Thursdays Top 10 Tryouts (Or Show Us Yer Tips)!!

1. Seedlings & Damping Off - Keep your pots or other containers in trays with no drainage holes. When the seedlings need water, add it to the trays until it has soaked upwards into the pots/containers. This avoids watering over or around the seedlings, reducing the risk of damping off.

2. Before buying those packets of seeds you want, check the packet to ensure the seeds are still "in date" and also check the amount of seeds you are getting in each packet. The amount of seed can differ widely from one supplier to another.

3. Check those seed potatoes for diseases whilst they are still chitting. Discard any damaged, rotted or diseased ones, don't be tempted to plant them.

4. During cold weather fill your watering cans with water & keep them under cover (i.e. in your shed). This should keep the water a few degrees warmer & avoid "shocking" plants when you water them, especially seedlings.

5. When you are walking on wet soil or clay (bad habit) use walking boards to avoid compacting the surface.

6. Thoroughly clean & disinfect pots, trays & containers before sowing or transferring plants into them.

7.Certain seeds, such as Parsnip, Pumpkin, Peas, Beans can be soaked in water overnight before sowing them, to aid their germination.

8. There is still a risk of frost through to April/May in U.K. so keep cloches & other plant and seed covers handy "just in case".

9. Spend an afternoon at your local garden centre or nurseries to pick out plants to fill those gaps in your garden borders. Herbs can be a useful addition as well as bedding plants.

10. Save that out of date beer & larger left over from Christmas, for later use in "beer traps" as a defence against slugs.

A Lazy Weekend

Although higher, the temperatures are not consistently high enough yet to risk any significant sowing or planting outside, so I decided to take a break from the plot at the weekend. Saturday was sunny & warm all day and Sunday, although a little cooler was nice and sunny again. By 2pm on Sunday my resistance broke and I toddled off to the plot without a plan of action. I spent 3 hours weeding my second Strawberry bed, earthing up the plants & removing their dead foliage, damaged by the recent frosts. The temperature had lowered quite a bit again by the time I had finished.

Peas Waterlogged from Cold = Germination

An extremely heavy frost came again overnight last night, so I was glad that all the seeds I have sown into pots, trays & other containers were all still protected, either in my shed, cold frame or greenhouse. I had 2 smug feelings. One that most of them were already germinating & two, I had not yet manufactured a poly tunnel carbon footprint. I was back down the plot mid-morning & got to work sowing 2 rows of lettuce, (1 row of mixed & 1 row of crisp head). I covered 50% of each row with a cloche, leaving the other two, 50%'s open to the elements, so that I could monitor the difference in germination times. I then sowed 2 more rows of peas, (Hurst Greenshaft), in situ in my legumes bed.

160 Cabbages Germinating in Cold Frame

Then I lifted & potted 3 Gooseberry plants I had layered and planted 1 cutting to add to my 3 existing plants. This done I potted 5 Quince seeds from an old plant in my back garden and finished off the potting up, with 30 cucumber seeds (Marketmore), which will be kept inside until the weather warms up. My shed needed tidying up, from the clutter that's been accumulating there over the Winter, by the time I had moved the clutter around, without achieving a great deal, the thought occurred to me that I needed to build a bigger shed.

Almost forgotten from last October. I had a few carrot and lettuce seeds left over which were going out of date. I sowed these, covered them with cloches over the Winter and uncovered them today. Not a lot of Carrots but enough for a meal and the Lettuce are "picking up" well as the weather gets warmer. Think I will be making some more cloches for this coming Winter.

Carrots & Lettuce 20th February (Not Bad)

 

Well I suppose there's always tomorrow!!

Bee Aware Now (Gardens & Allotments Everywhere)

My Allotment is now prepared for this coming seasons sowing & planting so as I sat around, getting bored, waiting for the right time to start, I was pondering the well publicized decline of the Bee (and other insects) populations. What can gardeners do to offset this decline, when we have to protect our much treasured, fruit, flowers and veggies from the myriad of insects that would devour them before they have reached maturity.

One method of defending our beloved plants against attacks by the BBB (BAD BUG BRIGADE) is to reach for those sprayers, fill them with chemicals of varying descriptions & liberally spray everything in sight. Yes everything, including the kitchen sink into which the unused liquid is poured, perhaps, & where the spray containers are washed out, after use??

So what could I, you, us, they, do to lessen the threat to the insects that help us in the garden & down the plot. If you have read thus far, please remember the following, don't just go with the flow!!

