Horticultural

My raised bed floweth over (if only)

Ask me what I want for Christmas. Go on. I know it's early yet, and Santa's barely roused from his summer slumber (or so I keep telling my children), but I've already planned it out. I'd like a towering pile of well-rotted manure, a 20kg bag of biochar and as much Rockdust as the reindeer can haul.

When I had an allotment, I took it as a given that the soil covering my modest five-pole plot the guts and structure for the job. Every year it produced fat pumpkins, trugfuls of beans and tall sunflowers, provided I kept the rampant weeds at bay. I knew I was lucky: I just didn't know how lucky (this must be the reason why my home county of Bedfordshire has historically been such a centre for veg growing). When I moved house and gave up that plot for an 80ft-long garden, still in Bedfordshire, but not blessed with quite such a fine tilth. The back section is given over to a shed-cum-greenhouse, two compost bins and two wormeries, a couple of regular beds and two 2mx2m raised beds, each about 50cm tall, built just before my son was born three years ago (see right for them in their unfilled state).

I knew the theory that the soil would need improving, but the reality of placing raised beds on previously unimproved soil has been chastening: it's like the moment as a new parent when, about two weeks in, the novelty of being woken at night fades and you realise what the phrase "sleepless nights" really means.

However much organic material and nutrients I pour into those beds, the level lingers stubbornly a finger's depth from the lip. The soil I've got isn't bad, but there isn't enough of it. In idle moments I picture it brimming gently over the top like a pint of Guinness being poured: that's the kind of deep, humus-rich, moisture-retentive environment I'd love for my hungry fruit and veg. But as fast as I throw in wormcasts, homemade compost, spent compost from containers, mulches of grass cuttings and cardboard, the beds seem to soak them up. A few days of sunny weather and the raised beds are drier than an Amish birthday party. Courgettes and beans struggle: lettuces aren't the puffy quilted jobs I remember from my allotment, and rhubarb stems wilt without warning, even under the cool shade of the nearby plum tree.

The more I grow, the more I realise one thing, long known by everyone from Lawrence Hills to Prince Charles by way of Michelle Obama and Raymond Blanc: it's all about the soil. If you've ever been on one of the many allotment forums and read plot holders merrily promoting Jeyes Fluid for "sterilising" the soil of pests and diseases, you'll know what a long way we've yet to convince all gardeners how important those bacteria and organisms are. Alys Fowler reminded me of this in a recent column: one which received the most feedback I've ever had for her writing for the Guardian: in Heart and Soil she wrote about the healing powers of getting your hands dirty, both mind and body. I've put the book Teaming with Microbes: The Organic Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web by Wayne Lewis and Jeff Lowenfels  on my Christmas list so I can learn more.

My raised beds are a work in progress: Alys tells me they will reach a tipping point where the humus levels out. Everything I've tried so far - green manures, mulches of corrugated cardboard and grass clippings, rockdust, biochar, and lashings of wormcasts and homemade compost - are all working, but it'll be a while before I have won. I can't afford - and don't really wish to - repeat the exercise of buying in a bulk bag of peat-free vegetable compost to shortcut the task, and anyway, it probably wouldn't work as well in the long term as my slow but cheap solution. If anyone has any top raised bed-filling tips, please shout. I'll try anything, provided its organic.

I do have one tip for impatient gardeners like me: if you have a wormery, and grow potatoes in containers or sacks, here's something to save you time and money. If you're anything like me, the bottom tray in your wormery may look nearly ready for harvesting, but when you delve below the top centimetre or so of wormcasts, you find lots of lumpy bits and a few worms roaming around. When it comes to potato harvesting time, add a square of corrugated cardboard at the bottom of your sack, builder's bucket or pot to absorb any excess water and stop it running out of the holes too quickly, then tip the contents of the wormery tray, worms and all, on top. Add a layer of bought-in peat-free compost, say 10cm-deep, then add the seed potatoes and more compost as usual, earthing up as the plants grow. Shove more cardboard sheets around the sides of the pot if you can, too. By the time you're ready to harvest, the worms will have finished work, the cardboard will be almost gone and the wormery's contents will be completely broken down, barring a few eggshell fragments and the occasional rogue avocado seed. And you'll have well-fed spuds, beautifully clean easy to store.

 

I've been recording my yields from container potatoes for the past few years and since I started this technique, my harvest per container has roughly doubled in weight terms.

Hits and misses of 2012

Early September is a great time for a quick retrospective on the hits and misses of the 2012 growing season. Given the sodden weeks of early summer and the slug and snail apocalypse, it's a wonder anything has grown, but there were a few bright spots here and there.

