Late Bloomers & Early Risers

The trees have been stripped of their leaves which are now all over my lawn, the days are short and there is only 3 weeks to go until Christmas.  It is fairly obvious that Autumn is upon us and Winter is fast approaching.  So why has my garden not taken the hint?

I popped out a few days ago in my usual belated way to throw a few daffodil bulbs in the ground and some winter pansies into pots on the patio.  I was completely surprised to find that my French beans which had been abandoned weeks ago not only had new beans ready for picking but also more blossom.    We have had some really foggy, dull weather lately, so I can't even put it down to warm sunny days.

Last year, I bought a new wooden half barrel for the patio as the old one had rotted out.  The narcissus bulbs which I had had for years were blind this year with not one flower, so I thought I had dug them all out and thrown them away.  I was planning on planting a fresh batch of bulbs this autumn around the fuchsia I put in back in the summer, which was why I was now finally in the garden.  I had obviously missed some bulbs though as they were now growing up through the soil in the barrel.  One of them was already about 4 inches tall!

I am now completely confused as to what is going on in my garden.  I don't know if it is autumn, winter of spring and clearly my garden doesn't either.  I think one hard frost will finish the beans off.  Hopefully the new bulbs I put in with the ones already sprouting will put on a good show in another 4 months or so.  I am beginning to wonder if I will be picking strawberries for lunch on Christmas Day though.  At this rate, who knows?!

Tomato Tactics

To say it has been a disappointing harvest would be a bit of an understatement!  My peas were eaten by snails, my runner beans seem to think they are in a marathon rather than a sprint and my courgette plants were hit by some white mouldy thing.  I blame the weather plus the fact that I probably planted everything a bit late but such is life.  My lettuce bed was a complete triumph though with enough lettuce and spinach to feed  half the county.  

My tomatoes, "Gardeners Delight", have been a complete mixed bag.  I have never grown such bushy tomato plants in my life and they were at least 8 feet tall!  I purchased a tomato frame for them this year to give support and tied the vines to the frame, which really seemed to make a difference.

The only problem I have had is that I still haven't managed to harvest a ripe tomato yet and it is nearly mid October!  Whilst the plants were happily spreading skywards and there are a lot of green tomatoes on the vines, nothing was ripening.

Whilst visiting the in laws a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that my mother-in-law had stripped her tomato plants of leaves, leaving just the tomatoes on the bare vines.  She told me that at this time of year you need to stop the plants putting their energy into growing to allow the fruit to ripen.  Thinking about it, it did make sense.  Also, as the nights are drawing in and the sun is losing its strength, the tomatoes need all the light exposure they can get to ripen, so being shaded behind foliage doesn't help.

When I got home, I cut the tops out of my plants to stop any further growth upwards and stripped the leaves.  The plants do look really odd now but 10 days on, I have actually got a few ripe tomatoes.  Finally!

Another tip mother-in-law gave me for ripening tomatoes is to place the green ones in a drawer with a ripe one.  For some reason the ripe one encourages the others to ripen.  Very strange.  Not sure how that works, particularly in darkness.  I wonder if some gas is given off by the ripe one which then ripens the others.  Bit like bananas having an effect on other fruit nearby. Apparently it does work, so I shall have to give it a go.

Instant Vegetable Garden

Following the success of last year's vegetables supplied by Rocket Gardens (see my blog post "Plants by Post"), I leafed through the spring catalogue back in early April, looking for my next purchase.  When I reached the patio container garden, I left the catalogue open on my desk at that page, as a reminder to place my order.  If I had only turned the page over, I would have spotted a photo of my garden last year.  I had submitted to photo to Rocket Garden's Facebook page, as they had asked to see customer gardens.

I was completely unaware the photo was in the catalogue until I received an email from Rocket Gardens thanking me for the use of the photo.  As a thank you they were offering me a garden of my choice, a free wooden planter worth £30 plus two bags of potatoes worth £8 and free delivery.  Who was I to say no?  Thrilled didn't even begin to cover it!

