My late winter to-dos in the garden

Posted by louisa on Monday 20 February 2012 in chickens, growing | 3 comments

We’re trying to return to normality after a fortnight of poorliness – and I’m feeling very aware that time is marching on in the garden.

Things I need to do ASAP:

• Plant the six soft fruit bushes I bought from Aldi just before I got ill. Last year’s Aldi bushes are doing well so I got the same again: two blackcurrant, two redcurrant & two raspberry. The raspberry bushes will be planted alongside the ones from last year but not sure about the others – I’m wondering if it will make them cry if I just put them in tubs this year? Speaking of which…
• Transplant the honeyberry bushes. They were in containers last year but I think they’ll stretch their legs further if I can put them in a bed instead. Perhaps I should take this as a lesson for the other berry bushes & find somewhere for them now!
• Transplant existing strawberries (in case they survive being dog-nibbled) and get some more for a June-ish glut. The existing strawberry plants are a season-long variety which is good in many ways but bad for jam-making. I want jam.
• Wonder if I’ve still got time/space to get another small cherry tree in the ground this winter. Or get a container-sized one at least.
• Freshen up all the beds/big containers. Some of them just need topping up with compost, others are going to get a “mature” chicken poo boost.
• Decide what veg I’m going to grow this year. Usually an early-January job but since January didn’t happen here this there, I still need to get organised. There are a few more things joining potatoes on my “no, don’t grow” list this year, including peppers and leeks, but I’m not sure what I do want to grow — I better decide soon because some things need sowing in a few weeks.
• Conduct a roll call to see what plants we’ve already got. I suspect this should happen before the latter. I’m particularly thinking about herbs and other stuff that will/should have survived the winter. I’m hoping to make a decent herb bed this year, one way or another, so it’ll be good to know what’s already available.
• Decide whether or not we’re going to try hatching eggs this year – and if so, decide what type of eggs to buy. This is a conditional thing – we’ll only do it if one of the chickens goes seriously broody. Ginger spent half of 2011 broody – if she does the same this year, she can, essentially, hatch her own replacements. I want to make the decision before she goes broody though because we’ll have to rush to buy eggs/get a broody coop built in good time so I’d rather have a plan ready before then.
• Clean out the greenhouse. Naughty me left it in a bit of a state last winter – it needs clearing, cleaning and airing before I can start to use it again for this year.
• Plant out the spent forced hyacinth bulbs. datacreate & Hazel have given me hope that these might regrow again in the garden next year. I’m going to plant them near the cherry tree & the existing fruit bushes as I know those beds are less likely to be disturbed by my digging this year.

What’s on your to-do list for your garden/allotment this week?

Already making plans for next year?

Posted by louisa on Wednesday 15 June 2011 in growing | 5 comments

I know it’s not even midsummer yet but I’m not the only one making growing plans for next year, am I?

• More strawberries: As I said the other day, our current strawberries should give us a long season of fruit but strawberries are so damn useful that I’d like to expand our crop. While hopefully our current ones will send out runners which will we can cultivate, I’m thinking about adding another variety to result in more of a summer glut for turning into jam etc. I’ll be reading the Which results reposted in brief by Gillian on My Tiny Plot for inspiration. They’ll be planted in the “mini forest garden” beds to add more low height crops. (The silver birch bed is doing very well, btw – four levels so far, a fifth to go in, and the strawberries would be a sixth.)
• More soft fruit bushes: John’s dad has been building us a Lily-dog and hen containment fence on the shared boundary between our garden & our neighbours – and it’s made me think more about the stuff on that border. I’m going to pull up two shrubs and replace them with fruit bushes. I nearly bought a couple of (presumably 2 year old) redcurrants for cheap at Focus at the weekend but think I’d prefer more raspberries.
• Another cherry tree: Just near those bushes is a taller treelet, which everyone asks is fig because the leaves look like fig leaves. I don’t think it is – and even if it was, it’s not the right climate here to it’s a bit pointless. So I think I’ll replace that with a cherry – perhaps a sweet cherry to complement the sour morello we’ve already got.
• Even more fruit bushes or trees: On the lowest level of the fence, there is a narrow bed underneath the fence – that could be used for more fruit bushes or even espalier fruit trees.
• Another raised bed? We currently have two semi circular raised-with-stone beds with a space inbetween them. I usually fill the space with containers but it would be more efficient to wall the front of the space into a third raised bed. The builders who’ve just finished work on our house freed up a load of suitable stone so I might do this one this year. It would be a deep, south-east facing bed — even if it’s not vast, it could certainly be useful.
• A long bed at the front? I meant to make the front garden more useful this year – it’s currently being used as a dumping ground for non-useful rubble (from the building work) and random stuff from use clearing out the garage — not quite what I imagined! In time for next year, I’m going to try to build a really long bed along the side of the porch (about 4m). I’ve got some salvaged long lengths of decking which would be fine to use from both a structural and aesthetic point of view – even if it’s just for perennial herbs, it’ll be useful.
• More shade-loving things: I meant to start making better use of the shaded bits of our garden this year, but didn’t get around to it. I wish I’d put in some rhubarb, and some more herbs.
• And that’s all before thinking about what annuals I’ll grow…!

Are you getting ahead of yourself too?

Creating miniature forest gardens?

