Category Archives: Garden

My Patch – A Garden update: March 2019

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With the days getting slightly longer I feel like I have started to achieve some small things with the garden this month.  Its starting to take shape a little bit…

March 1st – this afternoon a couple of the daffodils and one of the crocus looks like they are nearly ready to flower 🙂 Some of the others though are just starting to show through the soil.  At least I will have plants at different stages of flower for the bees.  The seeds I ordered from Emorsgate have arrived 🙂 

March 5th – I cleared some space in the glasshouse.  Its rather an abandon structure where some of the occupants of the house store items that are no longer of use rather than disposing of them! Its amazing how much space you can create when you organise useful things and recycle unwanted boxes! 

March 6th – one of the daffodils in the front garden is flowering.  

March 8th – there appears to be a lot more cuckoo pint in the garden this year, both in the raised bed and in the ‘woodland’ area. 

March 11th – Last summer there was no garden waste bin at the patch, it had been decided by the owners that items can just be thrown over the fence and into the field!  Some of the items did break down, others which were more woody didn’t.  I managed to convince them that it really isn’t the best idea throwing everything over the fence, although some things are sort of okay!  This evening while I still had some light, I filled the newly emptied garden waste bin with items that are still lingering on the other side of the fence!  There is still a lot to remove but at least now the bin is being emptied every two weeks everything that cannot be put in the garden compost can now be collected. 

March 13th – In the week I bought two packs of greenhouse racking/shelving to put my seed trays on, tonight I put together one of them.  Thankfully it fits on the table okay and I think the other one will fit alongside it once some more of the items located in the glasshouse are taken to the tip.  I managed to sow my cowslip and rudbeckia seeds before it got too dark.    

March 14th – this evening I sowed some more seeds: sweet marjoram, sweet basil, borage, sweet peas, wild teasel and sunflowers.  I still have more to sow!

March 18th – this evening I cut back a rose that was, well, a little out of control, I think it is a climbing rose but there was only one stem and it was about 10 foot long!  I’ve cut it back to a bud point and hope to do something with it to control it a little.  I had a little wander around the garden and have noticed two of these growing in the garden.  

At the moment I’m not sure what it is, I guess I will have to wait for the leaves to unfurl to try and find out.  

I also found these, which I think are glory of the snow, I’m not sure where they came from as I haven’t planted them but they look very pretty in the raised bed and they are welcome flowers when there is very little else flowering at the moment.  I managed to sow three more trays of seed; garlic mustard, birdsfoot trefoil and ox-eye daisy. 

March 21st – I have assembled the second set of racking for the glasshouse. Tonight both cornflowers and common fleabane were sown.  I have a horrible feeling the racking is going to fill up rather quickly!  

March 22nd – The borage is sprouting eight days after sowing! 🙂

March 25th – This evening in the glasshouse I have 51 borage, 2 oxeye daisy, 7 sunflower, 36 birdsfoot trefoil, 2 rudbeckia and 30 sweet pea 🙂 now all I have to do is not kill them! 

March 26th – today I also have 4 Marjarom which have come up.

March 27th – after spending some of yesterday evening making newspaper pots, this evening I have potted on 41 sweet williams, I have also sowed mint, Italian parsley, thyme and love-in-a-mist.  I have now run out of seed trays! 

March 28th – potted on another 23 sweet williams – somehow I need to create more space in the glasshouse, I hope having another tidy next week might clear part of one of the other sides.  I now have some teasel and cornflowers which have come up.  The sweet peas are now about 1 inch tall!  I’ve never grown anything but sunflowers from seeds before so I’m rather pleased with what I have managed to grow so far 🙂

March 30th – I decided to ask Twitter what my mystery plant is which is growing in the raised bed, TimM kindly replied and said its a buddleja.  I guess because it is smaller than the ones I was gifted I just didn’t recognise it.  I also didn’t think I would find them growing in the garden!  From having none last year, this year I now have five!  

My Patch – A Garden update: February 2019

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As January ended in light snow, February began with a thick covering, approx 8cms!  Now the weather forecasters hadn’t predicted that much, so I was very pleased I moved all the pots into the glasshouse! 