As I had already decided on the patio container garden, that is the one I chose.  Priced at a very reasonable £36.99, it consisted of:

5 x rainbow chard
20 x wild rocket
12 x garden peas
6 x strawberries
10 x spinach
5 x tomatoes
4 x courgettes
30 x mixed lettuce (3 varieties)
10 x dwarf French beans
5 x runner beans
20 x mizuna (an Oriental salad leaf)

Partly due to the weather, lack of time to prepare and going on holiday, I finally arranged for my delivery to be made a couple of weeks ago.  The plants and wooden crate arrived 7pm on a Friday evening by courier.  As usual the plants were packed with care in a large cardboard box in layers of straw and more cardboard.  Each set of plants was clearly labelled and planting instructions were also included.  To be honest, you can't go wrong really.

I had a frantic Friday evening and then Saturday morning madly planting all of my new arrivals.  After a quick trip to the garden centre for canes and compost, I had a healthy looking, instant vegetable plot.  That's definitely my kind of gardening!

Two weeks on, the plants are all thriving, the peas are flowering and already have some pea pods and the strawberries are also fruiting.  I plan to cut my first lettuce tomorrow as they have really shot up over the last week.  I am really pleased with the wooden crate too, it makes a perfect home for the lettuces and looks quite attractive too.


What more can I say apart from thank you very much Rocket Gardens!

An Unexpected Visitor

The other day I was happily weeding a flower bed, when I very nearly weeded a frog who was lurking there.  I'm not sure who was more shocked to be honest, me or the frog.  I jumped, he jumped, I jumped even more!

Now, I have nothing against frogs on the whole, as long as they are kept at about a hundred paces.  I certainly wouldn't want to pick one up, so to nearly grab one when weeding nearly gave me palpitations.  I'm really not sure what would have happened if I had been a centimetre nearer but the back of my hand definitely touched frog.  I was actually quite surprised to find it was actually quite soft and warm, not at all what I had expected.  I still wouldn't want to hold one.

I guess I shouldn't have been that surprised to find a frog in a flower bed, I have found one under my bed before, still alive, courtesy of one of my cats.  I left the room in a hurry and called for reinforcements to deal with it.  So why all these frogs in my garden?  I have no idea, as I don't have a pond and there are no public ponds, rivers or streams for quite some distance.  I can only assume that other people in the vicinity have got ponds in there gardens, although I have no idea of the hopping range of a frog.

Having had a quick on the internet, I have discovered that my frog was a Common Frog.  I was slightly disappointed for him.  I thought he would have been slightly more exotic than common.  Who knows, he may have been a bewitched prince.  I wasn't going to kiss him to find out though, trust me!

From Glass to Glasshouses

If you have an interest in art glass, then you may have heard of the glass artist Dale Chihuly.  I have always had a love of coloured glass, although I am usually terrified I will break it!  Last autumn, I visited a small gallery in Las Vegas that had an exhibition of some of Dale Chihuly's work, including some of his naturalistic forms. The Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas also has a permanent installation of Dale Chihuly's glass flowers on the ceiling of the reception area which is well worth seeing.
 

As well as the clusters of flowers, I also love the huge, bright green cactus like sculptures that he creates.   I find it remarkable that something so fragile as glass is put on display outside in public gardens, with sculptures sprouting from the middle of water features or placed amongst the specimen plants.  Some exhibitions have also been staged in public conservatories, one of which was the glass houses at Kew Gardens, London in 2005.  I really wish I had known about his work then, as I would have loved to have seen the exhibition.

More details of Dale Chihuly, his work, permanent display pieces and forthcoming exhibitions are available on his website .... http://www.chihuly.com/home.aspx.  I really recommend you take a look!

 

Spring Is In The Air

Now the evenings are getting lighter again and the temperatures are warming up (well slightly), I am starting to think about actually going into the garden again.  I have to admit for the last 5 months all I have managed is a quick sprint to the compost heap.  Even that was under duress, when  I couldn't shut the lid on the kitchen compost bin any more!

It seems like the winter went on for ages and if it wasn't snowing, it was raining.  Or it was just plain freezing cold.  The daffodils came up a few weeks ago and have stayed the same height since.  They obviously had second thoughts.

Having ventured out the other day, for a half hour tidy, I was quite surprised at how much damage had been done by the frosts.  Pots that I have had for years have taken a real battering and will definitely need to be replaced.  Surprisingly my cabbages and rainbow chard seem to be thriving with new leaves appearing.  I may even manage to eat some this time before the caterpillars appear.

