Tag Archives: Cloches

Uses for broken brick walls and lemon scented suprises

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We took the plunge yesterday and stuck a couple of tomato plants out after a bit of hardening off over the last couple of weeks. Don’t worry, they will be protected even if the protection is a little on the basic side. This high-tech contraception features a plastic top off a seed tray and a couple of bricks from what was the side of the front wall. If you remember, one job in lockdown was to clear years of ivy off said wall. As soon as the Ivy was taken off, parts of the wall crumbled. Another gardening lesson learnt.

Also, we had a nice surprise this week when we saw some new growth on our Lemon Verbena (above) that we moved the other month, as we thought it was a goner in its former position. The leaves make a lovely refreshing cup of tea and there’s a nice scent when you brush against it. It’s worth getting one. Thanks to Haji MIke a few years ago (here) telling us about Lemon Verbena

Weather looks great this weekend again, so happy gardening whatever you’re doing if it’s tidying out your shed or putting one foot on your garden fork and staring into space (like we did at the council).

Stick your plastic plant labels

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We’ve always had this thing about those plastic plant labels. You buy a pack and you have the best intentions of keeping them for ages (using Barkeeper’s Friend to clean off “Lettuce” or whatever their last usage was) then you lose them or they snap and you vow never to use them again.

Yesterday we thought “Never mind that!” and just got a “sharpie” and snapped a few bamboo canes into quarters. Saved us a load of hassle. We then stuck some polythene sheeting on top of some pallet box collars and there you go, a makeshift cloche full of clearly named rows of broccoli, cabbage, leek and beetroot!

B is for borage, L is for lockdown

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It started cold and bleak today so we stayed indoors wielding a paintbrush this morning. The weather did improve and come about 1pm it was beautiful as this bee on the borage can testify.

We have borage popping up everywhere this year, we bought some seeds a few years back and it now self seeds all over the garden. It’s a plant well worth growing for the bees to enjoy and for the flowers you can put in Pims and also salads (and it has herbal medicine uses too here) but we love it for the leaves that can be chucked in into the compost heap or comfrey liquid for a bit of extra goodness.

Everything in the vegetable beds are cracking on at a good rate. We are packing a lot into the home-made raised beds but why not? The ones above contain potatoes, tomatoes, peas, carrots, peppers and whatever else can be crammed in. We only have limited space so we’re taking a chance on what’ll grow.

Also don’t be fooled with this present run of sunny weather, next week it goes down a few degrees and it always good to be aware that you may get a late frost which can wipe out a lot of stuff so regularly check the weather forecast just in case.

We’ve still got protection over the top of the tender plants at night (we close them up about 6pm so any further heat that the sun produces can be trapped in until the morning) and it ain’t anything fancy. We’ve got large jam jars, plastic cloches, an old window frame and recycled polythene tacked onto the cold frames. With this gardening malarkey you can’t take anything for granted, especially UK weather!

We hope the growing is going well in your garden. Anyone fancy sending us pictures of what they’re growing so we can post them up on the blog which’ll give us all more encouragement during this lockdown. Do get in contact if so.

#gardeningduringlockdown #lockdowngardening #sleepinginlatertocombatlockdown #sniffindisinfectant

This is a warning…

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltfUPFS4cMw&feature=kp

I’ve just heard on the local weather forecast that we might have possible frosts later this week so it’s out with the horticultural fleece, net curtains, cloches and jam jars to stick over those tender seedlings that are in the garden for some protection! I’ve a couple of tomatoes plants and some spuds I’ve put in early that’ll be getting covered up over the next few nights.