LL's Gardening Diary

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Mo
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Re: LL's Gardening Diary

Post by Mo »

….. 2 Morello cherry trees in each. I'm unsure why both died …..

Morellos seem to be short lived in my garden too. We planted one when we first moved in and it only lasted a couple of years while the Victoria plum is still going (just) nearly 50 years on. And the replacement that we planted when we bought a bit more land has been very sad for a few years.


I hate wasps - one of the few things I use chemicals on. I assume the instruction to squirt after they are in bed is to protect me from stings. But I still prefer a pack with a long nozzle. When they go in under the eaves the place you see them going in may be some distance from the nest so that's usually a job for the council. Wasps are one of the few things I take pills for too - I carry antihistamines in case.
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lancashire lass
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Re: LL's Gardening Diary

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Mo wrote:
….. 2 Morello cherry trees in each. I'm unsure why both died …..

Morellos seem to be short lived in my garden too. We planted one when we first moved in and it only lasted a couple of years


My mother & I planted a black Morello in the front garden when she bought her house (and a Discovery apple in the back garden - both being self fertile didn't need another tree for pollination and both were heavy fruiters) to mark the occasion of being a "home owner" (we had been renting it prior to then when I was still living with my parents) - both trees were still going strong after 20 years. The 2 trees in my garden were moved after a year of planting them (one of those "they are in the wrong place" moments) but the move had no lasting effect and grew on for a further 8-9 years that I am aware of but it was about then that the bottom of my garden got more or less abandoned. Hence the mystery.

Mo wrote:I hate wasps - one of the few things I use chemicals on. I assume the instruction to squirt after they are in bed is to protect me from stings.


yes, the wasps are supposedly inactive when it is night time. For one reason or another, I only got round to trying out the spray last night (the house was boiling hot after another +30oC day but when I opened the back door (about 10.30 pm), oh it was blissfully cool outside. I sat on the bench for a while soaking it in ... which was in eyeball view of the pond. So I decided to give the spray a go and was ready to run away if anything came out the fence.

Mo wrote:When they go in under the eaves the place you see them going in may be some distance from the nest


It was just a test spray last night so my aim was probably not as good as I would have liked so yes, most likely I had missed the nest (I don't know if they have tunnelled through the pond liner that I had pinned down on the outside walls in which case, it might be difficult to get the spray to it) This morning there were still wasps going in and out of the feather board fence but there did appear to be fewer - hard to say as I had an early morning start at work so didn't have time to watch them properly. There were no dead wasps nearby to know if any had been caught in the spray. Sigh - must try again tonight if I can.

I've had a resident frog on my patio for as long as I can remember - he isn't in plain sight but if I move a plant pot, he might jump out and spook the living daylights out of me. Whether it is the ongoing hot and dry conditions, but on Monday morning he had gone to a new level .... as I opened the back door, the frog was practically trampolining across the pond net to get out the way. Since the 2 bird drownings, the netting is now taut across the ledges so he shouldn't be able to get into the pond (and I don't want him in the pond for a number of reasons) but I was also surprised that he was able to jump the 24" height of the pond wall. Thinking it was a one off, funny enough last night when I opened the back door for fresh air, I again startled him so it's now become a routine. I'm beginning to wonder if I should provide a "frog bath" at floor level just for him .... this hot summer has got a lot to answer for LOL
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Bad year for Discovery apples

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I've not done much in the garden other than the general maintenance of the pond and keeping the potted plants and hanging baskets watered (I'm really pleased with the floral display - certainly the ones either side of the front porch lift my spirits and make me smile when I drive in from work) The grape vine has also excelled this year - I think I've had that vine for over 10 years now but since planting it in a big planter pot and against the south facing back wall with combination of a very warm, dry and sunny summer, the vine has doubled in size. Hopefully next year we might get some grapes?

The biggest disappointment this year has been my Discovery apple tree - normally a consistently heavy cropper, this year I've managed to harvest .... 2 apples {cry} Usually they are ripened from about early-mid-August but even in June when I was clearing the garden, I was aware there wasn't many apples on the tree and I probably missed about 3 that have fallen and are bruised. The tree looks fine so I can only think the blossom was out when we had a cold snap in early spring - it is a self fertile tree so doesn't need other apple blossom out at the same time though it does usually improve pollination. I have noticed very few bees around this year so that might also have been one of the reasons after such a cold winter. The Bramleys on the other hand are still full of apples despite a lot dropping off. Some of the other apple trees are so so (I did heavily cut back a lot of wood when clearing the garden so lost some fruit but generally the yields will be well down this year regardless) Maybe next year after the pruning they'll respond better.
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Countdown to the September hols!

