Entries Tagged 'Garden' ↓

Do you have moles in your garden? I looked out at my grass this morning and noticed that the moles have been partying again. I must admit, my first reaction is amusement. I cannot look at a mole hill without thinking of the childrens book about them.
Duncton Wood By William Horwood.
The  other thing which raises a smile is the thought of the video by Jasper Carrot trying to rid himself of moles.

If you want to sow seeds early before the weather has warmed up enough to allow them to germinate naturally, or even if you want to be sure that seed which is temperature sensitive germinates, then you need a heated propagator.

If you are lucky enough (and wealthy enough) to have a heated greenhouse, then you do not have this problem. The rest of us have to devise ways of warming our sowing medium without breaking the bank.

The summer fruiting varieties of raspberry canes will need support and I will put a post in each end of the row. This will be 18ins in the ground and 4 ft high. I will put wire between the posts at 18 ins (the first being 1 ft off the ground) so that as the canes grow, they can be tied to them. The canes will be tied at an angle of 45 degrees, all in one direction. This is so that when next years canes start to grow, they will be tied in  the opposite direction, making it easier to prune after they have finished fruiting.

Roses are the nations favourite flowers. This may, in part, be because there are so many different types that there is one to suit every situation.

It is sometimes difficult to choose roses, given the wide variety of colours and shapes of the flowers along with the variety of types. However, always consider where you are putting it, how large it will grow amd what it will eventually look like, before coming to a decision.

Potatoes take a little bit of work to grow in your garden but are worth it for the taste. If you have a small garden, then it is hardly worth growing maincrop varieties since they are so cheap to buy and they do take up a lot of room. There are really only four processes which you need to go through to grow garden potatoes successfully and once you know these, it becomes easy.

Ideally, really good compost is supposedly brown and crumbly with the sweetest of smells, like woods in the autumn. In fact, it very rarely is. If you have a very big compost heap with only the very best organic material to build it with, then you can achieve this in spring and summer. Most of us, however build our compost heaps with whatever organic material available and the compost is very variable with a lot of semi-rotted fibrous matterial. That doesn’t matter. It will still improve the soil and will certainly do no harm, it will just take longer for it to become  “humus”.

Garden Peas are almost every child’s favourite vegetable, with good reason. Together with sweet corn they are among the sweetest tasting of all vegetables, and when grown in your garden they taste even sweeter. I always eat my first pod of peas uncooked, just to savour the flavour.

Crop rotation is a very useful and old method of growing vegetables to give the maximum use of nutrients in your soil and to prevent the build up of pests and diseases.

I use a three year scheme (pretty general) and this is how it works. First, all vegetables and divided into groups. The first group consists of Potatoes, carrots, beetroot, persnips, onions, leeks, garlic, tomatoes, courgettes, marrows, pumpkins, celery, Florence Fennel, aubergines, peppers, cucumbers, melons, celeriac, salsify and scorzonia. You can also include Hamberg parsley in this if you do not grow it among your herbs. With this bed you start by double digging incorporating manure in the upper and lower levels plus two handfuls of blood, fish and bonemeal. Then grow as many of this group in this patch  as you want.

Sweet Peppers and Chillis are fun to grow. I use them both for cooking and for decoration. They are easy to grow and very rewarding. I find them very useful in cooking also. I use my Capsicums (sweet peppers) both raw in salads and also cooked in all manners of ways and dishes. They are not particularly hot but add a certain piquancy to dishes. For heat you need chilli peppers. Both types are decorative and can be kept in pots in the house as decoration and used as wished.You can also freeze peppers and chillis for use when wanted.

French Beans, in my opinion, are one of the most delicious of the beans. There used to be only one type, that are now called bush beans or dwarf beans, but now you can also grow them as climbing plants.

Climbing plants make considerable sense, particularly for people short of space. Growing upwards means you get a larger harvest for a smaller ground space. However, they are later to crop than the shorter varieties.