January 23

Six flowers on Saturday 23/05/21

I started to wonder if we had any flowers at all in the garden having seen all the wonderful ones shared by the Six on Saturdayers hosted by The Propagator It turns out we do but I have to get out in the garden to see them! So, here are my six flowering away despite the rain we have had this week.

First are the Winter Aconites before the birds get to them and peck the flowers off and strew them around the plant.

Hiding in the side bed is a Pulmonaria ‘Sissinghurst White’. It is a bit small and I don’t think it is really a fan of the dry soil but it soldiers on gamely.

All around the garden as a result of self-seeding is Euphorbia characias subsp. wulfenii. It is a strong, hard to miss plant particularly at this time of year. I love the zingy, yellowy-green flowers and the pop of the seed pods in the summer when the seeds are ready to go.

Tucked down by a low wall in the front garden is Geranium Rozanne looking a little the worse for the weather but gamely flowering.

Does it count to have something that is nearly there? These daffodils were in the garden when we moved here and they are almost ready to flower with a slight yellowy bloom on the buds.

And finally, not a flower but a borrowing from Paddy Tobin, An Irish Gardener who created a path through a bed. It was just what I needed for what we grandly call the Round Bed. It is too deep to weed from the front and I end up walking all over parts of it to get to everything so a path through it is just what it needed. I have used stones from around the garden that I dig up every time I try to plant something. All it needs now is a layer of shreddings on the path and more plants.  I cleared out those I didn’t like as I created the path so now I can buy some more!

 

 

January 16

Six new things on Saturday 16/01/21

I haven’t been out much in the garden this week so have decided to write about new things I am growing this year from seed or tubers. (The photos are not mine.)

My first is Asclepias tuberosa or butterfly flower and I bought it for the wildlife garden. It has come as tubers but I note that the RHS website says that you can propagate from seed so will do that. The wildflower plot doesn’t seem to have many bright flowers and I rather like zingy colours so this is the start of a move that way.

 

 

I have grown cauliflowers before, not easy on sandy soil, and prefer to grow a lime green one called Romanesco but this year I am also going to grow a purple one called Graffiti as well. It is supposed to tolerate heat. The colour is supposed to deepen with more sunshine so it should suit our climate.  I think you would have to steam it to save the colour.

 

 

 

 

Verbena rigida Santos is a drought tolerant plant that will go well in the back border at home. The border is a hot border in terms of colour – oranges, reds, purples and yellows. I grow Verbena bonariensis all over the garden, self-seeded but this is much shorter. Again it likes a well-drained soil (there is a bit of a theme emerging here!)

 

 

 

 

It is years and years since I have grown Limanthes douglasii or poached egg flower.  I am going to sow it liberally around the fruit cage and like eschscolzia it will probably grow all year round. They are great for bees and hoverflies and so if there are any seeds left over I sow them on the wildlife plot.

 

 

 

 

 

And finally. Yes, I do have a bag of mixed daffodils from a well-known supermarket that I haven’t planted yet but will do this week. I bought them to be part of the plant guilds around a white plum and cooking cherry trees donated by other allotment holders for the wildlife plot. There aren’t many daffodils on the plot so will add a bit of colour early in the year.

 

Dahlia Totally Tangerine caught my eye on Sarah Raven’s website. I have quite a few dahlias because they do not need digging up and storing over winter here but can stay in the soil. I have three tubers which will make a good sized clump in the back border.

Are you growing anything new this year?

This post is hosted by The Propagator along with lots of over SoSers.

January 10

Harvesting rainwater part 2 – observations

This is the second in a series of four posts about harvesting rainwater on my allotments using the permaculture phrase of sink it, slow it and spread it. You can read part 1 here with this post following on by sharing the observations and research I have done regarding my specific site and strategies that might be successful.

The first thing I looked at is the average rainfall for the area in the last row.

 

 

I recently started to use a rain gauge at home and our rainfall in October was exactly 80mm but December 20 had 145mm of rain which reminded me of the wet parts of my plot and garden. The chart shows that we get approx. half the rainfall of the winter in the summer. So, where are the wet parts on the plots? The first is behind my polytunnel.