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It's been a back breaking job at work since end of July (the lab I work in was closed then workmen moved and completely stripped everything down to bare wall. New floor and units were fitted over the summer - now there's a deadline to get everything returned & set up by end of August .... and there's only me and a couple of others not familiar with the lab to help) I'm taking my usual 3 weeks off from August bank holiday weekend so now it's just a countdown this week until I break up. I can't wait till Friday evening when no-one at work will see me for dust!

I think my wasp problem has finally gone away - I tried the night time spray but most likely the nest was deep inside the pond wall (worryingly) so had little effect at first. I tried a couple of random night sprays then got fed up and tried a daylight spray. That was much more effective but obviously many of the wasps were still out and about so over the weekend I was a bit more proactive and waited for them as they returned to the nest and sprayed. The spray was remarkably effective - the wasps dropped almost immediately even in the lightest of sprays (being uber careful that none of the spray accidentally landed in the pond) And the wasps didn't emerge like an angry mob so generally it was probably the easiest way to deal with the wasps. I've waited a couple of days and kept an eye out for any traffic but all is quiet. One of my tasks when off (weather permitting) is to check the extent of the damage behind the featherboards round the pond and try to ensure it doesn't happen again!

Forgot to mention yesterday that when doing the usual pond maintenance, I made an extra special effort to remove a lot of the duckweed so for the moment what remains covers only about a fifth of the pond surface. I also noticed the water lettuce has also been dividing and out of the 3 plants I bought at the beginning of June, there must be over 30 little plants. I must try to save some and bring indoors before the autumn frosts so that I hopefully don't have to buy any next year. Meanwhile, it's just lovely to see my fish - all have grown and the 2 koi are looking splendid (and much bigger than the goldfish now) It's a joy to see them waiting for their breakfast in a morning so we have a routine now and none are skittish or coy anymore. The evening feed is less so which I'm not quite sure what the reason is (mind, I've been so tired getting home that I don't linger much)

2 days and x hours left and counting down ......
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Re: LL's Gardening Diary

Post by Mo »

My apples look good, it was plums that were almost non-existent. Hadn't seen many wasps till yesterday when I came back from a week away to find them crawling over the fallen apples on the drive (not sure what the rest of the orchard is like)
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Progress in the garden .... photo heavy

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Well, already into the last week of my 3 week hols and I've only really got going since last week - it took me over a week to recover from work (the last 2 days pushed me to the limit close to exhaustion to get as much done before I finished)

I knew I had a lot to do in the garden to try and finish off the garden rescue before the weather stopped me altogether. I particularly wanted to rescue the pergola and get as much of the wood and fences painted before winter set in. I'd bought some white fence paint last month really to spruce up inside the chicken run but then changed my mind. I could do with giving the bottom fence another coat of paint but this month will be expensive and I'm tied to just getting essentials (even my planned day trip out cancelled to save on the cost of petrol .... )

First task, to cut and clear as much as possible especially the 2 willow branches which were pushing the pergola over, and more importantly to be able to reach the back fence so I could paint it (the fence and netting above belongs to the garden on the other side) Even for a first coat of paint, the result was "wow - I can see the bottom of the garden even when standing on the patio now"!

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Views of either side of the pergola:

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I cleared as much ivy as I could but I particularly wanted to keep this variegated one growing up the back centre post:

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I removed most of the timber from the top of the pergola to paint them under cover (the empty polytunnel has its advantages when rain is forecast!):

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I also wanted to paint the Japanese lanterns but I might have a little problem trying to remove the woody Jasmine that had managed to grow through the base and out the sides!

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Another big task was to clear the fruit tree woodpile between the polytunnel and glass greenhouse and to add it to the big wood pile at the bottom of the garden. After I'd cleared the pergola trimmings, the pile was turning into a mountain but it has gradually subsided and with the help of the blackbirds and pigeons, some of the twigs have been scattered about. I want to keep the wood pile as part of my "carbon capture" as well as a "frog hibernaculum" - with following a number of courses about climate change, the woodpile will rot down and some of the carbon will be retained in the soil (sort of biochar), and as for the frogs - they've always used the old trimmings pile in the past so now it should be even cosier. I doubt hedgehogs will hibernate as we don't seem to get them round here though there is a risk that rats and mice might move in ....

