November Catch Up

Well the warm and mostly fine weather recently has lead to a bit of work in the garden.

Of course there has been the clearing up – removal of the climbing beans and remains of the courgette/cucumber/squash plants of course plus constant clearing of dead flowers in the flower borders – although things like the Cosmos have been hanging on and are still flowering. Most of the tomato plants are now on the compost but a couple in the greenhouse still look like they might produce ripe tomatoes providing we keep getting sunshine and no frosts.

I tackled long stretch of hedge which is mostly hollow and bramble (my excuse for not cutting before was waiting for the brambles to be finished) and as usual ended up with scratched arms and the prospect of pricking my fingers a lot when I work on the nearby beds – you can never seem to collect up all the leaves!

Tomatoes in greenhouse – will they ripen?

I have tried sowing some winter ‘green manure’ in a couple of beds and the results are ok although I suspect I could have sown more thickly – or maybe the pigeons removed a lot?

Green manure in raised bed

I’ve also planted some winter salad plants – bought as plantlets online and they seem to be thriving. The picture below shows two sets that are under the ‘door’ cold frame protection. There is another set in a nearby raised bed.

To go with the above I bought some ‘winter lettuce’ seed and planted short rows near the plants above and in the raiesd bed close to the other salad plants. However, so far the result has been disappointing – scarcely a seedling to be seen (and this is after 2 weeks +).

Also my garlic bulbs are waiting for me to get round to planting them – the bed is ready now but I was waiting for the weather to get a bit more seasonal i.e. cold. Hopefully I’ll get it done in the next couple of weeks. Somehow though I’ve ended up with more bulbs of garlic than I need so I’ll have to see if any neighbours want some. I’ll give the varieties when I get round to planting.

That’s pretty much all I’ve done – apart from hopefully mending my main water butt (collects from one side of the greenhouse) which developed a split in the base early this year. I’ve used some fancy mastic type tape which seems to be holding so far and the butt is around half-full from recent rains.

Some work need to be done repairing the raise beds over the winter. One or two have reached the end of life for some of the bed sides now. I’m going to experiment with some laminate floorboards left over from flooring in the house as I have a few lengths spare and some bits I’ve used in the garden seem to have lasted quite well.

Wildlife

A review of the end-garden cameras revealed multiple visit from a badger and of course the usual foxes and multiple cats. The dry weather conditions made it easy for the badger to visit but I suspect after the recent rains the route will have closed.

While working in the garden the resident robins seem to think I’m just there to produce food for them. They will appear seconds after I start work, or I can hear them ‘chuntering’ in the nearby hedge until I pause whereupon they will be hopping round my feet until I start again!

Some Progress but Weather Still Variable

Although it is spring and showers are expected the weather has still been very up and down – with the odd sunny day, rainy days and still some frosty mornings. The days are at least longer and with the clocks change there is now some light in the evenings. The greenhouse has at least been reasonable to work in mostly, though too hot on the rare sunny days.

One big failure of the winter planting has been the broad beans where only half or less of the beans planted back in Feb?

have come up. Fortunately I have been able to rescue the situation with beans planted in pots in the greenhouse. Most of these I’ve planted in the bed now, and there are some more in pots not yet up which will hopefully fill in the last gaps.

What broad beans?

On the other hand the first batch of mangetout peas are now in the bed and looking good. Also, the rocket plants I put in a couple of weeks ago seem to be thriving. The sweet peas though are struggling apart from those planted near the kitchen window.

Another failure has been the carrot seeds – nothing has appeared so after ?? weeks I think they aren’t going to germinate. I do have more seed and a different variety so I need to get some of them sown as soon as possible.

I have two courgette seedlings and one cucumber seedling just a t the point of producing their first true leaves, so they will have to be potted on I suspect before I can risk then going outside. I have more courgette and cucumber seed planted but not yet through.

Elsewhere, I’ve been sorting out one of the compost bins as the rats had found a way into it so I had to empty it into another and then reset it over some mesh and flatter base – I needed the mesh as the rats had gnawed part of the base away to gain entry.