February 8th – The first batch of daffodils planted are now doing really well and have been joined by the crocus’ which were put in pots.  In the raised bed the snowdrops are in full flower and the hellebore that no-one has ever seen flower is showing nicely 🙂  

February 15th – more plants are starting to emerge in the ‘woodland’ area, snowdrops, cuckoo pint, what I think are bluebells, the crocus’ I planted and also the first lesser celandine I have seen this year.   Its the part of the garden which has received the least attention and it seems to be happily developing on its own.  The buds on the goat willow tree are beginning to open. 

February 17th – my sweet william’s need potting on again so today for the first time I made some newspaper pots!  They are so easy to make and seem to function well enough.  I have only made 15 so far as I want to see how well they are doing in a couple of weeks time before I make more and pot the rest of the plants on.   

February 19th – I had a short window of light after work today so I pruned the climbing rose on the right hand side of the shed.  I still need to get more wire attached to the wall but the rose is ready to be attached once it is done. 

February 22nd – I had today off of work with the sole purpose of cutting back the hawthorn hedge. 

Now I would have just taken a bit off of the top but two out of the three people that live there wanted it cut down to the top of the fence!  I didn’t get the whole of the hedge finished as I needed some assistance cutting the thicker branches with loppers, as the loppers kept breaking!  What I did manage to achieve was saving the hedge from being hacked off with a chainsaw and cut to the same height as last year.  I have cut the tallest branches to a few inches higher than last year, cut the thinner branches back to bud points and managed to save the side of the hedge which faces the field from being cut at all! – normally it gets hacked away so the top of the hedge can be reached!  I do however think the best option for the hedge is for it to be layed.  It has been cut back so much that the main growth doesn’t actually start until about 3-4 foot up the main trunk.  I am hoping that it thickens this year but I’m not holding out too much hope 🙁

While having a break from cutting the hedge I noticed flowers starting to open on the Lily of the Valley bush, just in time for some of the insects who have started to appear in the garden.

February 24th – today I ordered my wildflower seeds from Emorsgate Seeds 🙂

February 26th – tonight we put up another nest box, hopefully they will like the location – the guttering needs fixing and a water butt fitting to it! 

My Patch – A Garden update: January 2019

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I know everyone says January is the best time to plan your garden for the year because you are looking at it in is barest form.  I think I have a plan for this year, well I hope I do!  I want to try and expand on last years plans and have more flowers and wildflowers in the garden. I have a plan of growing all the plants in trays to start with as I don’t feel they did very well sowing directly onto the raised bed last year, though I might be proven wrong and end up with no plants at all!  This year I also want to grow sunflowers and rudbeckia again but I might put most of the rudbeckia in pots so they don’t take over the beds which aren’t really wide enough.  I plan to have lots more pots in general so I can distribute more flowers to different areas of the garden patio and overall increase the number of plants for the insects.  Again this is all going to be trial and error and I will be making notes as I go so I can adjust next years plan to be more effective again.  

January 1st – I potted on some of the sweet williams into larger pots as they are growing well. 

January 11th – one of the snowdrops is flowering in the garden 🙂 the rest are still really just emerging.  The one which is in flower wasn’t moved last April so I guess it is more established than the rest.  The first batch of daffodils I planted in pots are starting to show and the Cuckoo pint has just started to come through.  

January 18th – I cut back the leaves of the hellebore as I heard on ‘The Garden Log’ podcast that he had been cutting his back.  I like to listen to it when I’m at work as it brightens up my day 🙂 I also started to prune one of the climbing roses which is on the shed, it still needs a bit more work done to it and also needs to be tied back into the wall, though I need to attach more wire to the wall first.  I hope with the roses having a bit more attention this year they will cover the wall more effectively.  

January 31st – As the weather forecast had predicted snow I decided it would be wise to move all the pots I had in the garden into the glasshouse for a little protection.  I’ve not dealt with snow and plants before so everything that was small enough to be moved was!  I think they all appreciated it! 

Compost Bin – it is slowly starting to look a little like compost at the bottom but I have figured out it isn’t being turned often enough.  Part of the problem is I can put the fork down into the bin, I am just too short to be able to actually turn it!  I always have to ask for help!  It was being turned once a week, it was upped half way through the month to twice a week but I think really it should be being turned each day!  A lot of vegetable peelings are added each week, I’m actually thinking of getting another bin so new matter can be put in a separately bin to allow the current one break down fully.  

I am looking forward to next month as it starts to become lighter and I can start to spend short amounts of time after work in the garden – the lists of tasks to complete is growing daily! 

