Last year we had both black and pink Hollyhock in our garden. This year we have neither but we do have the red one pictured above. I can only assume that it is a hybrid of the two former colours.
Tag: garden
Second Blog Post For Regatta
My second gardening / allotment blog for Regatta is now live on their website. You can read it here.
Robin Update
The Robin in our garden is still faithfully sitting on her eggs. Having done a bit of online research I now know that it is the female that sits on the eggs alone, and it takes 13 days for them to hatch. So assuming that when we first noticed her was last Saturday, 6th June, we are likely to have baby birds sometime this week.
As she is so exposed, we’re keeping watch but from a distance, so as not to disturb her. Her preference for this nest is completely different to the blue tits who we had nesting earlier in the season. They managed to find a gap in the side of the garage, and chose to nest there. It means we have no idea how many young they had, as other than the chirps of the young, and the parents tooting and froeing you wouldn’t have known they were there, unlike the blue tits from last year, who used the sparrow box, and you could see the young, sticking their heads out, now and again.
Robins
And now we seem to have one nesting in the garden or rather brooding eggs.
Weekend Round-Up
We’ve been having a few issues with our broadband connection, which has meant limited internet time and speed, so although I was going to try and upload a video this weekend, I’ve not been able to. I will however try a few photographs.
It’s another bank holiday weekend so it’s meant an opportunity to spend more time than a regular weekend on the allotment. The weeds seem be growing exponentially, and are certainly growing faster than the food crops at the moment. I spent some time on Saturday just weeding. I’d planned to do some other things, but at the moment, it’s important to try and get ahead of the weeds, otherwise they’re going to crowd out the other plants. I feel like I made good progress, but there is always more to do!
Last weekend I planted some Cavolo Nero and Brussels Sprout plants which seem to have all taken well. These were followed this weekend with some Celeriac. The plot is looking quite full now, which is good. I harvested the first of the broad beans, which although were probably on the small side, were very sweet tasting.
Back in the garden I moved on the tomato plants that I’d been given, into their final growing spot. To do so, I had to move the last of the overwintering plants out of the potting shed to make room for them.
I wasn’t going to bother with tomatoes this year, having had such a bad season last year and I didn’t therefore grow any from seed, however as a fellow allotmenteer gave me some plants, I thought why not. One of the plants even has a small tomato on it already!
Monday is a Bank Holiday, so that’s given me more garden time. I’ve spent this morning clearing around the slabs in the back garden. I checked back through my notes and it’s only three weeks since I last did this, so I can see it’s going to be a regular occurrence if I want to keep the backyard pristine through the summer and not use any chemicals (which I don’t want to do).
I know the time span because I’ve been journalling more than I ever have done before. I’m finding that I’m quite enjoying recording my thoughts and observations, and I haven’t kept a proper paper journal for many years, probably since I took up blogging. I think it means that I remember far more when I come to sit down in front of the computer than I would otherwise.
I took a break from the gardening to finish a job application. My redundancy date isn’t that far away, so I’m taking more time to job hunt. I’m hoping to get a bit of a break over the summer, but don’t plan or want to be out of work for too long.
Anyway there’s still a lot of Monday left, and I’m intending to tackle the front garden this afternoon. I need to clear back some of the front border as it’s encroaching on the pavement a little, and again there is some clearing around paving slabs to be done as well as a few other tasks.
Watching The Birdie
I’ve always kept a bird list. Birds I’ve seen etc.
Since we moved to our current home I’ve kept an exclusive list for the property. The rules are simple, only birds that I’ve seen on or from the property can go on the list. As it’s a small urban property the list is relatively short, 31 species in total; the most in any year, 24 species. It includes some great highlights though; merlin, buzzard, sparrowhawk and fieldfare. This year so far the count is 14, so a good start.
I was updating the list yesterday when I noticed a pair of blue tits checking out one of the nest boxes. A pair nested in the same box last year, so there’s a good chance this pair will use the box this year. I’d like to think it’s the same pair, but there’s no way to know for sure.
Rose Garden
Spent this morning clearing a wall in our garden to make way for some climbing roses.
Looks pretty uninteresting at the moment, but hopefully it will soon become a bit more colourful.
Roses (bareroot) have been ordered – Tess of the d’Urbervilles (Red) & The Generous Gardener (White).
Need to do a bit to the border in terms of some compost and also something along the wall for the roses to be able to climb up and be tied off to. This will be a bit of an ongoing project for a few weeks, but will hopefully result in colour and fragrance on that side of the garden in due course.
Planting A Bulb Pot: A Quick & Easy Job For The Weekend
This is a quick and easy way to bring spring colour to any garden, but time’s running out and you really need to do this now.
You’ll Need:
Large Flower Pots (bulbs need to be planted about 3-4 times as deep as the bulb is tall, so you’ll need a pot large enough for your largest bulbs) – I used troughs, but that’s just personal choice.
Crock (for drainage)
Compost or soil
Bulbs of your choice (in my case daffodils, tulips and crocus).
First place the crocks and a layer of compost in the bottom of the pots.
Now place the first of your bulbs, in this case my daffodils were the largest of the bulbs I had so they went in first.
Cover these with soil. You can leave the tips of the bulbs showing in order to help with placing the next layer of bulbs. In this case, tulips for me.
Again cover with soil, and repeat with the final layer of bulbs, in my case crocus.
Cover with soil, and gently firm the top. I leave a gap between the top of the pot and the soil to make watering easier.
Now place in the garden where you want them for the spring. Job done.
I used a mixture of daffodils (about 15), tulips (again about 15) and crocus (about 40). I bought mine from the local farm shop, because it allows me to support a small local business, plus they are cheaper than the garden centre and I can buy them loose or already bag. They were 60p/lb (450g) for daffodils, £1.75 for 20 crocus, and £2.50 for 15 Tulips.
They should bring some colour from late January right the way through to May. When they finished flowering the pots can be moved from the garden, but they need to be stored in sunlight in order to allow for the bulbs to recoup the energy expended in flowering. Leave the greenery on, as without this recharge the bulbs will not flower next year.
Marwood Hill Gardens and Tapeley Park
We’ve just come back from a week in Devon. The weather was showery but that didn’t stop us visiting a couple of the gardens in the area that are still open to the public. Most are seasonal and close at the end of September, but a few remain open until the end of October. Two of these are Marwood Hill and Tapeley Park. Both are quite small, and you can easily get round them in a day.
Marwood Hill.
This small garden is focussed around a large pond, with a variety of areas, and a number of national collections (see their website for details).
Tapeley Park
Broken into a number of different areas, including a kitchen garden and a permaculture garden has its main focus around an Italian themed garden.
Finally is anyone able to help me identify this plant? I assume looking at the flower type and leaves that it is a member of the Lily family, but that’s about as far as my skills are able to take me.
Splitting Time Between Allotment and Writing
If you follow me on twitter or know me in real life, you’ll know that next weekend I’m heading off to Bristol for CrimeFest. Consequently this means that I’ve been trying to get all the work on the allotment and in the garden that I would normally do in two weekends, squeezed into one.
Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, as to be honest leaving things for a week doesn’t normally cause too many problems. Having said that, when I went down to the allotment yesterday I noticed that my gooseberry plants have quite a bit of fruit on them already, and there’s a chance that if I didn’t cover them up I could loose the crop to the birds.
Birds have an uncanny sense of knowing exactly when the fruit is at it’s perfect moment of ripeness, and then manage to strip a plant clean without so much as a second look.
So I decided that I would net the fruit bushes before next weekend, otherwise I might be too late, and miss out on this years crop. I suspect I won’t, but am not taking any chances!
Electronic Scrapbook 