Most of my paths are woodchips and some have black woven plastic underneath them to stop the weeds.  This path becomes very soggy in winter, it is now, and sometimes water can sit on it after a heavy rainfall. This is because the guttering is only on the ends of the tunnel and the middle has none so  rain slides down onto the path.  The rest of the allotment slopes gently down from this point to the fence at the end which separates the plots from the gardens of the houses behind us. In his book Harvesting Rainwater Vol 2 by Brad Lancaster, Lancaster mentions that soil beneath plastic becomes anaerobic and you don’t get the soil organisms you are after for good drainage so it probably does need to go.

As you can see, I have a water butt on each corner of the tunnel but two of the gutters need to be replaced. I would do it now but actually they stick better when it is warmer so that job will need to wait. The warmth also means that the guttering is easier to straighten. It comes in a coil and needs to be manipulated to ensure that it makes a good contact with the plastic sheeting and flows over the hoops smoothly.

There is capacity for more water storage by adding another water butt linked to each of these and this would capture more water in winter but I don’t know if they would fill during the summer.  A few calculations about surface area and rainfall would help me decide that.

The second damp place is behind my polytunnel on a bed which I don’t use much with a path into the tunnel. I only use this path if I have to get water from the tap. I recently decided to put these beds back into use. They are shaded for most of the day so I will need to plan carefully what to plant there. To get the beds ready, I covered the ground with cardboard, watered it and then put compost on top. When I watered the cardboard, I watched it run straight down, across the path into the tunnel and onto the next bed so there is definitely a slope there which could be used to slow the water down and sink it into the ground.

The wind can be quite strong on the plots because we are towards the top of a hill that comes straight up from the sea (both land and wind).  Wind maps show that we get wind from all directions with most coming from the west and certainly at home we have a large sheet of glass (window) at the end of our lean-to which stops the westerly winds hitting us.  I would say that most of our winds are southerly to westerly and I particularly like this little widget which shows what the wind is doing now – strength and direction.

As I write this post, the wind is southerly but has quietened down from earlier this morning.

The final thing I needed to do was to find out how steep the slope is on the allotment. I used an app on my phone and just put it on the ground at various points. Not  very accurate but it will do for my purposes – the slope averages about 5%, more in some places and less in others. This measurement is important because certain water management involving moving soil is not recommended for slopes that are more than 5% such as swales.

So, my plan of action:

  • Remove the plastic from the path alongside the tunnel, dig a small ditch towards the beds and then put in a mountain of shreddings. This will mean the water from the tunnel will drain into the ditch but I can still walk on it. The water can then work its way down the slope in the soil. Over time, I will remove the plastic on all the paths.
  • Add a second water butt to each one with a hose pipe to siphon the water between the two. This stored water will be used during the dry spells and will probably last me 4-6 weeks if I only water the tunnel, but far less if I have to water plants outside, which I do some years. The allotment shop is open again in February so I will get three more water butts.
  • To explore the best times to water fruit and vegetables so that if I do have to water them, I get maximum bang for my buck (or water)
  • Continue to mulch the beds each year to increase their water-holding capacity. The soil is sand on a bed of stones and so drains very quickly and retains little moisture or goodness.
  • To remove the black plastic under the plum tree, clear the weeds and plant a guild around it so that it can access more water. I don’t irrigate the tree but I know that other fruit trees on the plots perked up and grew more vigorously when I removed the black plastic underneath them.

I’m off to dig a ditch!

Are you able to store enough water so that you don’t have to use tap water?

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January 9

Six on Saturday – Green shoots 09/01/21

I start to get twitchy fingers at this time of year and am desperate to sow seeds but apart from a few peas and beans it just isn’t worth it.  The seedlings get leggy and then cold, or the other way around, and do not produce great plants so I must wait until the middle of February. However, it doesn’t mean that things are not growing all around me.

And don’t think the garden loses its ecstasy in winter. It’s quiet, but the roots are down there riotous.

Rumi, The Soul of Rumi: A Collection of Ecstatic Poems

This post is part of the wonderful Six on Saturday hosted by The Propagator. Thank you all for the very warm welcome.