My Patch – A Garden update: November & December 2018

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I thought I would combine November and December’s garden updates due to Winter being a quiet time in the garden…

November

This year I concentrated on the right hand side of the garden and rather neglected the left.  The left side consists of no beds at all; there is a whitebeam tree planted in the patio and a few pots containing, mint, rosemary, Penstemon ‘Pensham Plum Jerkum’ and Choisya ternata.   There are bird feeders and a bird bath, the birds always feed from the feeder on the left side first.  I think this is because of the extra cover the whitebeam tree and next doors hazel provide.  On the other side of the fence there is also hawthorn hedge that I am yet to cut back as I have read they should be cut once dormant and that is in mid-Winter; the birds like it for darting up into when they get spooked.  

December

I have done some ‘tidying’ of the garden.  The tomato canes have now been taken down and stored in the greenhouse.  I discovered two hazelnut saplings in the raised bed so they have now been transplanted to a large pot.

I have collected all the leaves and put them in an old water butt that has a leak so they can decompose / be added to the compost bin as required.  I have ‘weeded’ the raised beds, pruned the roses and planted daffodil bulbs in pots for spring – there will be more flowers in the garden next Spring than there was this and hopefully they will help support the early emerging insects 🙂 I have sown yellow rattle and lady’s bedstraw in the garden and found a buddlea in the bed which has been relocated to a pot.  I have found more pots, some of which I have washed, but there are still lots to do.

I have been given two very small buddleia by my Auntie as she had a few that self seeded in the garden.  I have decided that they should be kept in pots as I don’t have a lot of bed space! When they are big enough they are going to live on the left side of the garden.     

I have been looking at some wildflower seeds to order for next year:
Borage – The flowers replenish their nectar regularly so they are great for the bees and other pollinators.
Birdsfoot trefoil – is the burnet moth’s principle food plant, I have no idea if we have any burnet moth in the area but I am willing to provide them food 😉
Garlic Mustard – to encourage orange-tip butterflies
Cornflower
Red Campion
Wild teasel – as they are popular sources of pollen in the summer and when they got to seed the birds will like them too 🙂

What I also want to do is take a look at the insects that I have photographed in the garden this year and find out what their principle food plant is, I can then help them by planting more of what they like.  So far I have researched…

Small Magpie moth – stinging nettles, less often mint and other labiates – we have mint and lots of stinging nettles in the field.

Mother-of-Pearl moth – Stinging nettles

Buff-tip caterpillar –  Deciduous trees; most frequently on sallows, birches, oaks and Hazel (Corylus avellana) – there is hazel in the garden J 

Red admiral – common nettle

Green-brindled crescent moth – caterpillars feed on a variety of trees and bushes, including hawthorn and blackthorn.  There is plenty of hawthorn and some blackthorn in the hedgerows of the field 🙂

Mint moth –  caterpillars feed on various Labiatae – we have Mint in the garden but I plan on sowing more.

Although I have been looking at what I can plant in the garden, I hope to also plant some of the wild flowers I grow in a small patch in the field / road verge. I will be buying them from Emorsgate Seeds so their origin can be traced to sustainable UK sources 🙂 If anyone has any suggestions of other wild flowers I should definitely grow please let me know in the comments or via Twitter. Thanks 🙂  

My Patch – A Garden update: October 2018

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The garden has certainly started to die back, there are still some plants holding on and as of October 23rd there are still, rudbeckia, cosmos, cornflowers and a yellow flowered plant (I have no idea what it is!) still in flower, and in some cases in bud!  This month I have been thinking about next spring and what I perhaps need to start doing now…

October 7th – I potted on half of the sweet williams, as they were looking a little compact! I ran out of seed trays and peat free compost! I wasn’t expected quite so many of them to germinate, I think I’ll be giving a quite few of them away next spring!

October 10th – I collected more seeds from the flowers that are slowly going over. I have been collecting seeds when I notice them and just putting them in envelopes to dry. Tonight I sorted them out properly and they are now labelled correctly. Some however I have no idea what they are, not because I have forgotten what the seeds are, but more the fact I had no idea what the flower was to start with. They are still on the to be identified list from the summer!

October 11th – There are still a lot of ‘weeds’ appearing in the raised beds so I removed a few this evening while I still had enough light, I would like them all removed so they don’t re appear next year!

I turned the compost tonight, well, I turned some of it!  I’m a bit short to reach the bottom of the bin so will have to ask someone a bit taller to do it for me! I think it’s going okay, I’ve never had a compost bin before so it’s a wait and see experiment. It’s had lots of material added to it, though I think it could do with some more leaves as it’s all been quite green at present. 

