 2011 no 8
A family Weekend.

The saga of the fence goes on. Most of that enormous pile of branches and roots was taken away to the tip by a friends partner in his van. In between rain and wind my eldest daughter found time, with the help of her partner, a friend, a digger and a jeep, to remove the remaining roots of the hedge in preparation for completing the fence. Those roots were massive and turned out to be incredibly deep. Trying to get any thing done in the garden at the moment is difficult, I can’t remember the last time we had a whole day with no rain or wind or both. Sometimes the weather is really nice, but never for the whole day.
I have had a very busy weekend. On Friday I had most of my family here, my eldest daughter and grandson dug a patch in the turf ready for my vegetable plot.
Once the turf was lifted and the land roughly dug over they burned the last of the rubbish from the hedge in an old bin burner.
I had asked for some of the wood to be left because I wanted wood ash to dig into the vegetable patch. A pile of the dug out turf is now drying out and hopefully rotting down and will eventually become a small decorative corner garden.
Once this work was finished I went with my middle daughter to spend the weekend at her house.
She is not a gardener; she doesn’t like gardening, hates getting ‘dirty’, she calls all plants ‘weeds’ and thinks any thing that you can’t paint or trim is ‘messy’. Yes….. I know what you are thinking………….how on earth did I have a daughter like that, but I did. 
She has recently moved and the first thing I noticed about her new house was the abundance of bluebells growing all around her front garden.
She told me they were ‘messy’, that she was going to get the whole lot dug over and grass seed put down so that her front garden looked ‘tidy’  and all she would have to do would be mow the lawn. I asked her not to do any thing until I had the chance to lift as many bulbs and plants as I could, which is what I have spent the weekend doing. I dug and dug and dug.
Whoever had the garden before was obviously a keen gardener; the ground was well dug and soft. I managed to dig my way around all the borders over the weekend and salvaged THREE huge bags of assorted plants and bulbs, mostly but not exclusively bluebells. My eldest and I shared the goodies, we will be lucky to find space for all those plants but we will do our best.
And that brings me back to the fence. We came back here today ( Monday) with the intention of getting the fence finished, but just as our helper was about to put the water into the cement mix, a black cloud appeared from no where and the rain came down in bucket loads…………….and I still have no finished fence. I suppose I was lucky it rained BEFORE he added the water to the mix, at least the cement and sand mix should stay dry until next time

Tags: garden, plants, vegetables

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delete reply acousticeagle wrote on Jun 2, '11 wow, you did get busy.

delete reply forelithe wrote on May 31, '11 A garden is a work of passion.

delete reply esoterika713 wrote on May 31, '11 Yes, that would have been not a good mix. Water and cement. My sister tried to make our own containers for flowers with a mixture of cement,peat moss, and perlite. We only had shovels and we weren't quite strong enough to mix it properly so they aren't perfect but I still have one but it sheds bits because it wasn't mixed properly. But, the mint likes it. That is what I have growing in it at the moment. :) Your garden sounds marvelous and it will be great once the fence gets built. What a lucky score getting those blue bells. They remind me a bit of grape hyacinths.

delete reply brendainmad wrote on May 31, '11 Believe it or not, we've had the same weather. At present the sky is black. How I'd love to have a nice garden, just grass is boring!

edit delete reply forgetmenot525 wrote on May 31, '11 djdx said I thought bluebells were a protected species. so did I, but apparently that doesn't apply if they are in your garden, it only applies if they are growing wild. At least thats they way I think it works

delete reply bennett1 wrote on May 31, '11 And I think bluebells spread on their own. Lovely for you.

delete reply reneenay wrote on May 31, '11 Looks like you got a lot accomplished & the bluebells are so pretty

delete reply djdx wrote on May 31, '11 So nice to have help with this project. I'm glad you were able to save the plants from your daughter's garden. I thought bluebells were a protected species.

delete reply mitchylr wrote on May 31, '11 Quite a productive weekend, all told. Shame about not getting the fence done, but rain on a Bank Holiday Monday is something of an inevitability.

delete reply veryfrank wrote on May 30, '11 Pleased for you that there is progress with the fence. Bluebells are always such a nice addition.

edit delete reply forgetmenot525 wrote on May 30, '11 greenwytch said 'free' plants! YAY! congrats on the good progress, thanks to help from the whole clan. ; D Hi Deb......'YAY indeed..................... look at the bag in that last picture, I filled three bags like that, they were so full the bulbs were spilling over the top. It was a good weekend thanks. I couldn't manage to dig up turf, it was very hard which is why my daughter helped. But digging the plants up from those borders was OK because someone had maintained the garden and the ground was nice and soft. Think we all had a good weekend, it was a combined effort.

delete reply greenwytch wrote on May 30, '11 'free' plants! YAY! congrats on the good progress, thanks to help from the whole clan. ; D

delete reply nemo4sun wrote on May 30, '11 what a lot you got done once again we seem to be having the same weather patterns :)