Plug plants

I got sent two sets of plug plants by Unwins to try - Campanula 'Iridescent Bells' from Unwins - I can't show you a picture because all three plug plants got munched by slugs despite my best efforts, and the plant is no longer on their website. I had more success with Agastache 'Blue Fortune': one of the three plugs didn't survive the slug onslaught, but the other two made it through to flowering (pictured left). These are definitely a keeper: the pollinating insects love the blooms, and the leaves are edible, too: they taste like licorice in leaf form, and I am now addicted to munching them at every opportunity. I am not sure whether to keep them in a container or plant them out in the border, but I think I'll keep one in a container as an insurance policy against pests.

Seeds

Other sacrifices to the slugs were my Zinnia 'Queen Red Lime' seedlings, from seeds provided by Thompson & Morgan, and Tithonia 'Fiesta Del Sol' from Higgledy Garden. I had a bit more success with T&M's Nasturtium 'Troika': I liked the variegated leaves and it made good ground cover but didn't really do what I want it to - climb up this willow obelisk with the mangetout pea 'Shiraz' also from T&M. Most of the 'Shiraz' got munched by slugs (notice a theme developing here?) and the 'Troika' didn't seem to want to climb but the plain-leaved climbing nasturtiums grown from seed from Lidl did a bit better. Oh, and my Mina lobata seedlings grown from seeds from Higgledy Garden got smashed by hailstones, and replacement plug plants from Sarah Raven never got past a few inches tall. All in all, I just wished I'd put sweet peas up the obelisks as I'd done the previous year with great success.

Tomatoes

I was very restrained in my selection of tomato varieties to sow this year, sowing just two: the yellow cherry 'Sungold' and the bush tomato 'Bajaja', both from T&M. 'Sungold' lived up to its reputation as a sweet little performer, and 'Bajaja' was shaping up nicely into a big (80cm across) plant until a couple got hit by blight: the 'Sungold' wasn't affected. A couple of plants of 'Bajaja' weren't too badly affected but the big disappointment was that the little red tomatoes just didn't taste very nice: especially when compared with 'Sungold', which were little balls of sweetness that exploded in your mouth. I've just been sent some organic 'Sweetie' tomato seeds by Unwins who have recently teamed up with Garden Organic on a new range of organic seeds. They're definitely on the list for next spring, but can they beat 'Sungold'? I'll let you know this time next year!

 

 

 

 

 

Astrantia 'Shaggy': with thanks to Margery Fish

I discovered today that the Astrantia major subsp involucrata 'Shaggy' - a much-loved plant in my garden - is also known by the far more pleasant name 'Margery Fish'. This sent me scuttling to my bookshelves in a hunt for one of my favourite old books, Cottage Garden Flowers, by Ms Fish herself. She loved Hattie's pincushion, as astrantias are also known, and had this to say about what presumably ended up as what we know as 'Shaggy':

A very interesting and unusual variation of Astrantia major is found in cottage gardens in parts of Gloucestershire. The bracts are pale green, about three times as long as in the normal type, and very shaggy. I have never been able to find any name for this truly decorative flower, nor does it seem to be included in any dictionary. I have been given a plant and I hope it will increase and seed itself as generously as the ordinary Astratia major does.

It's lovely when the pieces of a plant's story begin to fit together like a jigsaw. If Margery Fish is a new name on you, do look her up - she was a great plantswoman who had a fascinating life and championed many cottage garden flowers that were seen as unfashionable before she came along. And her book 'We Made a Garden' is a study in what happens when both halves of a couple have different views on the garden! Check out her biography on the website of her gardens at East Lambrook in Somerset, which are still open to the public: there's a review of the gardens on the Galloping Gardener's blog. She was also responsible for naming a number of other plants - see this page on the East Lambrook site for a full list.

But back to my astrantia. I love the purity of the green and white, but I do also covet the darker varieties, such as 'Venice' and 'Hadspen Blood' which always look so good in Chelsea show gardens. Mine are planted in quite the wrong place: full sun and soil that dries out easily, but this rainy weather has seen them right this year. Perhaps I should move them to a shadier spot in the winter, though - or perhaps divide and move the divisions. Any tried this and got some advice?

Why, garden? Or, onions and verbascums are enormous

The world is just a great big onion
 and pain and fear are the spices that make you cry
Oh, and the only way to get rid of this great big onion
Is to plant love seeds until it dies, uh huh

What was Marvin Gaye on about, eh? I have no idea, but there's no need to have such a downer on a big onion, Marv!

