(Just like the Four Tops) I can’t help myself

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Last weekend, I just couldn’t stop myself going to the garden centre and purchasing a bag of seed compost to start off those vegetables early. It was the first weekend the shop was open after christmas, I haven’t got much self control have I? Alongside the compost I got some seed potatoes (that will need “chitting” but more on that in another post) Desiree was the variety, by the way.

Now how long will it be before there’s endless seed trays on the kitchen windowsill taking up space and leaking water all over the place? Not long I imagine. I told you I was impatient!

Also in the last post I mentioned I was going to redesign my garden so since then I’ve been doing some research, looking through books and listening to garden design podcasts.

A massive mistake people make is that they decide they want to revamp their garden, go to a garden centre and spend a fortune on plants without any research or thought, stick them all around their garden and wonder why in a couple of months they fail.

What I learnt from only a week’s research is you shouldn’t rush into redesigning your garden, take your time.You should take a year out to gather information about the site. Over the varying seasons look at shadow patterns and what parts get sun and at what times of the day and what are the site’s good views and bad views. Also ask others who live with you what shrubs/flowers/trees they fancy, what are your likes and dislikes etc and the design should start to make itself obvious (so it said on a gardening podcast!). Look at old books, go to parks and gardens, take photographs and get inspired. Rip things out of magazines of plants and gardens you like and keep a scrapbook.

I was looking through “Guerrilla Gardening: A Manualfesto” by David Tracey in the library and came across an interview with an activist who echoed the same sentiments when it came down to garden design and added “in the meantime when you are information gathering, utilise the space and sow some edibles”. Brilliant. So it’s back growing to veg this year then!

I don’t do resolutions

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The weather was brilliant today compared to the horrid rain of new years day.  I ventured out and did a bit in the garden to work off the load of tia maria and after eights I had over christmas. I did a good bit of tidying up, cutting back, forked over the beds and carefully with a hand trowel put back the spring bulbs I accidently disturbed. The third attempt at a compost heap was filled to the brim with stuff at the end and the second one is looking well rotten.

With the clean up, I can now see what space I really have in the garden and can plan what to put in the forthcoming year. This will save me a good bit of time and energy come spring. It’s been over four years since moving into this house and in that time I’ve sorted out ten year’s previous neglect in the garden, found beds and paths that I didn’t think existed and mainly been growing veg, herbs and salad. The garden is like a blank canvas now and I am now going to take the plunge of designing a garden that combines flowers and edibles as before I just made it up and put stuff in as I went along. It is time to make a start!

It’s okay for the make-over shows and TV personalities to show what you can do to improve your garden with a nice old budget but what if you haven’t got much to spend on it and you haven’t a team of builder “geezers” to help you out?

I’ll  be trawling the skips, small ads, e-bay, gumtree and freecycle and be on the look out for cheaper ways of getting the plants and materials (I mean I’d love railway sleepers as part of a raised bed but I can’t afford them).

The big jump of designing a garden combining flowers with veg will be a bit of a challenge, but it will be good experience as I’ll be constantly learning, something that is brilliant about gardening. I have to keep telling myself to approach one problem at a time as if I thought about all that I have to do, I’d probably give up!

Happy 2012 to all!

A cover to be proud of

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An album sleeve from the late 70’s/early 80’s and I do love this cover! The badly cut out orange overprint at the top makes it looks like Sly Dunbar is wearing a poorly made cardboard pirate hat or something from a cheap xmas cracker. If you can beat this, please send us your reggae (or any music genre) design classic.

Festive fever

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Sorry for the delay but Christmas got in the way, hope it was good for you with many a drink sank and some “come dine with me” type delicacies consumed.

I got a couple of great gardening books from yesteryear which are brilliant for ideas as they often feature plants that were once fashionable and now forgotten. There was also some good stuff learnt from “Herbs and the kitchen garden” by Kim Hurst from 1998 like planting lemon balm near hives keeps the bees happy and a handful of mint in a hot bath comforts the nerves.