May24 2011, Garden no 7

Garden 2011 no 7
After the Storm

Compared to the rest of the world, what we call storm damage is minimal. And; bearing this in mind, I thought I should take a closer look at the damage to my garden.
First thing you notice is that I’ve lost my side gate, It’s very warped and twisted and the hinges have been ripped out of the wall, I think it’s beyond repair so I guess I need a new gate as well as a fence.
The pallets that were piled up ready to be made into my fence were scattered around the garden. Some were smashed and broken but most are OK to use.
I hope my bird box was not actually in use, it has a nest inside and there have been chicks, I just hope they all flew away before the storm.
I think this little nest came from the apple tree, again I hope the birds had already flown.
The apple tree itself looks the way it does in autumn. It was full of blossom but now there is no blossom and hardly any leaves. I suppose this means there will be none of those bright red crab apples this year.
I used them last year in jam, looks like I’ll be buying my apples for jam this year.
Most of the blossom and leaves seems to have ended up in the pond.
I’m not at all sure what caused this. The leaves on two of my shrubs have gone black and died.
I’m pretty sure they were ok before the storm but I don’t know how the storm managed to do this to them.
And here is hope. Amidst all this debris is  a new flower. The little pink flower bloomed today after the storm……………..

Tags: garden, plants, pond, weather

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delete reply acousticeagle wrote on May 26, '11 Very disappointing for you after all your hard work. You had plenty of work to get on with, now there's more you didn't need with the clean up.

delete reply veroniquemariquita wrote on May 25, '11 Buddleia are pretty hard to kill so even if the foliage is dead now it may come back from the roots...send up new growth.

edit delete reply forgetmenot525 wrote on May 25, '11 veroniquemariquita said I learned that excessive wind would do that. Thanks Vero................thats more or lass what i thought but its nice to have it confirmed. I have never experienced winds strong enough to do that before, that sort of damage is new to me. I think thats my budlia dead, and it was so pretty, a very deep dark purple, almost black. It was quite unusual, I bought it because the colour was so unusual. Maybe it will revive and flower again guess i'll have to wait and see.

delete reply veroniquemariquita wrote on May 25, '11 forgetmenot525 said it must have been the wind and the rain, When I first read about the black leaves, I had no idea but when I thought about "wind damage" something clicked. I once bought some flowering dogwoods for my mom and brought them them home in a pick-up truck. The leaves turn black and the young trees died within a couple of weeks. I learned that excessive wind would do that.

edit delete reply forgetmenot525 wrote on May 25, '11 veryfrank said I'm watching TV right now with live coverage of three tornadoes on the ground in Oklahoma (State north of Texas) with wind funnel rotation of 200 miles per hour. I've ben watching this too, it must be terrifying for those poor people, I was scared and we had nothing near as bad as that.

edit delete reply forgetmenot525 wrote on May 25, '11 greenwytch said i think the black leaves are due to too much water and wind from that storm Thanks for your advice Deb, I'm still a bit confused about this, I've never seen plants turn black and wither in a storm before but I guess you're right, it must have been the wind and the rain, it couldn't be any thing else.

edit delete reply forgetmenot525 wrote on May 25, '11 veroniquemariquita said but I am starting to feel very uncomfortable when one is expected. Thats exactly how I feel now, I am the one who used to sit at the window and enjoy the thunder storms, but now it all seems so sinister, and it scares me. It scares me because once you're indoors on your own you just never know how bad things are going to get, but like I said, i feel almost like a fraud because there are others around the world who have lost every thing because of the storms, all I lost was a tidy garden. Thanks to every one for your concern, I'm lucky, every thing is ok here now

delete reply veroniquemariquita wrote on May 25, '11 I have been around "many a moon" and I have never really been scared of storms before, but I am starting to feel very uncomfortable when one is expected. Sorry so much of your hard work went down the drain, Loretta. It must feel frustrating.

delete reply brendainmad wrote on May 25, '11 I'm glad it's not a complete loss.

delete reply mitchylr wrote on May 25, '11 Wow, that is a mess. It shows how strong the winds were to blow those pallets around, they're not light!!

delete reply djdx wrote on May 25, '11 Sorry about the damage. I hope everything recuperates.

delete reply rabbitfriendhere wrote on May 24, '11 Sorry about your storm damage, Loretta. On the bright side your grass looks nice and green! I hope the birds are ok too and that they come back once you get everything back in order! Wishing no more storms come your way! :)

delete reply artprevails wrote on May 24, '11 I am sorry about the damage done but glad it wasn't worse♥

delete reply nemo4sun wrote on May 24, '11 wow! rough stuff :)

delete reply kathyinozarks wrote on May 24, '11 storms are just no fun-sorry about your gate and fence

delete reply veryfrank wrote on May 24, '11 So glad to hear that your damage is minimal compared to what it could have been. Storms all over the world are getting to be just awful experiences. I'm watching TV right now with live coverage of three tornadoes on the ground in Oklahoma (State north of Texas) with wind funnel rotation of 200 miles per hour. This follows the storms that hit that part of the country yesterday.

delete reply greenwytch wrote on May 24, '11 gosh, what a storm you've had! and how thankful you must be, it could have been far worse. i love the little sea thrift blossom.....and i am a bit tired right now, so i am don't know what the other is. interesting, you have started your garden make over.....perhaps the storm was helping you? i think the black leaves are due to too much water and wind from that storm. i have a crabapple tree, too. sorry your blossoms have all blown away. : * (