My first plant is the hellebore that my Mum collected seeds from in her local Sainsbury’s carpark. When we had to sell her house, I took a few of the plants from her garden and planted them in mine despite the fact that we had completely different soils. They took a little while to acclimatise but once they got going, they were off.  I doubt that they are a fancy variety but they are important to me and they are almost here.

Second are my cuttings from Buddleia colvilei. I bought a plant and put it somewhere where it is completely covered by another large shrub. By the time I realised, it was a bit too big to move so I took some cuttings in the hope that I could create more plants. 3 out of the 4 cuttings have taken and roots are now poking out of the bottom of the pot.  The leaves are felty and grey, like many plants that are relatively drought tolerant, although they lose some of their feltiness as they mature. The flowers are tubular bells, similar to those on a penstemon.

I have a large perennial Cottager’s Kale on the allotment that at this time of year gives many, many leaves. The plant is rather large and a bit of a slug magnet but invaluable. I took these cuttings in September and they are in a sheltered space in front of my greenhouse at home and look to be doing well. I am going to put  couple on the wildlife plot as I need to grow more food on it and then give the rest away to the allotmenteers.  They are a much sort after plant on our site.

I love the flowers on Miscanthus sinensis Morning Light. The plant is at the front, north facing, of the house in the only little bit of heavier soil that I have in the garden and it seems to do fine. The shape of the whole plant is great – like a fountain – and it is prolific enough to split every two years. This means that I have it all over the garden.

Some plants are really tough. Who would have thought that a lettuce would have survived being frozen every night for the last four nights and still look perky and pickable the next morning.  This lettuce is a self-seeded plant growing in the wood chip path of the vegetable beds at home.  It is Rouge Grenobloise but I also have a black-seeded Simpson lettuce in another path.

My Mahonia Charity is just coming into flower. It is full of them and the blackbirds seem to be having a great time picking the flowers off and throwing them around the plant. I sat and watched them this morning but I am not sure why they are doing it. Vandals! The label on the plant says that it is Charity but the flowers do not stick up in the air like the photos on google but droop down. It is one of the few shrubs that I still have that was in the garden before we moved in over 20 years ago. The shrub can be hacked right back and still it sprouts forth. (I’ve just noticed a bramble in the picture growing away quietly through the Mahonia!)

Do you have green shoots in your garden?

 

January 5

Managing water on the allotment – part1

Winter is a quieter time on the allotment in terms of sowing and planting but not in terms of planning.  After a couple of hot summers I know that I  do not collect enough water when it does rain. I have 4 water butts on my polytunnel, one at each corner and one water butt behind my shed and can empty these in about two weeks if it is very hot.  Water butts are not the only way of saving water and I can’t have the plots covered in blue butts so need to think about other ways of too.

This is the first in a series of posts about  water management on my allotments.

I like the permaculture phrase about water of slow it, spread it and sink it as it rains with this being the number one way of managing water. The cheapest method of storing water is to store it in the ground.  The secondary aim is to capture as much water as is reasonable to use during dry periods. How you use these strategies completely depends on the site.

Things to think about are:

  • How and when does your water fall? Is it consistent throughout the year, during the winter or from large summer storms?
  • How does water move across your plot? Does it sit anywhere during rainfall? Do you have slopes on your site?
  • What type of soil do you have? This will affect how much soaks in and how much runs off. A sandy soil has a lot less run off than a water-logged clay soil.

We also need to consider all the ways in which we can sink, slow and spread water across the allotments. The following are a list of things we could do – some may not be appropriate but at this stage I don’t want to rule anything out.

  • Swales. These work best on a slope of 5% or less where a trench following the contour of the land is dug out and the soil piled up on the downhill side to make a raised edge or berm to hold water back.  They don’t work particularly well on small watersheds, sandy soil and forested areas as there won’t be much run off.  If you are still not sure about them, the video below explains them clearly.