I must admit, I was a bit bored with the lack of colour in the garden now, so I decided to do a bit of instant gardening and plant some red and yellow polyanthus in the metal planters on the fence.  The splash of colour has made a huge difference to the garden.  They are definitely a welcome sight from the kitchen window.  Hopefully the daffodils and tulips won't be long now as well.

  

The Problem With Plastic

Like a lot of people, I am a conscientious recycler.  I always put the paper, cardboard, food tins, plastic bottles and glass out for the recycling collection every week and take my batteries, aluminium foil, biscuit tins, rags and other recyclable items to the local Council waste site.  I'm not perfect by any stretch of the imagination though and a whole host of food packaging that can't be recycled ends up in the dustbin without too much more thought.  Let's face it, out of sight, out of mind.

A few days ago, I came across an article about the Plastiki Expedition.  The Plastiki is a boat made from 12,000 plastic bottles which is sailing the oceans raising awareness about plastic pollution, particularly in the seas.  Unfortunately, plastic does not biodegrade, once plastic is manufactured, it will always exist - somewhere.  It may crack into small pieces but it will be there, in land fill sites and in the seas.  Apparently there is an area of ocean near Hawaii that has an area polluted with plastic from all over the world that is twice the size of France!  Small pieces of plastic are suspended in the sea and are referred to as mermaid's tears.  Sadly these plastic fragments are being ingested by the marine life.  Needless to say, it is not doing them much good.  A lot of the plastic is tipped overboard from ships but lets face it, we are all guilty of plastic pollution.

So where does this fit into a gardening blog?  Well, plastic was obviously on my mind when I glanced out of my kitchen window.  It suddenly struck me how much plastic waste gardening creates, from plastic plant pots, labels and garden ties to plastic bags the compost comes in.  Whilst I am sure keen gardeners will clean and reuse their plastic pots, most households will no doubt throw them away.  Plastic plant ties are great and can be used again and again, until they snap.  Then what?  They get thrown away.

Brown or black plastic pots really aren't attractive, so it is not surprising that people transfer their newly purchased plants into ceramic pots.  Maybe if the plastic pots came in bright colours they would be more acceptable.  I have got some Thyme growing in a purple plastic pot which I don't mind too much.  We really do need to get away from plastic altogether though and don't even get me started on polystyrene seed trays.

I completely understand the use of plastic.  It is no doubt cheap and certainly convenient, as well as practical.  If plants were sold in ceramic pots there is far more scope for breakage.  Paper labels would be useless as they could tear and would certainly go soggy when wet.  With more packaging being made from corn starch perhaps there is some possibilities there.

Unfortunately, I don't have the answers.  I know one thing though, in future I will try to be far more careful about the garden products I buy and use.  Why use plastic plant ties after all when you can use a piece of string or a old pair of nylon tights cut into strips?

http://www.theplastiki.com
http://recycleplasticflowerpotsandplantseedtrays.com/

Plants By Post

Back in June, my husband gave me a gift voucher for a company called Rocket Gardens.  The voucher entitled me to a compact herb garden mini plant pack.  I didn't really know what it was all about, so just followed the instructions to redeem the voucher on their website and thought no more of it.

A couple of days later, I arrived home to find a cardboard box on the doorstep which said "Plant me, grow me, eat me" on the side.  There's nothing quite like coming home to a parcel, it's a bit like your birthday or Christmas, you can't wait to open it and see what's inside.  Quickly opening the box, I was met by a whole array of baby plants, all neatly  packed for transit.

As I carefully unpacked the plants, I could not believe the variety I had been sent.  I had expected some herbs and herbs I got, rosemary, chives, thyme, parsley, mint, sage, basil and marjoram to be precise.  Not only that, I got various types of lettuce, calabrese, cabbages and rainbow chard.  It was an absolute feast!  Well it would be when they had all grown.

I have to admit it did take a while to plant them all.  As there was far more than I was expecting, I had quite a job scouring the garden shed for pots.  The lettuces ended up sharing but I don't think they were bothered.  As well as the plants, which were all clearly labelled, there was also clear instructions for planting and care of the various plants.  You couldn't really go wrong.

