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Green Thumb Sunday: New windowboxes

The winter-flowering violas in the windowboxes at the front of the house have been struggling to cope as the weather has improved. The curly parsley was doing better, but not well. So yesterday I composted the violas, planted the parsley out as edging for one of my raised beds, and replanted the windowboxes with tomatoes (Whippersnapper, I think, but there has been a slight labelling issue) and dwarf French marigolds.

Join Green Thumb Sunday or check out the other participants.

Horse chestnuts

My neighbour’s horse chestnut tree drops conkers into my garden each autumn. In previous years this hasn’t been too much of a problem, but this year I’m weeding horse chestnut seedlings out everywhere. This is partly my fault – I tried composting some. I cannot recommend it, as they stay intact in the compost all winter and then sprout as soon as you use it. And Pete and I had a competition to see who was best at throwing conkers into a bucket further down the garden…. But some of them have just rooted where they fell. Luckily they’re easy enough to spot and pull up at this stage.

Today is World Fair Trade Day, and I’ve been having a quick look around for Fair Trade gardening products, but they’re few and far between. If you want outdoor candle holders or wind chimes then UKOrganics.co.uk can help you out. And the Organic Gardening Catalogue offers a kirpi weeder (I have one, they’re great) that, whilst not certified fair trade, helps to support an organic growing trust in India.

But if you’re a coffee lover then you can simply buy some Fair Trade coffee and use the grounds on the garden when you’ve drunk it!

Radio Solent

I’m being interviewed on Radio Solent on Sunday – on ‘The Good Life’ show with Georgie Windsor – to promote the bookazine.

If you live in Dorset and Hampshire and you’ve got children who love to garden, let me know – I may be able to mention them in the show! Send me an email or leave me a comment with their first names and what they like doing in the garden and which veggies they like to grow and I will mention them if I can.

If you’re outside the Solent area then you’ll be able to listen to the show online if you want to – I’m due on about 12.30, or you can use the Listen Again feature afterwards.

New camera

I loved my old camera, it did everything I wanted it to do, pretty much. But now it doesn’t and I’ve upgraded. I picked up my new toy this morning and have been snapping away in the garden today, learning how to use a camera that doesn’t do everything for you.

Broad bean flowers – stop and sniff, they’re fragrant!

The achocha is getting ready to climb

The nectarine has a good crop

Master Composter debut

I made my debut as a Master Composter yesterday, joining one of my MC colleagues at his work place to help out with a composting awareness stand at lunch time.

Given that his colleagues are mainly scientists, it perhaps wasn’t surprising that most were already aware of the benefits of composting at home. A few had questions and problems to resolve, but nothing out of the ordinary.

As you can see, I had to draw on my considerable artistic talents to describe a Can-O-Worms wormery to a Portuguese lady who was being deterred from composting by a bad back. The advantages of the Can-O-Worms (and other stacking worm composters) is that you manage the wormery by adding and removing trays, so you very rarely have to man-handle the whole thing. This lady was concerned about the tap becoming blocked, which is an occasional hazard with wormeries, but the bottom tray on the Can-O-worms is deep enough that the worms won’t rapidly drown – there’s time enough to find someone to give you a hand if you have trouble rectifying the problem yourself.

Epinard Fraise

One of these days I might just write a comedy detective novel and make Epinard Fraise the hero. I think he’d wilt in the summer heat and have a tendency to bolt at the first sign of trouble!

This morning I have sowed some strawberry spinach and leaf beet seeds – mainly for chicken food. There’s plenty of leaf beet and chard growing in the garden at the moment, and the chickens love it, but it was all sown last year and is likely to run to seed soon.

*And yes, I do know my strawberry spinach seeds are out-of-date.

A day for sunbathing

No doubt at some point I will make more than a passing reference to the fact that it’s Compost Awareness Week, but today I’m simply celebrating the sunshine.

Hen Solo loves sunbathing, perhaps because of her dark feathers. Princess Layer much prefers a luxurious dust bath.

Yesterday was wet in the morning, and sunny in the afternoon, and I brought all of the plants and seedlings I could move outside to catch some rain and some rays.

Growing Challenge: Room mates

When I went outside at 7ish this morning, to let the chickens out and check on things inside the Grow Dome, a heron was on the roof of the house two doors down. It’s a grey morning, it has been raining overnight, but what has tempted him away from the rivers I don’t know.

The 3 remaining calabrese plants are doing well. They have to share the Grow Dome with the tomatoes now, but it’s a nice deep bed.

Green Thumb Sunday: Blossom

(You might also enjoy the nectarine blossom from earlier in the year.)

Join Green Thumb Sunday or check out the other participants.

E for Excellent

A few days ago, easygardener gave me an E for Excellent award, and then even left me a comment so I’d know. But I forgot. 8(

But now I’ve remembered :)

Thanks easygardener!