Posted by louisa on Friday 8 April 2011 in growing | 9 comments

On Wednesday Linda pointed out that my sawing wood avoidance isn’t lazy but “efficient”. Yes, *cough*, efficient, I concur.

I’m trying to be as efficient as possible in the garden this year – both according to that meaning and the conventional one — and from that and some recent reading, I’m thinking of creating two small forest gardens spots in my garden.

For those not familiar with the idea, forest gardening is a way to multicrop one area – growing (usually) edible plants, shrubs and trees at up to seven different levels, from the treetop canopy levels to ground cover and even root veg. You can create them at a forest scale or even just in small container. It’s efficient in terms of space – a variety of potential food from one area – and can be efficient in the not-sawing-really-lazy sense too if most/all of the layers are perennials or self-seeders.

Both spots I’ve thinking about are in raised beds underneath trees – the first underneath a super tall 100 year old silver birch, then second under a recently planted (currently 2 years old) morello cherry. The silver birch would be canopy layer-plus-plus as it’s miles away from anything else. The cherry, which is on semi-dwarf rootstock, will grow to no more than 2.5m-3m tall so is more at the second layer, the “low tree layer”.

The idea is to have a wedge shape if at all possible – the tall things at the back, the short things at the front, so everything gets sufficient light. The trees are, usefully, in just about the right position for this – towards the back of the space (or at least with ample space to the front) and positioned so that they won’t block the sun. (The back of the house, and thus the garden, is east-facing but the southern facing aspect is completely open too so the silver birch bed gets full sun from about 10am until 4pm-5pm in the summer, and the cherry space from dawn until 2pm.)

Both spots are small and both trees will be pretty thirsty, so I probably won’t be able to plant a full set of layers of demanding fruit & veg but I think there is potential for some stuff. Even if I’m not growing huge amounts of anything in particular, as long as it’s not taking me a lot of effort, it seems to be a good use of space – especially as they’re underused/used as a dumping ground as the birch bed (at the top) is used now.

I’ve already started to plant some shrub-layer fruit bushes under the silver birch – some raspberries that’ll hopefully grow to 3ft-4ft tall. I don’t think the bed is deep enough towards the front for root veg but it’ll certainly be fine for herbaceous things — it would make sense to put borage in there (which grew to between 2-3ft last year) because it’s near the chickens who love borage and I’ve got some chard just starting off, which could go in front of that. Finally, I’m not sure I’ll have any spare plants this year but hopefully once my strawberries start multiplying, I could plant some runners as ground cover/to topple over the edge. Borage self-seeds, chard can (can’t it?) and strawberry runners will last a few years before needing swapping out – so that, in theory, sounds like it could be a lazy efficient bed.

There is only about half that space around the cherry tree so I can’t pack it out. I think big berry bushes would overwhelm the space and clash with the lower tree branches but might get away with some shorter fruit bushes – possibly a small blueberry bush (I’ve seen some that are only about 2ft tall), and when I can propagate children from my cranberry & lingonberry bushes, I could include their offspring there too (the cranberry “strands” could flop over the side of the raised bed). I guess I wouldn’t be adding either of those things this year – which would probably be good as it would let the cherry tree get established in the meantime. I wonder if there is anything not resource crazy that I could put in there now… possibly some not-moisture-crazy herbs? Rosemary? Lavender? I have some little lavender plants in the nearby herb bed which could be transplanted without too much disruption and some other rosemary plantlets nearly ready to be planted out too.

One layer I’ve not talked about is climber/vines – which is the seventh layer. If I thought kiwis or grapes would grow well enough this far up north, I’d possibly consider them for climbing up around the silver birch. Is there anything else in that category that would work? I guess I could leave some space for annual vines – “climbing” squash or something but they are very resource intensive. I’m going to make sure the beds are well enhanced with organic matter before I start but it seems silly to overload them straight afterwards.

Has anyone else created any really small scale “forest gardens”? Is there anything to watch for or need to consider? Any suggestions/advice about my initial plant choices?

More fruit bushes-to-be – jostaberry

Posted by louisa on Wednesday 16 March 2011 in growing | 4 comments

A while ago, I said I was done planting fruit bushes for the year, then about a week later I remembered I had some honeyberry bushes on order but once they were planted up, that was it re: fruit bushes for the year. Oh, and there was also the then on order, now planted out cherry tree – definitely nothing else. Definitely, definitely, definitely.

The magnificently wonderful John B popped around last night, bringing with him some of his damson wine (which my John has declared amazing), a jar of his homemade “John’s Spicy Sausage Sauce” (which we shall use to spice up our sausages ASAP) and some jostaberry canes.

I hadn’t heard of jostaberries before John mentioned them to us a while ago – they’re a cross between gooseberries and blackcurrants. Early on, they have the taste & transparency of gooseberries but they darken to end up like big blackcurrants. They also have rather big spikes on them.

He pruned his bushes at the weekend and I won’t be able to plant the cuttings until tomorrow so they might need a bit of TLC – or might just flat out not regrow – but it’s worth a shot.

I plonked them in a tub of water when they arrived and we decided it looked like the worst, most painful, most relationship-ending bouquet of flowers ever — unhappy Valentine’s day. Hopefully though, they’ll eventually make us berry happy indeed.