I did wonder how well the plants would do, particularly with my tendency to forget to water for days on end in the summer.  The plants were really healthy though and all thrived, in spite of me.  The only problems I encountered were with the caterpillars which I have already mentioned in a previous blog entry.  Even now in the depths of winter, with a foot of snow recently, the herbs, cabbages and rainbow chard are all still flourishing in there pots on the patio.  The cabbages have made an amazing comeback having been stripped bare by the caterpillars.  Even the calabrese managed a small head despite having hardly any leaves.  I haven't had the heart to eat it!

Looking on Rocket Garden's website, www.rocketgardens.co.uk, you will see that they offer a whole range of plant packs suitable for the window box gardener to allotment gardeners.  All of the packs clearly show the number and variety of plants in the pack, as well as the space required for planting.

The pricing seems to me to be very reasonable for the number of plants and the quality.  Obviously it would be cheaper to by packets of seeds and grow your own from scratch but if you don't have the time or a greenhouse, Rocket Gardens offer the perfect solution.  I will certainly be using them again next year, so roll on the spring!

Christmas Wreaths

During the festive season, like lots of other people, I like to hang a wreath on my front door.  For years , I have been buying a holly wreath and spending £6-£10 each time.  A couple of years ago, having just bought one, it suddenly struck me that I could probably make my own pretty easily and save myself some money.  In the New Year, I simply took the wreath I had bought apart and kept the wire ring base for future use.

Last year, I took the plunge and couldn't believe how easy it actually was to make.  This year, I have done the same again.  Besides the wire ring, which you can easily buy from a garden centre, recycle from an old wreath or make yourself, the main material is foliage.  If you have a garden, you can simply raid the shrubbery, if not, there is plenty of free holly and ivy in the countryside.  You don't even need very much.

I used the shrubbery in my garden and decided to use mainly honeysuckle and mulberry. The honeysuckle is really useful as it is in long, flexible tendrils.  I'm sure someone somewhere will tell me that they are not traditional or have the wrong connotation in Victorian flower language but it's my wreath and I will use whatever comes to hand.  That's the joy of making your own, you can use whatever you like!

When I had stripped the wreath in January this year, I left all of the wires in place, together with the bow and pine cones which were on the wreath when I originally bought it.  Leaving them on not only saved time but also offered anchor points for me to thread the honeysuckle into.  I only roughly secured each piece as I planned to tie it all in more securely at the end.

Having covered most of the base in honeysuckle, I then added the mulberry.  I quite like the speckled leaves as well as the different leaf size and shape, I think it adds more interest.  It is worth remembering that if you do decided to use holly, wear gloves so you don't get prickled.  That's another good reason to raid the shrubbery!

Once I was happy with the foliage, I wound a long piece of gold tinsel around the wreath.  Not only does it give a bit of sparkle, it is also really useful for tying in the foliage securely to the wreath and also hides a multitude of sins if you have stalks and gaps showing.  Finally, I jiggled the bow and pine cones into more prominent positions and it was ready to hang on the door.

Winter Wonderland - Again!

I can't believe the garden is completely covered in snow - again!  It only seems a couple of months ago since the last lot.  To be fair it was 10 months ago but still, so soon?
 
I have to admit the garden does look lovely when the snow is undisturbed and a thick carpet.  Not very practical though.  The cats peer out the door and don't want to go out.  They seem to develop bladders of steel.  We end up digging paths for them from the door to the bushes which they then happily trot up and down.

As for the poor birds, who knows what they make of it all.  It really makes you realise how important it is to leave food for them.  My garden was a veritable bird buffet this morning.  Pigeons were lined up on the fence, a whole flock of blue tits were feasting on the peanuts and seed.  They were swiftly joined by a robin, dunnock and even a magpie pecking at the fat filled coconut shell hanging from the shed roof. 

Desert Forests

I have just got back from another trip to Las Vegas and am immediately struck again by how green England is in comparison.   Hardly surprising as Las Vegas, despite meaning "the meadows", is very arid due to its location in the Mojave Desert.  The trees tend to be palm trees and much of the green grass is heavily watered every night to keep it green or is astroturf!