That reminds me when I once ran a bath and put an infusion of strained lemon balm in (also great for the nerves). I turned off the tap and promptly forget all about it until about 3 hours later when it took high strength bath cleaner and elbow grease to get the filthy tide mark off. Years earlier I had another bath experience when I was given some heavy duty acid (that the council caretakers used to take off graffitti with) to clean the bottom of the toilet in our council flat. It worked a treat so I tried it on the bath and it took all the enamel off and long soaks in the bath were never the same again!

Not much gardening done this week apart from putting in a blackberry cane that spent a week in Forest Hill sorting office but now out the back with some winter protection around it of fleece wrapped round a couple of short bamboo canes.

This is a time of putting the feet up or out socialising, but it’s also a good time to plan for next year and even some real forward planning like what you could overwinter next year as the garden is a bit bare at the moment. Okay the weather will dictate but there’s always cloches, cold frames, mini greenhouses and even windowsills that can supply you with herbs, salad leaves and the like if it’s mild.

I also have to watch it this time of year as I tend to get over-excited as I’m itching to start off some seeds, I know it’s far too early but give it a month or two and my kitchen windowsill will be chocka with all sorts of seed trays and pots with clear plastic bags over the top.

Take it easy!

Ain’t bin to no music school

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There was a frost this morning and mighty cold out, but I still managed to have a look at my third attempt of a compost bin. A fortnight ago it was filled to about three quarters of a way up with alternate layers of “green” and “brown” material but today when I lifted the lid, it’s gone down to about a third. It looks like things are happening even in this temperature. Today I threw in some veg peelings, ripped up sunday papers, a couple of cardboard middles of loo roll and some leaves, the same sort of material as usual. The neighbours must have thought I was mad taking snaps of it all.

The other attempt of a heap is going great guns too, after throwing in more “browns” and giving it a good turn with a garden fork a fortnight ago after it went slushy and smelly. I lifted off the top and it looked a rich brown colour and the number of writhing worms which were there have lessened, a sign that the thing is finally on it’s way!

I heard last week citrus peelings are a bit of a “no, no” to stick on the heap. I’ve looked for info and found conflicting reports. Any ideas as I throw in a few lemons over a week and really would like to get it right this time. Rot on!

Vinnie Riley’s musical project before he went a bit more “jokey”.

A date with the rain

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In the days before the council introduced “wet money”, a couple of extra quid a month to work in all weathers, the rule was you didn’t work in the rain (“It’s a health and safety issue, ain’t it guv”). So at the first sign of grey clouds or even someone walking past in a raincoat, we would stop what we were doing, look up to the sky and put our hands out to see if we could feel rain and if we did, would make our way up to the shed for a few hours of tea drinking.

The hard and fast rule was if three cars passed consecutively with their windscreen wipers on, it was officially raining so we could stop work. How mad is that?

Rock, rock, plan it rock

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As the garden is starting to wind down for the year, now is an ideal time to give it a bit of a spruce-up which will give you a head start when things liven up again in the spring.

I’ve raked up the last lot of leaves, bagged up some for leaf mould and stuck a few in the compost bin to add some “brown” to the kitchen peelings, tidied over the beds and generally made the garden look a bit more presentable.

If you’ve anything in pots that needs protecting from the frost and snow move them into the shed, conservatory or greenhouse (if you are lucky to own one). If the pots are too big to move, stick some bubble wrap around the bottom to keep them from cracking. With plants you can’t move, protect them with some horticultural fleece or net curtains (a cheap alternative from the second hand shop or skip). A good layer of mulch around plants will keep the soil frost free and keep the moisture in. Cold frames and cloches come in well handy this time of year too. I sowed some overwintering Carrot and Lettuce seeds well late so have stuck a couple of mini cloches over them and hoping for the best.

Now is also a good time to plan what you want to grow next year. Make a list of what you fancy and have a look through the seed catalogues/on the web and see if there’s varieties suitable for your garden and climate. I’ve already ordered a few packets of seeds and they are now in my scottish shortbread tin, so by January I’ll be itching to start them off in trays on the kitchen windowsill (to the detriment of the paintwork which I have to redo every year!)

So like with anything else, a little bit of preparation and forward planning comes in handy with this gardening lark.