Sorry for the silly start to this post: this song's been my earworm companion for a while and I am hoping this blogpost will help to extract it.

Anyway, back to this particular onion. I had real struggles on my old allotment with onion white rot, but since I moved my veg growing operation to raised beds in my back garden, overwintered onions go like a dream (they like the good drainage, I think - except where they were planted in ground containing too much fertiliser, which resulted in some bull-necked onions - a lesson learned for the next planting come autumn).

In the self-sufficiency stakes, my fruit and veg harvests are a drop in the domestic ocean: they do taste good, and save some food miles, it's true, but it's the physical and mental benefits of gardening that I treasure.

I don't think it's an overexaggeration to say that the bouts of gardening time I manage to snatch inbetween work and childcare are absolutely vital to my mental and physical health.

It doesn't really matter if I am growing food, like the overwintered onion, or growing verbascums from seed like these 'Snow Maiden'*. What is it that makes gardening so pleasurable? At their most negative, many of the tasks I enjoy (sowing seed, watering, pruning and taking cuttings, for instance) could, as Anne Wareham has pointed out in her book The Bad Tempered Gardener, be described as "outside housework". So why doesn't cleaning the bathroom give me such deep joy?

With two small kids, gardening time is stolen time: time when I can do things my way, have time to think and nurture something that won't answer back or throw porridge at me. Like cleaning or washing up, gardening is cyclical and routine-forming, but every year is different and there is always more to learn: whereas the washing up is always just the washing up. Perhaps if I was miraculously able to spend five days a week in my garden, it would start to pall, but I don't think so. I think I'd get even more addicted. It doesn't help that my job means I spend my working day thinking, reading and writing about my hobby, too.

My latest love is verbascums - so easy to raise from seed, I have discovered, which means lots and lots of plants for not a lot of money. And they're a bit of a revelation in the garden. They like my dry, sunny border and have made vertical vapour trails of blooms that gave some much-needed height to the whole thing. I am also growing the delightfully furry V. bombyciferum  'Silver Lining' (yellow flowers, a bit like a giant lambs' ears before the flower spike heads skyward) for my gravel garden. And finally, I got plug plants of the orange-flowered 'Clementine' from T&M, which so far have been rather weedy in comparison, although I like the dusty orange of the flowers - the benefits of growing from seed yourself are that plants don't get so much mollycoddling at the start, and so the shock of moving from pot to open soil is not so great.

Fortunately, the 'Snow Maiden' are also perfectly positioned to draw attention away from the disaster of what are meant to be two obelisks full of sweet peas. More like a couple of straggly stems and two flowers, right now. Compare this to last year's glorious sweet peas they're an embarrassment. But, like I said, every year's different. This year is the year of the verbascum. And not just big onions, but alliums of all kinds. More of which, another time.

 

 

Side passageway at sunset: what no Nicotiana scent?

I like this shot because not only do the big leaves of the Nicotiana sylvestris look good under the light, you can also see the silhouette of the plants on the green roof at the end.

This part of the garden has been an object lesson in the benefits of "backdoor gardening" - because these beds are literally outside my back door, I spend lots of time tending them. It's also interesting to compare this picture with one of the same scene from May.

The only minus is that the nicotiana smells of precisely nothing: I even got the other half and his rather more sensitive nostrils to confirm my fears for me.

On the wall you can see the second of my "controversial" mirrors - safe to say this one's just about as unpopular as the other. It breaks up the fence screening, though, doesn't it?

One thing: where's all the delicious night-time nicotiana scent I was promised? Perhaps this little cold snap means the scent isn't wafting as it should. Oh, who cares, they look great and I have a terrible sense of smell anyway.

 

Chicken keeping: dos, don'ts and should Is?

I’ve been researching chicken keeping for over four years now and I still haven’t taken the plunge.

I could easily buy one of those cheap flatpack coops off the web, or splash out on an Eglu if I’m feeling flush. So what’s holding me back? I’m convinced of the benefits of back garden chickens: endless supplies of rich manure to boost my compost heap, the entertainment of watching the birds, teaching my children the responsibility of looking after animals, and of course the fresh eggs.

It’s the downsides I am worried about - greedy chooks trashing my veg patch, the ever-present threat of fox attacks, and the extra drudge of feeding and coop cleaning on top of the domestic demands of looking after two kids under five, for starters. And the myth that I am going to save money keeping hens is quickly dispelled by adding up the setup costs: hundreds of pounds for a decent coop and run, not to mention the cost of feed. (From my years of research one good piece of advice I’ve often received is this: don’t buy one of those cheap flatpacks - mites love setting up home in the felt roof and they’re far too flimsy.)