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My other big task to do was rescue the patio fence by the shed. When I built the first chicken run, I was able to replace the ledge but the other side of the garden steps, the wooden ledge was quite a big length and put me off. Well, it has now rotted to the point of collapse so needed something rather than nothing:

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As you can see here:

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Once removed, the rest of the fence was actually quite sound:

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but now I know how the rats and mice have been getting inside the fence - there is a huge gap behind the shed which I cannot possibly access due to the privet hedge boundary:

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All the wood used has been from other projects / retrieved from the allotment last year so hasn't cost me a penny. The downside is that I didn't have enough wood for the ledge so had to use a couple of laminated shelves which I covered in remnants of pond liner (this is why I never throw anything away if I can .... there's always a use for those bits left over) So it doesn't look particularly clever but it is practical and waterproof (I tried to disguise the black liner with fence paint but I'm not sure how successful will be after heavy rain ....)

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The grille (2 shelf trays from a mini greenhouse that has collapsed) in the gap will eventually be replaced with trellising:

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Some other garden piccies - the seed head of my unknown flower that no-one seems able to identify:

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Bumper crop of Bramleys (the Bramleys and the Cox have done well this year, the other apples so-so while my Discovery apple tree was the least productive):

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A few Conference pears coming along (not the biggest yield this year but better than last year):

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I now know why I have had hazel seedlings all over my garden - I've always assumed squirrels got the nuts before they could be harvested but this year they have been littering the garden:

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My blousey white Fuschia coming to the end of its flowering but has been spectacular all summer. Alas the pink/purple Fuschia did produce a few flowers but the top growth hid them - still, the pale green leaves on red stems have added colour all the same.

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The petunias in the other planter on the other side of the front porch have been a mass of colour - I've been very pleased with the display of flowers and really lifted my spirits when pulling into the drive on my way home from work:

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Re: LL's Gardening Diary

Post by Mo »

Well done
I'm amazed how quickly the jungle takes over. When I went into the field this year to pick the Damsons behind my garden I had to chop and struggle under a fallen ivy. Not many years ago we were propping fence rails in that gap to stop daughters pony getting through.
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Re: LL's Gardening Diary

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Mo wrote:Well done
I'm amazed how quickly the jungle takes over. When I went into the field this year to pick the Damsons behind my garden I had to chop and struggle under a fallen ivy. Not many years ago we were propping fence rails in that gap to stop daughters pony getting through.


)t' thank you Mo - now that I've got on top of most of MY "jungle", it should hopefully be easier to keep on top of it. The next big task still to do is cutting back the privet hedge but alas I've run out of time and the weather has turned wet and windy.

On Thursday I was undecided whether to sort out the chicken run (I wanted to paint the walls with fresh white paint), finish off the weed suppressant and tidy up all those half finished jobs, harvest the apples and pears, or make a start on boxing in the biofilter off the pond. Last winter I wasn't happy I hadn't done the boxing in and when temperatures really dropped, I was stressed that the water butt outside the pond would chill the water (the pump pulled the warmer water from the bottom of the pond into the water butt outside the pond before trickling back in - a big body of water will stay warmer than a small body of water) but I didn't want to switch that pump off because the water landing on the surface would keep it ice free. I think the water chemistry had a lot to do with losing some of the goldfish (and after giving it more consideration, perhaps I'd been too eager to see fish and the pond hadn't really "matured" enough after stocking it before going into autumn/winter) So, boxing in the biofilter was next on my list.

But first, I had to level the paving. I still hadn't finished off the leveling started a year ago but in spring, I had decided to lower the top of the water butt to about the same height as the planter - I had emptied it of water then lifted up the paving where it stood and dug some of the sand and gravel out so it was partially buried. And that's as far as I got .... not to mention I broke the tap at the bottom of the water butt and I couldn't figure out how to replace the tap (how do you reach the washer nut inside the bottom of the water butt while trying to thread the tap from the outside?) and the bung I'd got was too small (there was a risk of leaking or worse, risk of the bung falling out altogether) so luckily I had brought a blue barrel from the allotment when I cleared it last year and was able to simply use that instead.

