Tag Archives: in the garden this week

In the garden 27/06/2008

We were certainly right predicting that the weather could well turn to custard straight after the shortest day and it is unlikely that anybody but the hardiest of gardeners is going to feel motivated to be outside until matters improve. You can however look at drainage patterns and areas of ponding which fail to drain quickly and resolve to take action. Only bog plants like wet feet for long periods.

  • In coastal areas at least, the depths of winter only lasts about six or eight weeks. We warm up remarkably quickly by the end of August and real enthusiasts will be preparing garden beds now for the spring planting of vegetables.
  • If you are planting fruit trees, remember that they will perform best if you give them optimum conditions of good soil, space, protection from wind and all day sun.
  • Now is the traditional time to sow garlic and shallots but if you have followed our advice earlier, yours will already be shooting.
  • If you have fires, save your ash for the garden (as long as you have not used any tanalised timber or burned any plastics or polystyrene) but make sure that you spread it very thinly. The ash from wood burners can be concentrated. You can put the ash through the compost heap but make sure that the ashes are cold first. Wood ash is a fertiliser which can be used on lawns and in the vegetable garden.
  • Winter is the time to prune deciduous trees while you can see the shape and the tree is dormant.
  • If you plan a brutal prune on rhododendrons, do it now. You will lose the flowers this spring but cutting back to bare wood means that as the plant comes into growth in spring, you will get a much rejuvenated plant. It can be a bit of a kill or cure method but if it is a strong plant with just tufts of leaves at the end of its stems, it will usually shoot again well.

Mark Twain opined that a cauliflower is a cabbage with a college education. He may have written this prior to the popularity of broccoli and certainly prior to the appearance of broccoflower, both of which are commonly ranked even further up the social scale of vegetables.

In the garden 02/05/2008

Further rains mean that autumn has well and truly arrived but while temperatures remain mild, there is good and bad. The good is that it is now ideal for planting anything woody and it remains pleasant to work outside. The bad is that wet and warm weather not only brings on mushrooms and facial eczema, but also every fungal disease possible in the garden. They may well have taken out your cucurbits and tomatoes already. If you still have the upper hand, keep up the copper sprays but if the fungi have won, then give up and pick all the remaining produce before it rots.

  • Plant trees, shrubs and hedges of all descriptions.
  • Lawns can be fed now while it is still warm and if you have not yet sown your planned new lawns, get on to it immediately.
  • Repot root bound container plants. You can either move them to a larger size of container or you can root prune and return them to the same pot. If you are doing the latter, hose off as much of the old potting mix and dead root as possible and if you are savagely attacking the root ball, make sure you prune the top of the plant by a corresponding proportion to reduce the stress. After repotting, place the container in a shaded position for a few weeks.
  • Not all potting mixes are equal in quality by any manner of means. While cheap mixes are fine for temporary pots of annuals or for starting off seedlings, where you have semi permanent plants in containers it is false economy to use inferior mixes.
  • Look out for an explosion in slugs, snails and freshly germinating weeds brought on by the rains.

Really keen gardeners will be sowing their onion seeds now, in preparation for planting out in a couple of months’ time. Less keen gardeners will pay more and buy plants closer to the time. The Curious Gardener’s Almanac points out that onions have been used since the sixteenth century to treat gunshot wounds and that General Grant refused to move his Union troops without supplies of onions, so gun-totin’ onion growers may like to plant a few extra in reserve. However, Cervantes pointed out in Don Quixote that one should not eat garlic or onions for their smell will reveal that you are a peasant.

In the garden 25/04/2008

Plan to get onto planting woody trees and shrubs. While our soils are still pretty dry, the next rains should get the moisture levels up sufficiently to plant with confidence. April and May are infinitely better times for planting than spring, especially if we get more drought. There is still sufficient warmth for the plants to keep growing and they will establish nicely long before the threat of summer dry.

  • Tedious though digging may be, the better you prepare the soil the healthier the plants will stay. We only ever see the tops but it is what is happening below the surface that determines how good the bits above will look. Adding compost and humus improves the soil texture and fertility. Bio boost or good old blood and bone are cheaper options for fertiliser than the plastic coated bubbles (Nutricote, Osmocote etc) which are best reserved for container plants. After you have planted, lay a 10cm layer of mulch to keep the weeds down.
  • Only stake if you really need to and use as short a stake as possible. Believe it or not, over-staking causes the plants to be lazy (bit of anthropomorphism going on here) and they don’t work as hard to establish a good root system and strong trunks. The swaying and movement is what encourages them to establish well but that is of no comfort if you can’t keep the plant upright in the howling gales which may sweep down your garden. So less is better but some may be necessary.
  • We do not advocate stomping around plants in size ten workboots to tamp them in after planting either. You don’t want to compact all the soil around them and heavy footed stomping can also cause significant root damage. A gentler approach can firm the plant without needing to treat it like a wooden fence post.
  • Divide rhubarb clumps now. Rhubarb is a gross feeder so double dig the area where you are going to plant it and add lots of compost and plant food.
  • Plant broad beans which are really-o truly-o delicious when eaten fresh and young from the garden. These go in as seed, not plants. Don’t add manure to broad beans but compost never goes astray.
  • Get straight onto sowing down green crops in bare areas of the vegetable garden where you are not going to plant again until spring time. The importance of green crops can not be over stated in maintaining healthy soil capable of repeated cropping.

If you are not an inspired gardener, you may like Czech writer, Karel Capek’s comment:

There are several ways to lay out a little garden; the best way is to get a gardener.