Then there’s where to put them. There is an obvious spot in my garden, tucked behind the office in a sheltered corner, at the moment just rough grass in the wake of our building project. But that will mean careful design to make it look good. I guess there's the option of putting them on a putative allotment plot, like Ryan, but I don't think I'd be able to get up there enough to keep them fed and watered (Ryan, how do you do it all - haven't you got a horse too?) And I need to be careful in my choice of breed, too – ideally I want something that won’t be able to negotiate the 1m-tall picket fence into the veg patch. Brahmas, or Buff Orpingtons, maybe? Any other suggestions welcome.

I did take a detour for a few months into the world of quail, after noticing that Omlet, who make the Eglu, also do a version for these tiny birds. But there seemed to be so much contradictory advice out there – some said they’re noisy, some reported them to be quiet as mice. Others warned of cannibalism and other nastiness between birds, but some found they all rubbed along nicely. The main attraction was that unlike chickens they weren’t amenable to free ranging, and they were rather more low maintenance. But the very helpful @Chickenstreet on Twitter persuaded me in the end that if I was going to go for poultry keeping, chickens were far more interesting and rewarding.

Chicken keeping has grown hugely in popularity in the last few years, but are some people leaping into this hobby without fully absorbing how grim they’ll feel getting turfed out of bed at 7am on a rainy Sunday to feed and water their charges?  I’d guess a fair number of the secondhand Eglus for sale on eBay are being sold by people for whom the work involved outweighed the fresh eggs.

And me? I still plan to become a hen keeper, but I think I am going to wait until my toddler has realised that bird poo isn’t one of the major food groups.

I'm in love with a roving sailor: Saxifraga stolonifera ‘Maroon Beauty'

Saxifragas were one of those things that I used to get excited about when perusing my copy of DG Hessayon’s The Houseplant Expert as a kid.*

I’d never thought of them for outdoors, aside from my much-loved (and neglected) Saxifraga x urbium 'Variegata', but when I spotted Saxifraga stolonifera ‘Maroon Beauty’ at the Wrest Park garden show earlier in the year I had one of those “it will be mine!” moments that will be familiar to any plant enthusiast.

It’s a low-ground ground cover plant with fleshy, hairy leaves that likes shady conditions, and the fleshy leaves compare favourably to other foliage plants, heucheras say, for interest. My only concern is hardiness. The woman on the stall – I forget which nursery it was – assured me that hers had bounced back from the harsh winter, resprouting readily in the spring but time will tell.

One of its common names is 'Roving Sailor', because they spread by runners (strictly speaking stoloniferous plantlets, I think): mine’s already made four or five new plants (one is visible in the shot above) from its spot in the side passage with no effort from me, and free plants are always good.

It's a good job that this plant is happy in full shade as my saxifrage is about to be completely covered by the rapidly burgeoning leaves of my soon-to-flower Nicotiana sylvestris - pictured here at half its current size in the bit (not big enough to earn the title of 'border') on the other side of the passage, with Garrya elliptica 'James Roof' and some honeysuckle behind.

I put these in a bit late, really, but they were an impulse buy** having read m'colleague Lia Leendertz’s book The Twilight Garden, in the hope that the scent would mitigate against any potential whiffs emanating from our nearby wheelie bins (they're disguised with a rather stylish wheelie bin cover but that doesn't contain smells).

 

*Talking to James Wong at Chelsea this year, we discovered a mutual childhood enthusiasm for this book – I’m glad I wasn’t the only one with a square pastime aged 10. James used a lot of plants you’d see in The Houseplant Expert in his 2011 show garden, such as pileas. I’ve asked my mum to root out some photos of me with my plants as a kid, as if you need some proof. Stand by for some seriously embarrassing images ...

**From an ebay seller called seed-feeder who I’d highly recommend. They don’t have anything for sale as I type but the large plugs I bought were very healthy and well packaged, and I am kicking myself for not buying several things from them this summer.

 

Sowing flowers from seed: successes and failures

My brain is currently a grab-bag of blogposts: of all sorts of bits and pieces. Blogging's had to take a back seat to all sorts of things, not least changing numerous nappies, replacinga broken dishwasher, fridge and DVD player, reading The Tickle Book over and over and OVER to my 1-year-old, and making lots of jam from my Victoria plums.*

Here's the first brain dump. I wrote a while back about how I've been growing a lot of things from seed to save money, so I thought I'd tell you a bit about what worked and what didn't.