As for leveling the paving, well - the worst part of the subsidence on the patio was between the water butt and the chicken run. I spent a lot of time rummaging around the garden for bricks and any rubble to at least pack them into the bottom of the dips before adding the sand and gravel I'd dug out when lowering the water butt. Plus, packing it down using a heavy hammer on wood before putting the paving down, checking it was level with a spirit level. To make matters worse, with the water butt in the way, the paving didn't fit anymore and I've ended up with a couple which need to be cut to size - I have no idea how to do that but as they are at the end of the patio I think I'll just plonk some planters on top to hide them LOL.

For a small area it took all day to do and my back and shoulders ached from the effort. On Friday I had to take the filter box off line so that I could lift it off the top of the water butt. That meant the pond was reliant on the smaller pump and biofilter while I got on with the boxing in .... which meant I needed to make sure it was working well. For a while I had noticed the water output was almost just a trickle so decided to give everything an overhaul - I cleaned the pump and when I checked the filters, they were a lot cleaner than I would have expected. When I put the pump back on, the water was still only a trickle - oh no, don't tell me the pump is dying! Then I eyed the hose and wondered if it had got clogged up so I poked a bit of wire in it expecting sludge and blanket weed but instead there were wriggly worm like things clinging to the wire. I wasn't sure how best to clean the hose - in the kitchen I eyed the vinegar, then the bleach, maybe salt? Then I remembered I still had some hydrogen peroxide (at work it is used in biology experiments but because it has an expiry date, researchers will discard bottles out of the date .... so I took them as I could use them at home in the garden or whatever) I made up a pretty strong solution and after isolating the hose from the biofilter, gently poured it into the hose. Then I flushed it out using the hand syphon pump and tap water (I normally use the pump to empty the filter box when cleaning the filters) and this is what landed in the bucket - yuck! From what I understand they may be black fly larvae (the little black flies that hover over water) - not uncommon to find them in filter boxes although in my case they seem to prefer the hose. No wonder the biofilter looked clean if they were blocking the hose!

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Next task, I needed wood for the frame - luckily I was able to salvage quite a lot of sound wood from the old compost bin that used to be at the bottom of the garden and able to use that to make the frame. Some of the feather boarding was also okay but unfortunately not long enough for the walls. Still, the frame is now built, I lined the walls with plastic to keep the weather off, there is a lid (which is hinged - another salvage from the compost bin) which is covered in pond liner (the last remnants), the front with the pipes though has been feather boarded and the gap between the planter and biofilter box finished off:

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I also finished off the planter - I finally painted the feather board at the back before the weather broke. During one of my decluttering sessions, I found some garden tool hooks and thought they would be handy to hold the filter box hose instead of pinning it on top.

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As you can see, the paving on the rest of the patio still needs to be leveled:

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I also managed to box in the solar powered aerator and thread the air lines through instead of over the top of the planter. So it is all starting to look a lot more smarter now:

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Unfortunately the weather has thwarted any further work but generally I'm very happy with the progress. It's back to work tomorrow (groan) so now I'll only have weekends to finish off any jobs in the garden before the winter sets in. I did manage to pick some apples and pears this morning but there's still loads more needs harvesting.
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Storm Ali

Post by lancashire lass »

Although the worst of the storm hit Ireland and western Scotland, it was still very windy here in the East Midlands .... once again, I was worried about the neighbour's ash tree that sits on their side of the boundary close to the house as well as the patio pond, shed and chicken run. I couldn't do much worst case scenario if the tree fell down but I could prevent the thousands of ash keys from landing in the pond! I found the green scaffold netting I used last autumn to prevent leaves from landing in the pond and spent the early hours of the morning tying in down and securing it. Unfortunately the planter plants are still in summer growth and in the way but I was able to "gently" cover them and secured one end under the filter box on top of the new boxed-in biofilter (so glad I got most of that done over the weekend!)

Other tasks including taking down my new solar lantern and checking everything would be okay but I simply ran out of time to pick any ripe apples. It would be unlikely the wind would knock over the filter box but should a branch from the ash tree fall, there was a risk the box or the hose might become dislodged .... the pump would continue to pump water out but not necessarily back into the pond, and at 4500 litres per hour it wouldn't take long to empty the pond! So as a precaution, I decided to take the filter box off-line and leave the biofilter running. Apparently I can get a float switch which will turn the pump off in the event that the water surface drops below a certain level but I'm not quite sure how to do that but will be next on my list of things to add to the pond.