  • Hugelkultur. This is a bed built out of waste woody material, and other things, that is drier on top and wetter lower down the slope.  I built one of these in my garden last spring and it definitely does not need as much watering as well-mulched beds built on the flat. I watered those at least once a week throughout the dry spring and summer but only watered the hugelkultur bed twice during the whole season.
  • Stones.  Sepp Holzer uses stones, probably more like rocks, to provide microclimates on his farm. They reflect the sun and enable him to grow crops that wouldn’t normally grow up in the mountains in Austria, such as lemons, but also keep the soil moist underneath and around them. It is true that if you turn over a stone/brick on the plot it is usually damper underneath. The downside is that you can also find slugs and snails there too.
  • Ollas. These are unglazed  pots sunk into the soil near the roots of plants that are filled with water. Because they are unglazed, they gradually release the water or actually, the plant pulls the water from the pot and grows around it. An olla has an opening at the top which is slightly proud of the soil where the water can be topped up. This short video shows a container being planted up with an olla or as we might know it, a terracotta plant pot. All it needs is a lid on top and the bottom hole sealed up.

How do you store water in your soil so that you can make the most of this resource?

Useful resources

  • Gaia’s Garden by Toby Hemenway: Chp5 is an excellent overview of water and how it can be managed.
January 2

Six on Saturday – 02/01/21

This is my second Six on Saturday hosted by The Propagator, the first one for 2021 and there are certainly things I will not miss  from last year. However, what this time has meant is that I have had much more time in the garden and on the allotments and this has been to their and our benefit. So, here are my six for this week all based on new year resolutions linked to the garden and allotments.

My first resolution is to be more organised. I realised the other day that my blog is littered with phrases such as I don’t know which variety they are, I didn’t label them or I have forgotten what they are.’  I have used Access and so now I can type in a  month and up will pop all the seeds I need to sow that month.  I have then created, on paper for the moment!, a bed plan that is month by month so that I don’t have any spare beds hanging around empty at any point during the year. Last year I thought I didn’t have enough space but with 2 plots and a large garden that is ridiculous. These two things need integrating but that was beyond me at the end of December.

In order to support resolution number 1, I have bought some very fancy labels – metal hooks which you stick in the ground and slate labels that you hang from them.  This was a present to myself and they will be used specifically for veg or flowers that I want to collect seed from.  Even if the writing wears off, I will at least know which plants to collect seed from. All I need now is a marker to write on the slate – note to self! The whole system could come crashing down for want of such marker.

I will make hot compost this year, before July.  At present I am not building the heap big enough and do not have enough greenery and manure in it.  This will be remedied in January’s pile. (You can see November and December’s attempts but they are not pretty!) I have agreed to create a pile each month to see what happens. I am learning a LOT. What I am finding is that it is far more work in comparison with the way I normally make compost. The videos I have watched about it all have volunteers on training and they build and turn the pile. We hold a sort of allotment school on the plots to help new members and I am one of the people that helps to run it so that has given me an idea 😉

We so rarely have heavy frosts on the south coast but have done so for the last 2 days with more to come. These are my new strawberries – Malwina – a late type, but they have an absolutely delicious taste. I bought my first lot a year ago because the catalogue said that the taste was exceptional but they were too dark red for supermarkets and had a white line just underneath the leaves which doesn’t turn red. Why wouldn’t you try them? Anyway they are so good I have ordered more along with some hanging baskets. I will pot them up into the baskets and then at the end of January/start of February hang them in the polytunnel to force them and try and get some a little earlier.

 

 

The Bergenia are flowering on the wildlife plot and look fantastic. I am not sure what variety they are (I didn’t plant these before you say anything!) but they are a welcome sight especially for the queen bumble bees which fly around when the sun is out.  I took over the wildlife plot in September 20 and decided to list everything that flowers, fruits and seeds on the plot each month and then aim to increase the numbers of each in the years thereafter as we have lots of beekeepers on site.  We have three things flowering this month, the Bergenia, Jasminum nudiflorum and a Viburnum. We can surely do more than that next year; I am thinking of Winter Honeysuckle, Christmas Box and pansies which can also be eaten in salads.

 

 

And finally, with no resolution attached to it is the orchid in my bathroom which has a very long stem of flowers this winter. I have learnt: feed it all spring and summer and it will flower all winter for you. Beautiful.

Happy New Year everyone and do you have any garden resolutions?