October 16th – We put up an RSPB diamond nest box on the wall where much of the Jasmine has been removed.  Earlier in the year fledgling wren’s were seen there so I thought a box should be put up for them to roost in over winter just in case they used the Jasmine last year.  I have seen birds leave the leafy part of the Jasmine so I hope they like it.  

October 20th – I potted on the rest of the sweet williams 🙂 

October 22nd – I’ve planted some crocus in the ‘woodland’ area.  The snowdrops that I moved in April are growing – I only know this as I accidentally dug a few up when making holes for the crocus! They were quickly put back in. I think I need some bulb markers!

October 23rd – I sowed 3 sweet chestnuts seeds in a pot. I figure it is worth a try, if they germinate then I will have trees to plant out in a few years 🙂  

My Patch – A Garden update: August & September 2018

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August

I like how the garden looks in summer but the amount of patio is starting disturb me!  There just seems to be so much of it which is not covered in greenery! Seeing this is only one half of the garden and the other half is all patio I find it even more disturbing! 

I was hoping by the end of August the patio will have been concreted – since it was cleaned there are now huge gaps in between the slabs that concern me, they are more than big enough for a hedgehogs leg to fall down!  However I have only managed to complete half of it  and unfortunately I don’t think the rest of it will be done this year!  

I have found some of the taller plants have needed to be staked up this month as they have been falling over onto the shorter ones.  The method I have used this time is to just put a cane at the back of the plant and use some twine to wrap around the plant to hold it up.  I might have to look for a better method for next year.  I have removed some of the leafy weeds that have been taking over the garden, I don’t have any idea what they are but they have gone as they just seem to be smothering everything else! 

August 1st – a small purple flower has been teasing me all summer, its either a bud or a seed head and its taken me ages to figure out what it is…well I think I know what it is… a perennial flax.

August 8th – I sometimes get a small helper in the garden!  He sits there looking grumpy until he gets cuddles and then thinks its helpful to use the raised bed as his bathroom facilities!! There’s a field behind that fence – why can’t he use that!!! 

August 14th – I have been around the garden this evening and deadheaded the roses.  I keep forgetting to do them so tonight they have all been cared for.  I have also been collecting some seeds from the plants that have been going over. 

August 21st – I’m rather pleased with the tomatoes, I have never grown them before and there seems to be loads of fruit forming on them 🙂

August 27th – I have been gifted a couple of lavender plants, they will have to live in pots as there isn’t really any where for them to go in the garden but at least the pollinators will appreciate them when they have grown a bit bigger.

August 29th – I had to cut back some of the jasmine tonight.  It was on the list of things to do but the task had to be brought forward as the brother of my friend decided he didn’t like it dropping water on his head and took a chainsaw to it!  I was going to cut it back so that it would have the best chance at flowering again next year but I don’t really know how it is going to do now 🙁

August 31st – I ordered a compost bin so I can make the most of the ‘waste’ from the garden 🙂

September

September 2nd – Last month I sowed some Sweet Williams and they have sprouted 🙂 

September 10th – I cut back some more of the Jasmine, half of it has now gone! 

September 12th –  I trimmed back the hedge at the front of the garden and collected up the fallen blackberries for the birds.  I removed most of the brambles from the front garden as they were running very wild and tangling themselves around everything, they were newly established so thought it was best to get them removed before they took over entirely! The ivy has started to flower 🙂

September 17th – I’ve had to pulled up a few of the leafy ‘weeds’ as they seem to have taken over again!  I really hope they aren’t so much of a problem next year! Also I have had to relocate some of the daffodil bulbs as a certain four legged creature has broken the pot they were in and dug them up! He wasn’t admitting responsibility!  

September 20th – I have been tidying up the jasmine by pulling out the wilting vines which we cut off the other week.  It still needs to be reduced and weaved into the arch way to make more of a feature out of it.  It has become obvious as it has been cut back that it has been winding its way into the cables for the house which has made it a little more difficult to deal with. It has however started to sprout at the base again so I am hoping that the new growth can be weaved into the trellis on the wall and then managed as it grows so it doesn’t become unmanageable again.     

September 27th – The jasmine was finally fully cut back tonight, I feel awful for it!  I just hope it does okay over winter and bounces back next year.