On our first trip we went on a trip to the Grand Canyon which is absolutely spectacular.  On the way we passed through a Joshua Tree forest.  Say the word forest and you immediately imagine tall, lush trees, densely packed and maybe a hint of pine.  As the Joshua Trees manage to sustain life in the most inhospitable of terrains with very little water, they have adapted to survive and even thrive.  The resulting forest is slightly eerie but also has an intriguing quality all of its own.  In some respects you feel it wouldn't look out of place on another planet.

Mostly found in the Mohave Desert, the Joshua Tree is a member of the Yukka plant family and got its name from the Mormons who travelled across the Mohave Desert during the mid 1800's.  The plants survive the harsh conditions by growing extremely slowly once established.  The largest trees can be hundreds of years old but still relatively small in tree terms.  Whilst areas of the desert are densely populated with trees, the size of the trees actually makes the forest seem quite sparse.

Whilst I can't see me ever growing a Joshua Tree in my English garden, I do find them very intriguing.  I have to admit, I do quite like the name, which was even used as the title of a U2 album.

Sculpture In The Garden

I am a real lover of sculpture, with no particular preference for media or form.  Whilst I am happy to wander around a gallery, I am more happy viewing sculpture outside in a natual landscape.  Somehow, if placed correctly, sculpture just works really well with nature.  The surrounding planting, or lack of, has huge bearing though it has to be said.

Yesterday, I visited the Beaulieu Estate in Hampshire, which is home to the National Motor Museum, as well as having the house, abbey and gardens open to the public.  The organic kitchen and Victorian flower garden are well worth a walk around, even in the rain! 

Unbeknown to me, the Surrey Sculpture Society were holding an exhibition in the gardens from 25 June to 22 August 2010, with 85 sculptures in a variety of media, from steel and bronze resin to clay.  I'm sure I didn't see all of the sculptures but some of them were really fabulous.

Natural Pest Control

By complete chance, I have found a solution to my caterpillar problem.  I was quite happy to sacrifice the calabrese to the caterpillars as I couldn't kill the furry monsters.  However, I have found a plant they like even more - watercress!

I bought a growing pot of watercress at the supermarket and decided to put it out on the patio next to the pots of cabbage and calabrese.  The caterpillars migrated to the watercress on their own.  One morning when I went outside, I looked over at the watercress and spotted it had been completely stripped of leaves, on closer inspection, I found it heaving with caterpillars.

It actually makes perfect sense, watercress is in the same family at cabbage.  As watercress has a strong, peppery taste, I guess it must have certain chemicals which caterpillars are attracted to in greater quantities than the cabbage and calabrese.  The caterpillars are certainly happy anyway.

I have now relocated the watercress plant to the end of the garden, together with the caterpillars.  The few stragglers still on the calabrese have been rounded up and moved to the watercress with the rest.  I have even bought another plant for the caterpillars to eat, as I can't let them go hungry!

Hungry Caterpillars!

I am growing a whole host of new crops this year, including cabbages and calabrese (like broccoli).  Things were going very well until a cabbage white butterfly tracked my plants down.  I have a vague feeling that the plants give off an odour which the butterflies pick up on.

It's tricky really, every since I was a child, I have loved butterflies.  My Grandad used to have collections of exotic butterflies pinned under glass which I used to like looking at.  When I was four or five, I used to try and add to his collection.  I would catch Red Admirals in my shrimping net and take them around to his house, as he lived two doors down from us.  My Grandad used to carefully take the butterflies out of the net and pop them under an upturned jar.

I have a funny feeling as soon as I was gone he used to let them go again in the garden.  I sincerely hope he did anyway!

When I was a bit older, I collected caterpillars in the garden and kept them in a large jar with holes in the lid.  I fed them up and watched as they became chrysalis.  I remember going down one morning weeks later to find butterflies testing their wings in the jar, the transformation complete.  I had such pleasure releasing them into the garden.

So here I am, years later, still enjoying watching the butterflies in my garden.  But then it struck me, butterflies lay eggs which hatch into caterpillars, which eat my cabbages and calabrese!   Nightmare!  I didn't have the heart to destroy the eggs so carefully laid or the caterpillars happily feasting.

When I thought about it, sometimes you just have to garden for wildlife.  If you want butterflies, you need to grow plants that attract them.  Caterpillars are eaten by the birds who I also want to attract, so I guess sometimes you just need to sacrifice a little to attract much richer rewards.

Who wants to eat cabbage anyway?