It’s a bit early in the season to judge which garden bloggers are going to make it through the season, but to pass on the award I’ve chosen 4 bloggers who are always reliable and inspiring:

Daughter of the Soil, with beautiful photos and a passion for heritage peas. Rebsie has already been given the award once, so have a look at who she chose to pass it on to.

Horticultural, home of allotment wisdom.

Mas Du Diable, a long-established blog which is nonetheless new to me and a constant source of kitchen garden envy.

and

Calendula & Concrete, a kindred spirit from across the pond.

Pot washing

I went out into the Grow Dome this afternoon with a tray of seedlings that had overgrown the upstairs windowsill (mostly tomatoes) and badly in need of a drink, and the marigold seedlings I didn’t pot up yesterday.

I planted up one tomato (Gartenperle) and one marigold in the Grow Dome, and the rest are waiting to be planted out in windowboxes in a few weeks.

Having done that, I planted out my lettuce trial seedlings into one of the raised beds (there are only 5 left, 4 of them Brown Goldring).

After that I moved out into the garden to keep an eye on the chickens. There’s finally signs of life from both of the grape vines! And I’ve washed all my rootrainers (well, the ones that aren’t still in use) and left them to dry. The blue plastic crates are from the local farm shop – they give them away free in the same was as the unwanted cardboard boxes, and they’re endlessly useful because they stack.

My marigolds need potting on

The nice thing about sowing seeds into clear plastic containers (this one is a recycled food tray) is that you can see the root development. These marigold seedlings are in definite need of potting on, I should have done it a while ago but I forgot.

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Compost clinic: Weeds

“Hi,

Congratulations on becoming a Master Composter (do you get letters after your name?)

I’m a keen composter, but have a problem with weeds growing in it. Last year I tried sieving it, but that was back breaking and didn’t achieve anything. Any advice for either getting rid of the current crop of weeds or preventing new ones?

Thanks
Richard”

It turns out that Richard has two weed problems with his compost – weeds growing through it and weed seeds germinating in it after he’s used the compost on the garden. I can sympathise, since I’ve had both problems myself.

I used to have a serious bindweed problem in the garden, and the only way I could stop it growing up through the compost bins was to put weed control fabric over the soil before I put the compost bin down. It takes several years to kill bindweed this way (by starving it of light), but it does work in the end. You can also dig over the soil underneath the bin and remove any perennial weed roots before you start filling the bin.

The easiest way not to have any weed seeds in your finished compost is not to put them in the compost in the first place. Consign seeding weeds to the dustbin (or send them for community composting, if you have a local collection or can take them to the recycling centre). The same goes for diseased plant material. A lid or cover on the heap will stop weed seeds from blowing in.

The only guaranteed way to kill weed seeds once they’re in the compost is to build a hot heap. To build a hot heap you need to collect equal amounts of ‘greens’ and ‘browns’, then build the heap in one go – alternating layers of both types of material, around 6 inches thick. Under these ideal conditions, the compost will heat up – but you’ll need to turn it every few days to keep enough air in the pile and to move material from the outside to the middle. After several weeks of this treatment, with a much reduced compost volume, you leave the remaining compost to mature.

However, the latest edition of the US magazine Organic Gardening reports on some recent research that suggests time, and not temperature, is the key to eliminating weed seeds from your compost. So rather than rush to use your compost as soon as it looks ready, let it rot for at least 6 months to reduce your weed problems.

And, in answer to your first question, no I don’t get letters after my name. But I do get a name badge, a snazzy uniform and a certificate when I’ve done 30 hours of volunteer work in my local community :)

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Got a compost question? Leave me a comment or send me send me an email and I’ll cover it in a future Compost Clinic.

Repotting peppers

I’ve been out in the Grow Dome, repotting peppers today (it’s raining outside).

These are the heritage varieties (Soror Sarek and Trifetti) sown on 15th February. There are 6 more – Topepo Rosso, Yankee Bell and Sweet Chocolate – which I didn’t take a photo of.

Compare these seedlings with the Sweet Lipstick which was sown in the autumn and is already fruiting:

Although the Dedo de Mocha peppers (sown at the same time) aren’t flowering yet.

Miracle berries

BBC News are waving unusual edibles under my nose again. This time it’s the miracle berry (Synsepalum dulcificum) which, when fresh, turns sour tastes sweet for hours and hence acts as a natural, calorie-free sweetener.

According to Miracle Fruit UK, the plant is difficult to propagate, very tender and requires an acid soil to thrive. If you still want to give it a try, you can order two seedlings for £40 from the Miracle Fruit UK website, delivery time 10-14 days. You can also buy the freeze dried granules as a sweetener.

May 12th 2008
1:40 AM GMT

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