Thankfully the damage from Storm Ali was minimal - a few twigs and the scaffold netting successfully prevented a bucket load of ash keys from landing in the pond. Only my make-shift rush screen over the dining room window was dislodged a little but it's time to take it down anyway - now that summer is rapidly coming to an end, the risk of a heatwave is highly unlikely. The next big weather event is forecast today - torrential rain from this afternoon and the next 12 hours followed by more strong winds (this time we are in the yellow warning zone) Oh, the joys of summer ending and the start of autumn!
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Re: LL's Gardening Diary

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It's amazing how garden projects crash when I'm back to work - even the early mornings are now a thing of the past as dawn comes later and later, and after a long day at work and sat in traffic all the way home, evenings are not an option. We had a couple of wet, windy or cold weekends but last weekend was actually not bad and I had planned to put the feather board reclaimed from the old compost bin round the boxed in biofilter .... shame I felt a bit rough after the flu jab. This next weekend however, is forecast to be very cold - winter coming early by the looks of it.

After the cold snap (okay, a drop in temperature rather than arctic) in early October a crop of flower buds on the fuschia tub appeared - the blousey white one had produced a few buds but amazingly, the long awaited pink/purple one decided to go all out. Over summer it had decided to put all its efforts into foliage instead so it was quite a nice surprise even though my reaction was: "you are flowering NOW?" LOL

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The petunias on the other hand are sadly well on their way to be pulled up soon - they were lovely all summer and will be missed. I might get some overwintering pansies to fill the gap as it would look fairly boring without some colour by the front door now.

The garden is definitely looking autumnal as the leaves turn and fall, a few mancky apples keeping the blackbirds occupied. Mr Robin is getting very friendly and begging for food whenever he sees me even on the patio (he was so close one day, I could have touched him) That was when I was giving the filters out of the pond filter box a good rinse - with days of wind followed by warm sunshine, I couldn't switch the pump on because the water in the box had gone foul (really did smell like sewage)

And with dropping temperatures forecast, the filter box and UV sterilizer will probably be stowed away any time soon. I'll have to start thinking about putting the PVC sheets over the pond next - hard to believe already thinking about winter preparations. I will have to make one change - with swapping water butts in spring and fitting the overflow tubing, the lengths are slightly more raised and longer than the system I had last year so I won't be able to put the PVC sheet right up to the water butt like last time ... I need to think about protecting the overflow somehow (one option was to have an upturned plastic crate over the pipes to stop the PVC sheet going too far) The surviving goldfish from last year and the 2 koi from this year have been growing well and it never ceases to amaze me how quickly they got to that size .... I might be planning my bigger pond sooner than I thought! But, let's see what this winter brings first ..... And I so want to get the wildlife pond started before then!

Next year I am also hoping that I can turn my gardening efforts to growing some food in the polytunnel and greenhouses instead of a garden rescue! Now that everything has been cleared (just the privet hedge to sort ...) and weed suppressant down, most of it should be maintenance while I get on with other things. The first thing to start planting NOW will be ..... garlic! I really miss my own grown garlic and have had to resort to buying it from the supermarket yike* I bought 5 cloves each of Albigensian Wight, Early Purple Wight and Cristo Wight which I've grown before, and a new variety which I'm really excited about and that's Russian Red (sadly, I lost my much loved Romanian Red and Illico after giving up my allotment last year) If (the big if) they do well, I'll try to keep the strains going and replant some cloves each year but we'll see how they do first. Meanwhile, I should also think about sowing some overwinter broad beans (they should (fingers crossed) be fine in the polytunnel over the winter unlike the disaster of growing them outdoor on the plot and succumbing to plunging arctic temperatures and whiplash from storms - one reason why I gave up on growing overwintering broad beans)

So plenty to do if I could just get my act together! )j;
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Re: LL's Gardening Diary

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I think you always seem to have you act together LL you are amazing in what you achieve and how you write )like( Cant say I enjoyed looking at those worms though {rofwl}
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Re: LL's Gardening Diary

Post by Cheshire Chick »

Your garden looks fabulous LL. I am very envious of all the space you have. You have obviously done a huge amount of work in your garden this year and it has really paid off as it looks great. I love the pergola area.
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Garlic planted 2nd November 2018

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sandy wrote:I think you always seem to have you act together LL you are amazing in what you achieve and how you write )like( Cant say I enjoyed looking at those worms though {rofwl}


Aw thank you sandy - those "worms" were actually insect larvae ... think of them as fish food LOL

Cheshire Chick wrote:Your garden looks fabulous LL. I am very envious of all the space you have. You have obviously done a huge amount of work in your garden this year and it has really paid off as it looks great. I love the pergola area.


