Realm of the Ice Queen

This time last year

According to the TV news and weather people this time last year we were basking in temperatures of around 70F – Today it is a smidgen (technical term) over freezing. We woke up to yet another covering of snow and a biting cold wind from the east. Looking on the Met Office website my planned week of gardening may be spent in front of the fire instead;

“Scattered wintry showers, especially in the east, some turning heavy towards midweek. Widespread, penetrating night frosts, locally severe.

Snow Primroses

Outlook for Wednesday onwards; Some sleet or showers are still possible in the east but these will tend to ease. Staying generally cold or very cold with widespread overnight frosts and bitter winds. Rain, locally heavy, probably spreading into southern areas from around Saturday next week and turning to sleet or snow as it moves northwards, giving further snow accumulations in places. Cold or very cold at first, but temperatures recovering to nearer normal across southern areas during Easter weekend.” (http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/uk_forecast_weather_noscript.html)

Brave or foolish

Out in the garden a few spring flowers have braved it but nowhere near as many as you would expect at this time of year. 

Like many other gardeners I am frustrated by the continuing cold, unable to get out and get planting. In the greenhouse some broad beans are hiding in tubes of compost waiting for spring warmth. Last year I had already planted raspberries, taters, strawberries, asparagus, broad beans, spinach, carrots, parsnips, beetroot and herbs. At the moment on the allotment there is a row of onions hiding under a cloche and the resident fruit bushes, asparagus and strawberries toughing it out.

January and March are the same

A new life awaits

Its just by the door!

I mentioned the broad beans in tubes of compost – they are toilet roll tubes filled with compost. It made me think about the great tradition of recycling in gardens and on allotments. In the past allotments were filled with wonderful home made sheds, usually made form old doors and cast off windows. Which of course could make an allotment site look like a shanty town if done badly but done well it added character and colour to allotment sites. All manner of things were recycled to make plant supports, plant protection and even seating. Today because owners of allotment land want things to look tidy and uniform and because of an increasing need for security the makeshift sheds have been replaced by mass manufactured ones but the inventiveness of plant supports and other structures remains the same. On a smaller scale it is in seed raising that recycling is particularly useful. With so many plastic containers and food trays being unrecyclable (in this area at least) they get re-used a few times before finally heading off to landfill. The square deep boxes that mushrooms come in are useful for seeds or in the kitchen for vegetable trimmings before composting. The rectangular deep fruit boxes are good for seeds because they have drainage holes in already. Cress containers can be used to grow more cress or similar seeds. Milk containers make useful scoops or funnels. Large clear fizzy drink bottles are very good – cut off the bottom to make individual cloches; cut in half lengthways, cut off the ends and make a manageable length of pea guttering; if you cut fins in them they can be used as spinning noisy bird scarers. No end of assorted household items get used for storage of garden sundries, particularly if they have lids to stop spillage. I think nearly all gardeners use egg boxes for chitting potatoes and I'm sure they have other uses too. As well as household items gardens themselves would be recycled with prunings of hedges and bushes being used as plant supports or protection the following season, plants composted and grass trimmings or swept leaves used as mulches. Perhaps all this recycling and being in tune with nature is why so many gardeners are happy contented people when out on their plot.

Fashion Victims

A Frozen Start

Well with the weather reverting back to winter it has been all systems stop in the frozen garden here. Siberian then Arctic winds, snow, sleet hail, frost and sunshine all in one week! Wildlife doesn't know whether to start nesting or hibernate. Today I drove part of the way to work on frozen snow covered lanes, came home in glorious sunshine. Next week apparantly it is a return to milder but wetter weather, for a few days anyway.

I have been looking at the trends in gardening for this year, for those fashionistas who see gardens as something which has to be changed like a wardrobe of clothes. We can easily ring the changes with annuals, providing your local garden centre follows trends – most of them seem to follow tradition. I tend to think of an ornamental garden as something more long term, allowing shrubs, trees and perennials to settle and establish themselves not be uprooted just because they have become last year's fashion.

Brave Little Dafs

I saw somewhere that Tree Lillies are fashionable this year, providing you can give them the warmth and shelter they need. As they are perennials will they survive or even be in fashion next year? According to one webpage 'Bright Jewel' colours will be in fashion – a great relief for flowers, heaven help us when beige flowers are invented!

Fashionable Jewel colour?