 

Wildlife

The trail cam has shown another visit by the badger as well as regular visits by a hedgehog.

Some Proper Rain At Last

The last few days have been punctuated by showers of rain, and some long enough to really get the garden wet and recharge the water butts, so quite appreciated rally. Also, most of the rain came overnight so didn’t interrupt the daytime activities too much – which is unusual as it was a Bank Holiday here yesterday and that usually means poor weather – instead we had relatively fine weather, at least in this part of the UK.

However, for various reasons, including running a half-marathon and spending hours in a boat, I couldn’t spend as much time in the garden over the Bank Holiday weekend as I would have liked. As a result all those seedlings waiting to be planted are still waiting….

On the plus side I did harvest some rhubarb for the first time this year (just removed the cover the other day) which we’ve had in a ‘sponge and rhubarb cake/pudding’ with cream – yum. Also talking about harvesting, the salad leaves in the long container are now big enough to harvest handfuls. The row of rocket outside the kitchen will be ready soon as well.

Salad leaves – you can just see the rocket behind the container

In the greenhouse I’ve repotted some of the pepper seedlings (‘Gourmet’) – there were three in a pot so they are now in individual pots. I’ve shifted three more growbags into the greenhouse and cut the holes in one and watered ready for some more tomato seedling – well they are getting out of hand now and although I can’t grow them a ll in the greenhouse I really need to get them into growbags. One of the bags will be used for pepper plants though.

Many tomato and flower seedlings

The three tomatoes already in the growbag are flourishing:

Tomatoes – Ailsa Craig, Pomodoro and Gardeners Delight

I’ve also had to sit and prick out a load of antirrhinum seeds into pots – and there are still loads to do not just them but also- including mesembryanthemums of which there seem to be hundreds…

Outside I’ve taken a bold step and planted out the dwarf beans – and I need to sow some more now just in case!

Dwarf beans now in raised bed

The ‘Lollo Rosso’ lettuce seeds I sowed a few weeks ago are now popping up, though not in the precise row they were sown in – I suspect birds have been disturbing them. The radish, pak choi and turnip seedlings are all coming along nicely, but no sign at all of the chard so a resowing is now on the cards.

Lollo Rosso seedlings

The ‘old’ apple tree (Lord Lambourne) is in full flower, as is the new and still small Braeburn. The plum planted last year looks like it is still concentrating on growing and hasn’t produced any flowers.

Oh yes and my nicely planted carrot ‘tank’ (which is standing on bricks so the top is about a metre above ground – to avoid carrot root fly) – where the seedling were all coming on nicely, was raided by something ?magpies ?cat and all the seedlings disturbed and moved about – too late I covered it with an old fire-guard, and most of the seedlings are making a valiant attempt to recover, but there is a rather blank parch in the middle which I’ll need to resow. Really annoying and unexpected.

Wildlife

Some amazing developments – I had a trailcam in place at the bottom of the garden for a few weeks and when the results were reviewed a few days ago we discovered the following passing through the garden:

Three different cats

A rather scrawny fox

A hedgehog

And – a big surprise – a badger!

No idea where the badger is coming from or going to but it appeared on several different nights so clearly is a regular visitor. I haven’t processed the pics and movies yet, but when I sort them out I’ll post here.

Many butterflies in the sunny weather as noted in previous post, plenty bumble bees on the flowers that are out and many ‘beeflies’ arguing over their territories while hovering over the lawn. One smooth newt turned up in some compost from one of the compost heaps – I was mixing it with some bought compost (by hand) when I suddenly saw movement – so I let it go close to where it came from. Also a ‘froglet’ appeared after the rain, possibly one of this years tadpoles as they hatched early this year.

I refilled all the bird feeders a couple of weeks ago with fresh seed,peanuts and fat-balls and the tits and robin plus collared doves have been visiting recently – I would guess they all have chick somewhere nearby.