Thank you )t' I was very fortunate when buying the house - I always wanted one with a garden especially as I had a dog and a cat at the time (my other house was an urban postage stamp concrete back yard) and finding this one with such a generous sized garden was very lucky.

Well, my garlic planting plans nearly flopped as last weekend it was too cold or wet but I had booked a day off work yesterday (I was meant to be going somewhere but there's a problem with my car) so I decided to make a start. The plan was to plant the cloves into individual big pots (I remember starting off garlic in smaller pots once with the idea of planting out on the allotment plot in early spring only to find the roots had grown through the drainage holes and I ended up disturbing them and the plants didn't do so well later on) The problem is I didn't have enough compost so I had to find some other "filler". I had been unable to move the pile of earth where the old compost bin was at the bottom of the garden so I decided to use that ... only to find that it was still bone dry and rock hard despite some heavy rain we'd had. Once I'd broken it up, the soil wasn't too bad. I also decided to use some of the composted chicken bedding out of the dalek composting bin.

While I got on with filling the big pots (that I had bought for the 2015 chilli challenge), I got on with preparing the cloves. Although the cloves from the ebay suppliers looked in good condition, there is always the risk they are carrying microscopic pests and soil diseases which might not only affect the harvest but I wanted to recycle the soil for future crops. So I put them through my tried and tested cleaning process - soaked in a bleach solution for about half hour (to kill off fungal spores), a 10 second dip in a 10% alcohol solution (kills off any mites) and then left in a seaweed solution for about an hour)

One supplier was very generous so although I'd only bought:

5x cloves Albigensian Wight
5x cloves Cristo Wight
5x cloves Early Purple Wight

there were a few extra so I ended up with 7x Albigensian, 10x Cristo, 8x Early Purple Wight, along with 5x cloves of Russian Red from another supplier. Meanwhile I had been happy with some bulbs of garlic I bought from the supermarket so I decided to plant 5x cloves of those (the biggest cloves) - I've no idea what they are but the skins are white and the label says they came from Spain (maybe Iberian Wight or Albigensian?) So in total, 35 cloves .... that meant a lot of pot filling. It took most of the day and by 3.30 pm, all the pots were filled and split between the 2 greenhouses.

For my records, the Russian Red, Albigensian, Early Purple Wight (one pot has 2 small cloves) and the supermarket garlic are now in the glass greenhouse, while the Cristo were put in the big polycarbonate greenhouse. All but the Cristo were seeded with a generous scoop of mycorrizhal fungi (a pack I'd got from a project clearout at work - it is over a year old but the pack was not opened so hopefully still good) As for the Cristo, I decided to seed 5 but the other 5 were not - a little experiment to see if the fungus will make any difference (although of course I have no idea if the fungus is still viable so it might not make any difference LOL) I have been encouraged when using mycorrizhal fungus on the chilli and sweetcorn experiments - during drought/dry soil conditions, those treated actually did better but I've never tried an experiment to see if garlic treated are better than untreated. I also had a little blood meal left from the allotment days - I decided to add a little to the compost in the Russian Red, Albigensian and supermarket pots to use it up. Finally, some sand from one of the chicken runs was added on top (which should help with drainage)

Finally, all the pots got a little watering with a seaweed solution to encourage the roots (and mycorrizhal fungus) to grow though the Cristo had already started to grow and had half inch roots (I recall the last time I grew Cristo that they seem to grow early) and the supermarket garlic were just starting to push a green shoot up. Not too much water as I don't want the cloves sitting in wet compost.

Growing garlic in a greenhouse will be a first for me - growing them outdoors over winter is the norm as the cold temperatures encourages clove division or so I've read. As my garden doesn't see much sun over winter, the greenhouses won't get warm and during a cold snap, can be just as cold indoors as it is outdoors - but at least all the nutrients in the pots won't get washed out with heavy rain. So in some way this will be an experiment to see how they grow.
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Mo
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Re: Garlic planted 2nd November 2018

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lancashire lass wrote:……. The problem is I didn't have enough compost so I had to find some other "filler". I had been unable to move the pile of earth where the old compost bin was at the bottom of the garden so I decided to use that ... only to find that it was still bone dry and rock hard despite some heavy rain we'd had. Once I'd broken it up, the soil wasn't too bad. I also decided to use some of the composted chicken bedding out of the dalek composting bin.