Last year apparently saw an upturn in the popularity of wildflower meadows and this trend is set to continue as part of the general trend for wildlife gardening. This would also tie in with two other trends; one for more naturalistic and native planting schemes. Naturalistic is a bit of a misnomer isn't it, they need to be managed as much as any other style of gardening otherwise it is just an unruly mess. Planting with native plants better able to cope with our bizarre climate is a better idea, less of those fussy, tender, demanding foreign plants will make life a bit easier. With this trend in mind the people at Miracle Gro have come up with a great idea, a variation on their 'Patch Magic' lawn seed this is Flower Magic. In a plastic container they have mixed flower seeds with coir compost and plant food. All you do is prepare a bare patch of earth and scatter it on, hey presto a flower meadow, or if you prefer colour co-ordinated flowers they do pinks or blue and white mixes. I like the sound of it – the garden anarchist in me can see it being used all over the place – writing messages on lawns, or in fields, or creating a piece of art visible from the air!

No way, not even indoors

The other trend is for tactile gardens which encourage us to 'engage with our gardens' and not just walk through them. Engaging with my garden usually means getting down on my knees and weeding – cant get much more engaged than that! I read that there is set to be a rise in the use of 'tactile trees and shrubs' – does that mean getting groped by a Garrya or fondled by a Fagus?!! Perhaps I'll plant a tactile tree and see what happens.

As is often the way when in recession people become nostalgic and this will be reflected in a trend for Victorian styled pots, planters, cloches etc. If people can't afford new nostalgia then recycling will become more popular with all sorts of thing being turned into planters, ornaments, seating, decorations and anything else that they want to make the garden look like an artistic scrapyard.

Shock the neighbours

The grow your own movement may well suffer a wobble, some are predicting an increase in GYO because of hard times. Whilst others are saying it may decrease because of last years dreadful summer and so many failed crops will put off novice growers. An interesting thought is that people will start to grow edible hedges due to foraging becoming trendy. Great for the birds if the hedges are left when that fashion fades.

Stylish recycling

I have never really followed any fashions, I very much doubt I will be jumping on the trendy gardening band wagon. No trees covered in old cutlery masquerading as art, no old toilets used as quirky planters, and we won't be having a fire place installed in the garden either! (supposedly big in outdoor living this year) Non tactile shrubs wont be uprooted in favour of more sensual ones. Bright coloured flowers will not be replaced by jewel coloured ones – hold on aren't they the same?! No I'll just do my own thing as usual.

Walking and Thinking

Cley Marshes

  On the one really sunny day I rebelled against gardening, partly because I had seen the forecast for next week and didn't think it worth getting excited about planting lots of seeds and I am still waiting for the allotment to be rotavated. So I went for a walk, which is why this week's post is called Walking and Thinking, although most of my thoughts weren't worth writing down really!

Beyond saving

Small but perfectly formed

Towards Salthouse

Stonechat

Here on the North Norfolk Coast when it comes to places to walk we have great variety – woodland, heathland, marshes and seashore all in one area. For my walk I think I can say I did all of them, although the woodland was very small. In the warmth of the sun it really felt as if spring had arrived, I was even fooled into believing in the spring when I heard a skylark above my head, although the lack of spring flowers proved this was a false dawn. 

This area is known for its bird life, we get twitchers here all year round. I saw an array of garden birds, blackbirds, bluetits, great tits, robins, dunnocks, starlings etc. as I went up the track towards the woods, adding in farmland birds – pheasants, partridge, pigeons and crows. Then off to the marshes where I saw a stonechat & his mate, curlews flying overhead, snow buntings, lapwings, goose-duck things (I am not a very skilled ornithologist) and assorted waders in the pools. The sea was flat calm and the sun grew hazy with the mist in the air. 

Enough of my waxing lyrical the pictures do it far more justice.......

Goose-duck Things

 Last week I said..... “Now it is officially spring I hope the weather is going to start warming up properly, next week is looking hopeful but we've all been there before – alternating weeks of cold and mild weather” 

Am I allowed to say 'I told you so' ?

We had a few good days and now it is getting colder, today it is cold and foggy and next week  snow and freezing temperatures again!!

Surely one day the warmth will stay.

