Back Again

Following a long period of the real world getting in the way of the project, work has resumed again. There have been a few surprises and disappointments.

The old gooseberries that we pruned to within an inch of their lives and cordon trained have performed superbly and are producing some decent sized fruit.

The late spring and cold nights during April and early May have delayed things somewhat, but things are moving along at a pace now. The tall Victorian pea varieties and onions and shallots are growing quite happily and the brassicas and broad beans are looking good apart from being bent by rain of biblical proportions.

The biggest dissapointment so far has been the mystery creature that ate a whole bed of Fennel on Friday night / Saturday morning. It is definately not rabbits as there were no tracks or droppings. Pigeon has been ruled out as the plants were quite large and were eaten off in one bite. We know Muntjac deer have been seen locally and maybe it was one of those, its a great pity the venison steak would be to small.

Busy week continues

Some of the planting stations for the tall heritage pea varieties are now completed and only require planting out. If the resultant crop is as good as the last time we grew them it will be worth looking forward to the wonderful taste of these peas which make modern varieties seem very bland indeed.

The Guard Cat

One of the menagerie on the lookout for the pesky pigeons, chance would be a fine thing.

Busy week

This week has been a very busy week on the veggie growing quarter. The chameacyparis elwoodii are now reduced to a manageable size although they will probably need removing entirely next year.

After an awful lot of very deep digging, a painstaking task because the area was infested with a lot of perennial weed such as dock and horsetail the new rhubarb beds are now planted and mulched down with a thick layer of well rotted manure and straw. The plants were a mixture of old existing plants that we have divided and some new stock that we grew from seed a couple of years ago. All we now need are some Victorian rhubarb forcers (dream on).

Hopefully this will produce a good crop of rhubarb next spring.








The Morello cherry that we planted last year is now training nicely against the cooler wall, eventually we hope to have a row of trained wall fruit here.

Its also been a big sowing week, the season being so late this year following the harsh winter. Soil temprature is now ok for outdoor sowings and so far we have sown broad beans, parsnips, radish, salad greens. To fill the space in the border against the wall we have planted the first of the cauliflower, sprouting broccoli and lettuce.

The axe falls

Clearing work continues and the old chaemacyparis elwoodii are now reduced in height.

This will hopefully allow far more light to reach the back of the veggie quarter. Fingers crossed there will be some regrowth and they can then be clipped into a dividing hedge.

The big problem now is removing all of the resultant rubbish. Clearing work will continue this week removing self set trees and cutting down some extremely tall laurels.

ultra cheap hedge fund

We have now started replacing the box hedging around the open quarter that is going to be used for this years veg crop. The box plants were aquired from Freecycle and have covered a considerable length.

We will leave the plants to establish through the summer and start to trim and shape them next year. Not bad for free.

The first of the digging has started on this quarter although it is very slow and painstaking work due to an infestation of dock and horsetail. All we can do this season is to fork out as much as possible and treat with a stump / deep root killer where there are no crops.

Rhubarb, Rhubarb, Rhubarb

Rhubarb, what better title can you think of in the run up to a parlimentary election. Going to spend more time in the walled garden to avoid all the interminable media coverage spouting party dogma.

Marxist blah blah blah. Thatcherite blah blah blah. We have not formed a government for 60 years blah blah blah.

Only one things for certain we will be personally worse off.

Going back to talk to the veggies.

Gooseberry day

Saturday 3rd April 2010

Gooseberry Day

We have resurected some very old gooseberry bushes (we did not find any babies underneath them).

We have removed all of the old wood and growth from previous years and Fan trained the remaining growth in the style of the old victorian gardeners. Hopefully this will rejuvinate them.

We are not expecting to get a crop this year but it has certainly created a smart feature for the edge of the vegetable quarter.