Tag Archives: psb

Green Shoots

Back to a new term and the new garden as we prepare to put my father to rest on Monday.

Potting Shed being put to use

It has, of course, been a strange time – the combination of funeral arrangements, sorting The Old Man’s estate and domestic affairs, combined with family matters has kept me occupied through the latter part of the holidays. Having a six-day break in Arran was a much-needed breather and by driving eight hours north we also found far better weather than the West of England enjoyed.

We are now at school in at what is amusingly labelled the summer term. It would have been nice to have had a few days in the garden in the latter half of the hols, but the rain has been incessant and in one of the few dry intervals when I tried to cut the grass, the mower broke.  Getting the garden under control does is not coming easily.

Still, I am glad I made the investment in the greenhouse allowing me to plant plenty of seed trays.  The potting shed is coming into its own with the last surviving hen keen to help out on occasion.  Everything is late, but we finally have some tomato seedlings poking through as well as Cavolo Nero, cabbages and PSB.  I thought we had some chillis up, but they turned out to be mushrooms. Not what I was expecting at all.  They grew one day, died the next.  Hey ho.  Might need to look at a different brand of potting compost.

On the upside, the potatoes are looking well chitted and are more than ready to get into the ground. The down side being that I have not been able to prepare any beds in the waterlogged clay soil.  I have the frames for the raised beds, but no compost or topsoil to go in them.  That’s a plan for another week.

Help wanted?
One small tomato for man..

 

May Now

May is deceptive.  You think there is sunshine and warmth there, but look closer and all you see is grey and coldness. That’s the PM for you.

It’s no different in the garden, where temperatures remain cool and seedlings need to be tough to harden off before planting.  Even before getting to the veg patch they have to combat the “bloody difficult” slugs which continue to chomp on them, but enough are surviving the onslaught to make it to potting on.  Despite the snails rampaging through seedlings like the SNP through the Labour heartlands, I have managed to pot up plenty of Summer PSB, and enough Brussels to pay for ten thousand new policemen.  I think that figure is correct.  Give me a moment….

This weekend it did start to feel warmer and Mrs B helped me plant out the sweet peas in the goalposts.  Last year the first sweet pea blossomed on 27th May – a month and a half earlier than the usual Sweet Pea Day of 10th July.  I cannot see that we will have a sweet pea by that time this year, but perhaps one will bloom on 8th June.  We could do with something uplifting and beautiful to happen on that day.  I am not expecting any other wonderful surprises then.

Sweet Peas – “Back of the Net”
Korean Mint. Another immigrant flavour.
Hardening off
Coriander
Basil!
Brussels. UKIP’s favourite vegetable
“We’ll keep the red kale flying here”
Policemen
Ranunculus in the morning

 

 

 

Feed the Birds

Pied Wagtails in central Bath (poor pic)
Pied Wagtails in central Bath (poor pic)

Mary Poppins the musical is back doing the rounds and so I somehow got an ear worm in my head that is straight out of the show. Ear worm is an apt description as the song is “Feed the Birds”.  It was always something that the parents did and the Old Man has always been diligent in keeping the feeders full of nuts.  in recent winters the main recipients have been rats who have climbed the wisteria to hang on the wire cage and feast.  This year TOM has not been putting food out for the birds (or the rats) yet. Whether this is because the weather has been so mild our feathered friends really do not need any more sustenance I am not sure.

In years gone by we would be asked to delay pruning the Cotoneaster until the birds had been able eat all the berries, but frankly I have never seen any self-respecting fieldfares helping themselves to the red plenty.

But we have found other ways in which to provide for the wild bird population.  A year or two back the starlings would flock around the hen run and clean us out of layers pellets and corn. It cost us a bomb to keep re-filling the feeder – making for some of the more expensive free range eggs around. We now have a feeder that is not accessible to small birds so that is sorted.

Equally, I have put an end to providing fodder to the pigeons, who after I had netted the purple sprouting, turned their attention to the kale and when I covered that, they started to shred the brussels. Can’t fault them for taste, but it amuses me how easily they are put off feeding by a bit of green net.

Birds I am happy to aid in their five-a-day nutritional requirements are obviously the robins who appear as soon as I pick up a fork. Robins act like they are your chums and at Christmas they appear all sweet and festive on cards and the like. But they are fiercely territorial and pretty damned belligerent towards each other. So not all that cute.

The other piece of bird-friendly activity I finally did yesterday was to take the netting off the raspberries – thereby allowing birds to rummage in amongst the canes for any old fruit or other stuff.

And all day long I was humming along “tuppence a bag”…

Dead Air

Retaking territory after the weeds
Re-taking territory after the weeds

It rained yesterday.  Bucketloads.  Which was a good thing.  Not in the “It’ll do the garden good” kind of way, because the garden is plenty wet enough thanks.  No – it gave us the excuse to stay indoors and watch the battle of Good v Evil which was how the World Athletics Championships had been billed.  Having had the brilliance and farce / tragedy of the women’s Heptathlon as Ennis-Hill ruled supreme and Johnson-Thompson fouled out (tragically? stupidly?) we had the Bolt v Gatlin race for the soul of athletics.  The whole eternal battle thing was a little over the top, but it was pleasing to see the Good Guy beat the one wearing the metaphorical black stetson.  Usain rode off with gold on his golden Palomino.

Raspeberries are secure
Raspeberries are secure

After that breathless excitement it was time turn to our own Midday in the garden of Good and Evil.  There is plenty of decent stuff in the garden – such as my nice new fruit cage that I have manufactured out of the twisted remains of the gazebo that took a battering in the June gale, and the flowers that we planted are still blooming:  Cosmos are brilliant, Rudbeckia tall and proud, Gladiolae still glad to be gay and Veronica small but perfectly formed.

There are plenty of veg, if one looks hard enough:  courgettes ranging from petite to XXXXL, green beans, runner beans and dwarf french (although the climbing french for some reason have simply whithered on the cane).  Plenty of potatoes, summer psb, and spicy, peppery salad leaves.

Eggs have hatched
Eggs have hatched

But there is still a constant battle of Good and Evil here too.  The cabbage whites have managed to lay their eggs and we now wage war with the caterpillars which have stripped some plants clean.  The leeks which we planted before we went away, were razed to the ground within 24 hours so we raised the barricades for them and they seem to have recovered.  The lawn (well, grassy area) has more patches than a quilters’ convention with splodges of bare earth dotted all over showing a  constant reminder of mole activity.  And the roses have once again been given the sign of the black spot with death and decay to follow.  Not even the greenhouse is immune where the ants nests are abundant despite the ants always seeming to take to the air (I thought they all flew on one day and that was it?).  I am not sure how much damage they actually cause, but surely they cannot be helping?

But despite the dead air of the greenhouse there is still some promising news with the first two tomates finally making it to the table – about three months after the gardening giants of Galhampton had started cropping their wonder plants.   Ours will taste all the better for the wait – or at least that is how I try to argue it with Mrs B.