A New Passion

I am running a bit late this week – I spent most of the week working on my garden design for the RHS/BBC One Show garden design competition. I had an idea when the competition was first announced which featured birch trees, then I downloaded the plant list and found Birch trees were not allowed. After a lot of thought I changed my design to use fruit trees, although the effect is nowhere near as good. I don't have high hopes for my design because I didn’t have good software to create the design, I used programs I found online and they didn’t have half the plants I wanted so I had to improvise. I looked online to buy a garden design program but not only are there very few available but they are not very good and too old to run on windows 8! Well it kept me out of mischief for a while.

I am planning to get out into the garden this weekend, once I've done the housework! Now it is officially spring I hope the weather is going to start warming up properly, next week is looking hopeful but we've all been there before – alternating weeks of cold and mild weather. It will be good to get out there and get digging again. 

Phalaenopsis in flower now

Rescued from the compost bin

When I was at work recently I went to put something in the rubbish and spied something very lovely shivering on the top of the compost bag. A healthy Phalaenopsis Orchid. It still had the faded remains of a couple of flowers on it but the leaves and roots looked very healthy. I couldn't resist it so I gathered it up, saving as much special compost as possible, popped it into a bag and brought it in from the cold. I have cut off the defunct flower spikes, repotted it and now it is sitting on the living room windowsill next to another rescued specimen which is in flower. That's four rescued orchids I have now, the three older residents have all flowered at some point since last summer. The only down point is that they are all white and I really want a purple one! 

My best bloom

It got me to thinking about the rise in popularity and availability of orchids these days. Once the domain of specialist collectors who lavished care on them in specially constructed orchid houses they have now come into the wide world. Admittedly they are mainly the common Moth Orchid (Phalaenopsis) which are really easy to grow and look after (as I have demonstrated) but it could start  a new passion for plant collectors.

New Cambria Orchid

I splashed out on a new Cambria (Vuylstekeara) Orchid, with very pretty flowers and a delicate scent. This is another variety which is easy to look after, come in many different colours and are becoming widely available in high street shops. I have also purchased a book on how to look after orchids. I have found that although there are many which are difficult to look after, still the domain of dedicated specialists, there are many easy specimens available but I will probably have to go to an Orchid specialist if I want any of these in my collection. The problem is where to put them! Some like it hot, some cooler, dry, damp, bright light, lower light – this will severely limit the choice of new arrivals, not matter how lovely they look. I think we'll need a bigger house! 

Right now for  - housework, garden centre then gardening if there is time!

Good Companions & Mortal Enemies

No fighting in the ranks!

As gardeners we cannot be on patrol all day every day to keep pests at bay. Encouraging wildlife into the garden is one step to help, another is companion planting. It is a concept many people are familiar with but don't always put into practice. Companion planting works in different ways, growing plants which deter pests, or those which attract pests away from the crops or encourage beneficial insects which will feed on the pests either as adults or larva as well as pollinating crops. However some care needs to be taken because there are some plants which should never be grown together.

Some of the most well known combinations are French Marigolds among the tomatoes, they exude a strong odour which repels aphids (and me!). Alternatively you could plant Basil with the tomatoes because it attracts whitefly away from the tomatoes. Herbs make very useful companions around the vegetable patch, something obviously known by those who cultivated pottager gardens with their wonderful mixes of flowers, herbs and vegetables. Some of the most useful are Coriander to repel aphids; Marigolds (Tagetes) also repel nematodes as well as aphids; Mustard is a trap crop to attract pests away from crops; Yarrow attracts hoverflies which prey on aphids. Those are multi use herbs which will grow happily with most plants.

Artichokes keeping watch

Others work well for specific platnts; Cabbages can be protected by Chamomile, Dill, Hyssop, Mint, Nasturtium, Oregano, Rosemary, Sage, Southernwood or Thyme (not necessarily all at once!). Beans benefit from planting Bay, Petunias (not what I would call a herb), Rosemary or Summer Savoury. Carrot root fly can be deterred by planting Rosemary, Chives, Sage or Wormwood nearby. It seems that a good idea would be to grow an assortment of herbs all round the edge of the vegetable plot or allotment to give multi purpose protection for everything against everything else. Just remember to keep the Carrots away from the Dill, Alliums away from beans. Bear in mind that Hyssop dislikes Radishes, as much as Rue dislikes Sweet Basil and Cucumbers don't get along with Sage either. Of course if you are going to protect the cabbages with mint remember to keep it in a container otherwise it will take over the whole plot! Don't bother with Fennel – it dislikes nearly everything!