The Cerinthe purpurascens seeds from T&M all germinated with ease and produced attractive plants (pictured left) just right in temperament for my rather dry big border, and loved by the bees - the only wrinkle was the packet was a bit measly, although each seed was huge, almost pea-like. Given that this is a good self-seeder I am hoping it will spread copiously, and I'll probably help it along by saving some of the seed myself to sow next spring.

Another banker has been the verbascums, now settling in nicely to the dry border and destined to provide spires of white blooms ('Snow Maiden') next summer. What's so great about growing verbascum from seed is that ALL of them germinate, so you get hundreds of plants - and they're pretty tough even from a young age so any underwatering is quickly forgiven. Next year I'd like to try a pinky-red one from seed, like 'Cherry Helen', but so far I've had no success finding the seed.

Cenolophium denudatum, on the other hand, was a disaster. Got two seedlings from the whole packet, which when planted out promptly got munched by slugs. Clematis hieraclifolia, courtesy of Everett Leeds of the Clematis Society, so far so good - half a dozen plants from a similar number of seeds, all young plants now in situ(pictured above) and I'm hoping for a good show from this unusual herbaceous clematis. (Never heard of it? It is scented and needs no support, apparently. Will keep you posted).

Honesty seeds collected on my travels and scattered liberally about the garden should fill some more gaps, while I am encouraging my Briza media to self-seed for similar budget-busting gullness. One busted flush was the eryngium seeds I tried - possibly too old, I suspect.

*I wrote about how this tree was sulking after pruning two years ago - the commenters were right, I didn't prune in 2010 and this year it's been happy as larry, producing a top harvest of big, juicy plums.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, are you lovely or actually rather horrible?

Mirrors, the experts advise, are great in gardens. They give the illusion of extra space, bounce light around and add depth. I am not a big fan of the ones that make you think you're looking at an open door or window, but I can see how these acrylic sheets would look great behind trellis.

They're going on the Christmas list, but right now, in the wake of the bank account-draining activities wrought by the building of a garden office and buying lots of plants, it's a question of picking up what I can in junk shops and the like for a few pennies (also greener too, I guess).

This was my first effort - a "fisheye lens"-type mirror bought from a charity shop for a fiver. It was already painted this way, which fits with my colour scheme - perfect! Eventually it should be wreathed in honeysuckle and clematis, but for the moment it's hanging from the trellis reflecting the sweet peas on the other side of the patio. I did buy another one - a Rennie Mackintosh-ish mirror with a stained glass frame, also for a fiver - but it was so gorgeous I have hung it inside. Now I am looking for some full-length mirrors for the side passageway as suggested by the Stopwatch Gardener.

There's one fly in the ointment. My other half hates the above mirro with a passion - before we went on holiday he said he was hoping someone would steal it while we were away. What do you think?

On the verge: why my garden can't possibly live up to the delights of the A421

I am not such a great driver right now. Whenever I am on the road, I keep getting distracted by the verges, like this one on the A421 towards Cambridge.

I could bash on about how nature does it so much better than us, but you've probably heard that all before. It is interesting, though, how similar some road verges are to some of the planting at Chelsea this year, as Alys Fowler pointed out to me when I bumped into her at the show. I keep seeing amazing specimens of milk thistles (I think), but not in places I can stop the car!

It's the fullness, the boldness and the sheer exuberance of the poppies lining this drainage ditch that I want to recreate in my own garden. And on my green - by which I mean still mostly brown - roof. I am hoping that through my complete lack of intervention, something wonderful will happen up there and I'll end up with a lovely motorwy verge-style display to be enjoyed from my bedroom window. Perhaps today's rain will get it on its way. Otherwise I shall have to publish a rather ridiculous thing that's been rattling around my head the last few days, a sort of sub-Muddy Waters number entitled "I Got the Green Roof Blues".

Anyhow. Having long since run out of money for new plants for my still yawningly empty beds, I have resorted to sowing lots of perennial seeds, as I have already said. For some reason that's mainly verbascums right now - who knew they were ridiculously easy to grow? Cenolophium denudatum, on the other hand, scorns me. As does Eryngium bourgatii and some unusual clematis from Everett Leeds of the Clematis Society. Humph.

So the verbascums will have to do for the minute, but I am taking inspiration from the Leeds City Council garden at Chelsea, which featured them along with British native fox and cubs or Pilosella aurantiaca. I've already got P. aurantiaca up on the roof, will have to consult the green roof literature and see if the verbascums will have a chance up there, too...