Doing things in a different way

A different way of gardening.
 As I have mentioned before now we have had to move I have no real garden but I still want to grow my sweet  peas. I got permission when we came here to have a row at the bottom of the grass area in front of our flat. They did ok but I had very good plants to start with as I then had my greenhouse etc. to do the job properly. I have no greenhouse now but sowed the seeds as I always do on October 8th, from 50 seeds I have 49 plants, so far so good. The problem then came what to do with them, they were on a garden table but in danger of getting blown over in the strong wind. I have now planted them in the row where I hope they will grow and bloom. I have never planted this early before so will get some fleece to cover them should we get severe weather. I have taken a picture of them so you can follow their progress or failure as the case may be.

I did say I would follow through even if failure and that is what has happened. The plants were not looking too bad but severe weather was forecast so I used hoops and fleece as some protection. The wind one night partly opened one end and before I put it right a badger went in, could not find his way out so destroyed the lot. There are only two plants any good so I will be re-planting with some from a friend and I have sown a late batch of seed.

Amaryllis.

The bulb in this pot is about 12 years old if they are fed well after flowering for around 6 months and you leave the leaves to died back then they should flower and increase each year.

Changes in Gardening

My gardening life has changed rather recently, I have spent nearly all my life as gardener in private service. This has meant living in a tied house and when you change or lose your job you also change or lose your home. Thus happened to us in October 2010 when the person we had worked for for 25 years passed away. This has meant that from having as much garden as I wanted to having no garden at all.This has made me think of other ways to grow my begonias etc. Near our flat is an area of ground close to a very large pine tree, the area is full of large roots and could never be cultvated so I now have all my begonias in containers and made a feature of them on this unused ground .
To grow some vegetables I have taken on a small allotment which is in rather a bad state. Over the next few months I will post pictures to show progress, if any, with these ventures


It starts to look better as the plants grow but I will have to change the edging as the strimmer rips it part





So that we can have some vegetables I have taken on a small allotment which is in a very poor state but will try and follow through the year with both events.

Things are getting better. After I had planted the sweetcorn I am told that the badgers love sweetcorn, they wait until it is ready to harvest and then help themselves. I have put wire netting round in hope of getting some to eat. Have had good lettuce and fair potato crop so far but there is bad blight on one plot and nothing is being done to it so I exoect it will spread to all our plots.

Container grown potatoes

There seems to be a lot of interest in growing potatoes in containers. I did have details here a while ago so I am putting them in again.
I used a large plastic bin we had used for chicken food, I out a small layer of general purpose compost in the bottom. As the seed potato was fairly large I cut it in half and planted them a little way apart in He bottom. As this was in the greenhouse to start, as they grew I added more compost as you would if earthing up outside.Once they got too tall I put them outside but with fleece ready should we get a frost, at this time I had to support the foliage. We had almost a gale which damaged the foliage so I harvested earlier than I intended but you can see I got a very good crop from the one seed potato.

start of new season for sweet peas

I sowed my sweet pea seed on Oct. 8th ten seeds in each pot. They were given a good drink and will not be watered again until all seeds are up. This picture was taken 12 days after sowing and shows 100 p/c germination.





These are my Ann's and my exhibits in the Bidborough flower show on June 26th 2010

planting a hanging basket

These pictures show how I plant a hanging basket. I use moss from the lawn and add a small sheet of plastic just to prevent the water running straight through. I mix some slow release fertiliser and water gel with the compost.By moving the wires you can plant in the sides.
I have included a picture of last years basket.

 

Long Tailed Tits

I managed to get a few photos of the tits through our window , I hope you enjoy

Cucumbers 2009

This year I have grown my cucumbers in large pots rather than growbags and they are doing much better. The variety is Unwins "Tasty King" and they are cropping very well. It is an F1 hybrid so no male flowers to worry about.

My first planting of runnerbeans are now in full cropping, I have two later plantings to follow on and these few were planted on July 27th hopefully to give a late crop in September. As there are only a few I am doing them in a wigwam rather than a row.

runner bean progress

This photo shows the progress of the last planting of runner beans back in July provided the weather stays reasonable we should get a crop from about mid September.

This last photo was taken on Sept.22nd when we returned from our annual weeks holiday so we have a good crop to look forward to.

We have had a good feed Sunday 27th September

Picked the last good feed on November 1st.

Starting begonia corms

lt is 2nd March and I am starting my begonia corms. With them having several growth buds you can if you want cut the corms so that each section has a growth on it and increase the number of plants. I do not like doing this as the cut area cannot form any roots, so you get a reduced root system and it is possible to attract fungal disease . As you will see I cover the corm with compost, this is so that any water collecting in the hollow that is often on the top of the corm will be absorbed and not lay to start rotting the corm but more important it means that all the corm can form roots giving a much better plant.

Now April 23rd they are growing and ready for potting up, at this stage you can take cuttings as in picture. I root them in a mixture 50% compost/50% perlite.

Begonia cutting rooted

The begonia cutting I took has now rooted and I have poted it up to grow on. By the winter it should form a nice new corm. I prefrer to do this rather than cut tubers up as yoy get a much better root system with a complete tuber .

A view inside my greenhouse on 1st August 2009 they are being fed twice a week with Phostrogen I have just watered them with Pravado against vine weevil.

Some of my begonias 2009

I grow Blackmore & Langdon begonias, they are expensive to buy but once you have one you can propagate by cuttings as I have shown.

Parsnips in container

As well as growing the carrots and potatoes in containers I am also trying some parsnips in an old kitchen refuse bin .

parsnips from container

We had the first few parsnips from the container today Sunday 23rd August. They are small but very tasty and are really only thinings which I can get out using a can of water to loosen them first.

Fuchsia Cuttings

May 10th

When moving plants ready to plant out I took a few fuchsia cuttings. These root very easy in the sand of my propagator, they do not need any special treatment. You cut with a sharp knife put them in the sand and they root. When taking fuchsia cuttings however it is worth having a good look at the plant because sometimes you will find the odd stem with 3 leaves against the normal 2. If you use these stems you get more stems to form the plant when you pinch the tip out to make it break. The photo shows the cuttings in the sand. I will take other photos when they root.