 

Mix in the pot not on the plot

It is not only some herbs and vegetables which don't get along, there are some vegetable combinations which should never be grown together. This is largely because at least one party involved will give off chemicals from their roots or foliage which the other does not like. This usually means that seeds may not germinate or growth will be inhibited. One of the big incompatibilities are all legumes with all alliums. Other common enemies are Cucumber and Potatoes or aromatic herbs; Potatoes and Squashes, Tomatoes or Sunflowers; Tomatoes also dislike Fennel and Brassicas. Runner beans dislike Beets, Kohlrabi, and Sunflowers. Tomatoes and Cabbages don't get on but usually the tomatoes are enclosed in a greenhouse or against a sunny wall so they are not likely to cross roots.

There are a great number of happy combinations to be had too, which is a relief really!

Just how close is too close?

Asparagus may not like being moved but it enjoys the company of tomatoes, parsley and basil. Beans (apart from Runners) tend to like anything which isn't from the onion family, Runners like Corn (Maize), Summer Savoury and Radishes though. Cabbages are ok next to Alliums, Celery and Beets but keep them away from the strawberries. Carrots, Radishes, Strawberries, Cucumber and Lettuces are compatible too. There are many other companions and enemies, look them upon the internet.

One of my least favourite plants turns out to be one of the best for repelling aphids and root flies, nematodes and slugs as well as a number of invasive weeds – Tagetes Minuta (Mexican Marigold). They give off chemicals from their roots and leaves making them very useful to gardeners, if you can stand the smell!

So with companion/enemy planting and crop rotation this vegetable gardening is getting very complicated!! I shall have to draw up some sort of chart – I may be some while..........

A Prickly Issue

A Familiar Visitor

Our gardens are havens for us but how much of a haven are they for wildlife? Many people will plant flowers for bees and butterflies and put out nest boxes and food for birds. The most attractive and visible visitors are well catered for which is really good because despite gardeners best efforts many species of birds and insects are still in decline. One of the most dramatic declines in recent years is not a bird or insect but a mammal, the hedgehog. With numbers in decline for many years, down by 1/3 from 2003 – 2012 alone. Its decline is put down to various factors such as habitat loss, poor management of hedgerows, and the fragmentation of habitat because of building developments and new roads isolating any hedgehogs in the vicinity. Even the sad sight of a squashed hedgehog on the road has become less frequent. In an effort to help them people are taking action. One initiative from the British Hedgehog Preservation Society is called Hedgehog Street (www.hedgehogstreet.org) which offers advice on helping hedgehogs, including linking gardens by making a small hole at the bottom of a wall or fence to help them get around. There is much that we gardeners can do to encourage these visitors back to our gardens such as providing shelters for them to hibernate in and ensuring there is a good supply of food for them.

We want more of these!

In contrary to a gardeners natural instinct we should be encouraging slugs and snails to help our prickly friends (and others). Every gardener know how difficult these pests are to get rid of, they like damp dark areas to hide in, so keep a damp dark area just for them. To protect plants from their voracious appetites sacrificial plants or crops could be sown (Lettuce seeds are still very cheap). Vegetable crops can be protected in various ways, lots of different things can be used a barriers eg; soot, wood ash, egg shells, plastic bottle cloches etc. The one thing I would never use are slug pellets. The widely available ones which contain Metaldehyde may not have been proved to directly kill hedgehogs (some hedgehog charities would disagree there) research suggests that they would have to eat a large amount of pellets or dead slugs to kill them but it may act like rat poison and prevents them from breeding successfully. Slug Killers containing Aluminium Sulphate are deemed to be safe to use by Hedgehog charities. The preferred methods of despatching these slimy pests are using a beer trap or picking off and disposing of or putting down a hollow grapefruit half to shelter the slugs so they can be disposed of.

Another Gardeners Friend

The good thing about making a garden hedgehog friendly is that other slug and snail predators such as frogs, toads, centipedes, ground beetles, sloworms and fireflies will also be happy to visit your garden, particularly if you also provide suitable habitats for them too. So keep piles of leaves and old wood, create a beetle bank, make a small pond, use bundles of short pieces of cane to make homes for ladybirds and lacewings and use chemicals sparingly. Growing early or late flowering plants will help insects preparing for or emerging from hibernation. It is worth leaving some seeds and fruits where they are growing for the birds to enjoy, a pile of windfall apples is welcomed by blackbirds, thrushes and insects.