1. Grow resistant strains of plants.
2. Use Organic methods of pest control.
3. Aphids & Other insects can be washed off plants with water or rubbed out by hand.
4. ALWAYS read the instructions on sprays, chemicals etc.
5. Avoid spraying plants that are flowering.
6. Spray late in the day but not when it is windy.
7. Spray plants that are actually affected by the baddies, not everywhere.
8. Grow plants that will attract predators of the insects you are trying to eradicate.
9. Attract other wildlife into the garden or onto the plot, such as frogs, toads, hedgehogs, slow worms by providing a suitable habitat for them.
10. Finally, when you have time, do some research into which "safe" sprays to use? 

 To Bee or not to Bee:  quote from a confused Bee.
                                                                                                                                                                             

Now I Know I'm Not Getting Too Old

Howard was a  Sleeping Beauty

Slumbering in the dark recess of a shed was not the thing for Howard. He felt useless, discarded and uncared for. I woke him from his sleep last Autumn and after some maintenance, cleaning and a little tweaking he was as good as new, well almost. Late Autumn and over the Winter was the first time I had used a rotavator, preferring to use spades and forks up until then.

I have been informed that Howard is a (Batam) but I'm not yet fully convinced of that. Due to Howards' age most of his identifying marks have long since disappeared, except for some engine specifications on the side of his bodywork.

The carburetor was replaced along with the spark plug and a new throttle cable was added. The original tyres were completely perished and were discarded in favour of metal treads welded onto the wheels. The original tine guards corroded away many years ago and were replaced by pieces of aluminium bolted onto the bodywork.  Some of the tines will be replaced later this year, but at the moment, Howard is working well, starts first time and is a brilliant economical recycled workhorse.

I have been researching the Howard rotavators, on the internet but if anyone has any information they can enlighten me with, about the specifications of this particular model it would be much appreciated. 

 

Snow Ploughs Redundant Now

Snow snow all around but not a flake fell here. Horizon to horizon sunshine until it was dusk yesterday, allowed me to get the final 2 planting beds rotavated. Although the temperature was not much above freezing the soil was dry & manageable enough, "fining up" nicely as the rotavator got to work.
The Mustard sown on one bed, as green manure, was turned in, with the excess being transfered to the compost heap. The second bed had the horse manure, which had been left on its' surface, turned in also.

On completion of the rotavating, both beds were raked over and leveled, drawing the soil up the slight slope.

First batch of Sprouts & Tomatoes

The allotments were deserted & looking pretty dismal as I left at about 4pm & a light drizzle had just started with snow forecast for overnight. It rained for most of the night which put paid to any further work down the plot today. An uneventful and dreary week, apart from the fact that my Tomato, Runner Beans and Peas have all germinated. The tomato plants have been pricked out into individual pots and transferred to the back of my garage to stop them slightly, hopefully preventing them going leggy.

1st Runner Beans up and running

Hopefully there's always tomorrow!!

A, F - F - F - F - F Day

A, F - ine, F - rost, F - ree, F - ifth - of - F - ebruary  my condolences to everyone still suffering from the recent frost, ice & snow.

As I ventured down to my allotment this morning, the weak Winter sun was struggling to shine through an overcast sky. The overnight rain had ceased and the recent frost was gone. The sub zero temperatures of late had risen & it was a pleasant February day.

New Blackcurrant Bush

Only 2 of my fellow allotment holders were in attendance when I arrived at my plot. The ground was still damp from the overnight rain but the frost had done its job & broken all of the recently turned soil down well, on the planting beds.  Around the shaded areas of the plot (frost pockets) the soil still contained traces of frost under the surface & the drainage ditch at the lower end of my plot was still frozen over, sheltered from the sun by the hedgerow close by. To my surprise I had one extra Blackcurrant bush growing from a cutting I had "stuck" into the ground last Autumn, which was well in bud.

After opening up my cold frame, containing several trays of peas (Hurst Greenshaft) sown in compost, to "air it out", I trimmed back the dead foliage on my Lemon Balm & Mint. I found several Ladybirds sheltering in the balm. The dead foliage was deposited onto the compost heap, along with the kitchen waste I had brought with me. Then it was time to hoe & weed one of my Strawberry beds. Although I was using a scaffolding board to stand on, to do this, the soil was too wet to work, so I removed a few weeds which I could reach from the path, cleaned some pots & left for home.

Lemon Balm & Mint Cut Back

Of course there's always tomorrow??

Grow some Ice Plants

Tis Wednesday 1st Feb 2012 & I've just got back from the plot at midday having decided it was a bit too cold to do much today. A big mistake as the sunshine is now blazing through my window as if to say, "get on with it".

Anyway the heavy frost of last night has now melted away and at least I got a couple of photographs of Jack Frosts' "Ice Plants" he left behind last night on my cold frame?? They should be good for overwintering extras.

Ice Plants Probably??

Smaller Ice Plants??

There's no accounting for some imagination I suppose.