My Patch – A Garden update: June & July

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When I last wrote about the garden on May 27th it was still looking rather unloved, as you can see over the summer it has been developing rather well 🙂 

I was concerned that I would only have a sparse covering of wildflowers this year, I was partially right.  Now I planted half of the garden a few weeks before the other half and with a different brand of seeds, so, there are a lot of variables to take into account.  The part I planted first really took hold and is full of greenery with some flowers in bloom.  The other half, well, its more soil than it is greenery!  Some ‘things’ have grown under the roses but I’m fairly sure they have naturally occurred and are not what I sowed.  I have left them as at least its vegetation protecting the soil from the intense heat – I am yet to investigate what they actually are, mainly because they are all leaf!

As plants have been flowering I have been taking photos and doing my best to identify them, so far I think I have: Red Dead-nettle, Great Willowherb, Love-in-a-mist, Corncockle, Cornflower and Hollyhock.

and lots that I still don’t know what they are!

The stinging nettles haven’t come through the fence as much as I thought they would, so have not been too much of a problem, but the ivy is starting to come in again and bind weed has been untangled from a sunflower!  The Velvet Queen sunflowers are doing really well and are still flowering.  

The sunflower seeds that I sowed back at the beginning of June have grown into strong plants and have been planted out into the garden, I actually had more than I expected and a few are in pots.  The birds have also been helping to grow sunflowers and I had two spring up that are doing really well, other smaller ones have been eaten by the slugs and snails.  To help with this issue I ‘collected’ the snails that I could find and took them on vacation; out into the field! 

What I have noticed about the garden is the section by the pond is in a lot more shaded than I initially thought it would be, this could be part of the reason why there is very little growth occurring there.  Next year I either need to sow plants earlier or I need to make sure that only shade loving plants are put there.  I’m not sure what route to take yet, I want to see what they do during what’s left of the Summer/Autumn. 

I have also relocated all of the pots to one location in the garden, it makes them easier to water and also adds more greenery to the borderless sections.  I have a few plans for developing it further next year to add more flowering plants and already have a very small lavender that is destined for one of the currently empty pots! 

One of the things I like about working in the garden is the sense of achieving something. If it’s 10 mins looking after the tomatoes or 15 putting supports in for some of the flowers you can see what you have done. After a long day at work feeling like you have been wading through mud it’s nice to have a sense of achievement at the end of the day. 

30 Days Wild 2018 – Day 19

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I was stuck at work a little late tonight, so for 30 Days Wild I headed out into the garden for 20 minutes and rep- potted the three remaining tomato plants that were still in their seedling pots. I now have a collection of 13 plants dotted around the garden that I’m hoping I can keep alive! and have lots of tomatoes over the summer 🙂

The sunflowers that I planted on Day 04 have grown to a great size in 2 weeks. I’ve potted them on and staked them with sticks that broke off the tree in high winds. I’m going to wait to put them into the garden until they are much bigger in the hope that the snails won’t eat them!

30 Days Wild 2018 – Day 12

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In the 30 Days Wild pack this year Wildlife Trusts kindly provided a bio-degradable paper full of wildflower seeds.  If you have been reading my ‘Patch – Garden’ posts this year you will know that I have been granted permission to add a little bit of ‘wild’ back to it.  I sowed seeds back in May and they have now started to grow.  I do have a few patches where the seeds didn’t germinate so today I have sowed the seeds provided.  I’m hoping by the end of August all the flowers will have matured and there is a border of wildflowers.  Unfortunately I wasn’t able to sow them all at once back in May, so I think there will be a gradual flowering along the border as they mature.  Of course I could say I did this intentionally so that the pollinators have more flowers in bloom for a longer period over the summer 🙂

30 Days Wild 2018 – Day 04

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This evening I sowed more sunflower seeds, I did have about 8 plants… until the snails ate them!

I decided I would plant shelled seeds and un-shelled seeds just to see what happens.  Now I wasn’t sure if I should plant the seeds standing up or sideways, I decided on sideways as I wasn’t sure which way was up! 

I stole the seeds from the bird food – they seem to be able to grow them quite successfully under the bird feeder so I thought I can’t go too wrong!  I’m hoping they will start spouting in the next couple of weeks.  Then all I need to do is protect them from the snails and all will be fine!  I want to plant sunflowers all along the fence, so that once they go over the birds will be able to help themselves to the seeds in Autumn.