Jobs are never as simple as you think they will be. I don't think I'd have got as far as planting anything after all that!
Dance caller. http://mo-dance-caller.blogspot.co.uk/p/what-i-do.html
Sunny Clucker enjoyed Folk music and song in mid-Cheshire
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lancashire lass
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Sunday 4th November 2018

Post by lancashire lass »

Mo wrote:
lancashire lass wrote:……. The problem is I didn't have enough compost so I had to find some other "filler". I had been unable to move the pile of earth where the old compost bin was at the bottom of the garden so I decided to use that ... only to find that it was still bone dry and rock hard despite some heavy rain we'd had. Once I'd broken it up, the soil wasn't too bad. I also decided to use some of the composted chicken bedding out of the dalek composting bin.



Jobs are never as simple as you think they will be. I don't think I'd have got as far as planting anything after all that!


tell me about it {rofwl} I think the easiest thing to do would be to go and buy the compost and top soil but I'm making a commitment to be more carbon aware in everything I do (having followed a number of climate change courses, I realise that we are all guilty of taking the easier option - just jump in the car and go and get it) Then again, I'm also being extremely frugal at the moment (okay, due to reduced finances LOL) and trying to "recycle" as much as I can if I can!

On Friday when trying to "dig" the pile of soil from the old compost bin, I was struck by just how dry it was. It was like concrete - even clay soil at this time of year is usually diggable. For all the forecasts of rain, it has occurred to me that most of the rain has been to the west of the country. Yes, we've had some rain even downpours but they have been far and few between and the garden is still very dry. I did find damp patches when I swept the leaves off the paving or turned the mulch over, but nothing was actually soggy. Even the autumn flush of weed seedlings are significantly lower and the footpaths in the garden were still rock hard to walk on.

On Sunday I thought I'd make use of the mild dry weather and start raking up the twigs off the ground from recent strong winds, and some of the leaves in the garden and patio. The neighbour's ash tree is shedding leaves and seeds like no-one's business and already my patio was ankle deep. It was a good opportunity to also clear some of the clutter off the patio (remnants of the allotment clear out and pond build last year) - sound wood was put under cover for using another time, rotting wood (from the fence repair in September) as well as twigs and branches from the tree that had landed behind the planters were cleared and put on my big wood pile.

I filled the equivalent of 5 black bags full of leaves and seeds off the patio (and the trees are still full of leaves so more to come) - the ash tree seeds are generally viable and apt to start growing so I wasn't keen to spread them around my garden but I didn't pay for garden waste bin collection this year so my option at the moment is to let them compost down inside the bags and maybe use as leaf mould for potted plants.

As for the rest of the garden .... my pear trees suffer from Pear Rust but the hot dry summer this year has been a bonus and not encouraged it to spread as badly as some years. To be fair the harvest itself is not affected but it does affect the health of the trees and subsequent harvests. One of the ways to reduce contamination is to remove the leaves from the area and not let them rot round the trees so I had to make a special effort to gently rake them away. I should do the same for the other fruit trees - the leaves harbour pests and diseases like aphids and fungal spores which are in close proximity of their hosts trees but at the same time, where to put it all?

One job I particularly wanted to get done was finish off the weed suppressant membrane as part of the garden rescue and I am happy to announce the last bit has been done. I had left it till last because I was hoping to move the dalek compost bin but it was never going to happen this year - instead I did the rest and round it, and even laid a length at the polytunnel entrance. So now I can walk straight from the paved area by the chicken run and glass greenhouse and down the entire length of the garden. It means I have no lawn whatsoever now but as I get older, I think I would struggle to maintain it so I'm looking for a low maintenance garden .... I'm still deciding how to do that. At the moment it is a functional / working garden with the fruit trees and the greenhouses / polytunnel and chicken runs but in time it would be nice to have a blank canvas and keeping the weeds down is priority.

I did a lot of clearing - picking up bits of rubbish (admittedly of my own making - the discarded broken hanging basket, bits of wood from projects, old compost bags) as well as stow away pots and sound wood under cover. I had hoped to finish boxing in the pond filter but sweeping / raking / bagging up took a surprisingly long time and a lot of bending! A lot of bending over .... this morning the aches in my back and legs are testament to all that bending! If we could just have a couple more weeks of mild dry weather, I might be able to finish off the last of the jobs still pending.
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