Add all these to the bird feeders and wildlife friendly plants and maybe if enough people do it there will be a turn around in the fortunes of our garden wildlife.

Rural vandalism

One final thought – I saw that the local farmer had been trimming the hedgerows around here. I know that there are miles and miles of hedges to trim and farmers are very busy people and need to do things in the most time and cost effective way. But is this sort of vandalism really necessary?! Imagine if we did the same in our gardens!

The North Wind Did Blow....

Which way is North?

And we did get snow, sleet, hail and rain. Here on the North Norfolk coast when the north wind blows it is clean and very fresh as it comes directly from the North Pole (well the Arctic). That's about 3000 miles according to my measurements on Google Earth! There are trees sculpted by the wind to verify this.

Having had such an icy blast has curtailed any thoughts of work in the garden or allotment. So instead I visited a couple of local garden centres instead. Mostly on reconnaissance to check the prices of things like canes, fleece, polythene and netting a necessary job when working on a tight budget. Seeds were on offer with 20% off. With the high price of seeds that was most fortunate!

Wind sculptures

In an earlier blog I mentioned getting some different varieties of vegetables such as red broad beans and purple carrots. Well I was so shocked by the prices that my plans rapidly changed. I bought just one brand in one shop so I have since looked on line to compare prices of various brands and vegetables. Then I had fun with a spreadsheet! The results were interesting. I chose twenty three different vegetables and herbs, usual allotment or garden standards; - various legumes, brassicas, roots and tomatoes, varieties which were sold by all suppliers or in a few cases the nearest equivalent. I chose to compare Suttons, Thompson & Morgan, Fothergills and DT Brown. The most expensive was Fothergills at £45.75 for everything (followed by T&M then Suttons) and DT Brown cheapest at £34.67, the only one to come in under £40. However you get 7618 seeds from Fothergills as opposed to 7483 at Browns, the lowest amount was 7268 from Suttons. The amount of seeds in a packet varies, but the biggest variation is in beans and peas; with Broad Beans (Bunyards) going from 30 in a pack with T&M up to 65 in a cheaper pack from Browns. A variation of 25 to 30 seems normal in packs of beans. It was harder to compare peas (Hurst Green Shaft) because one company sold theirs by weight but the others ranged from 250 to 400 per pack. The most expensive Beans (Cobra) were £3.65 for 70 from Suttons, only £2.39 from Browns for the same quantity. Best value for money are T&M Nantes Carrots £1.99 for 2000. At the other extreme the worst value for money are squash seeds; Pumpkins come in at £3.69 for 8 seeds from T&M that's a whopping 46p each seed. If you prefer Butternut squash go to Brown's; ten seeds cost a mere £1.89 – or you could by a squash in the supermarket have some delicious meals and keep the seeds (that is my option!). I haven't considered retailers own brands because they don't necessarily have the same number of varieties as dedicated seed companies. Everyone knows it pays to shop around and that new varieties tend to cost more initially but this unscientific bit of reasearch really highlights the need to be wary. I didn't need many seeds this year but in future I will compare prices more thoroughly, although I think I know where I will be buying seeds next time.

A change of plan

Having paid out for the seeds there is then the problem of what to plant them in – proper seed compost or ordinary multi-purpose (without added food or water retaining granules). I usually have some multi-purpose around so I always use that, picking out any lumps or woody bits. I usually have success, any failures are usually because of something I did or didn't do. A fellow allotment holder spent a lot of money on proper seed compost last year, watered everything and waited for life. Results were poor, many of those which germinated succumbed to damp off and had to be replanted or replaced with ready grown plants. The compost developed a crust on top, a problem which can be alleviated by watering from below – standing the seed trays in a gravel tray is one possibility but then the seeds will be standing in water which would lead to death too!

There is an alternative to buying seeds and that is to buy plants instead (the costs of which I haven't done a spread sheet for!). Interestingly they are always in plugs filled with ordinary compost not seed compost. In some cases this may prove worthwhile if you don't need or want to grow large amounts or your seeds have succumbed to damp off. The drawback is that the plants may then fall prey to slugs, snails or pigeons and it will be too late to buy anything else. 

I suppose the final possibility is to allow some vegetables to run to seed and gather these, keeping costs down to a minimum.....