Tubers

We've had quite a busy weekend, and spent almost all of yesterday weeding the long border, and the herb garden, both of which are looking a lot tidier. While Liz was starting with this, I mowed the lawns, and pulled a couple of areas of moss out of the wood shelter's green roof out. The lawn, after a rather shaggy-looking winter, is much smarter now. I need to find some edging shears that work, in order to tidy up the boundaries, though.

We've also planted out the potatoes: Lady Christl and Red Duke of York. We're only doing those two this year, though more of them—two bags (40&ndash50) Lady Christl, and one bag of Red Duke. Maincrops have been a bit blighty the last few years, and we've had disappointing yields, so this year we've got the Jerusalem Artichokes (Fuseau) and early potatoes, instead. We also planted out the onions: about 200 Red Piroska, and 200 Stuttgarter. I had to re-cut a membrane to plant them through, as the one we used last year was ruined when deer more-or-less danced on it.

The dahlias we potted up a month ago (22nd March) have now gone out to the greenhouse, as the weather seems warm enough overnight to allow this. Some are starting to show shoots, but not all. I'm not, really, expecting them all to come up. One border-planted specimen was badly eaten last year, and I'm not sure it was strong enough going into winter. Similarly, six pots are new garden-centre bought tubers, and while I hope at least half will come up, the shop-bought ones aren't utterly reliable, so I expect some losses. We'll take more side-shoot cuttings, and increase stock. That way, we can afford some losses each winter.

The last thing was a load of seed sowing, meaning that the windowsills are, once more, full.

Tidying the Green Roof

I've had a day off today, though Liz has been working. I started by making a couple of trips to the tip, taking the old bathroom suites, and some other bits. I tried Freecycling them, but there weren't any takers, unfortunately. That out of the way, I did a bit of spring maintenance to the green roof, using a three-pronged hoe on the end of my 4m extendible pole. It's usually deployed for pruning trees, but is equally effective horizontally, for reaching across the green roof, rather than walking on it. That's allowed me to dethatch a lot of last years dead and dry material, with minimal disruption to the new shoots coming up, and has avoided the need to climb on to the roof myself. The green roof's looking an awful lot neater, now, and is starting to come back to life. There were only a few small clumps of grass, which is good, and I was able to uproot them.

This afternoon, I've finished connecting the ethernet cabling, and tested it all, so we now have functional Cat6 ports in the rooms I wanted them, and a few of them can be connected to the four switch ports on the router, meaning faster wired ethernet when needed.

RHS Tatton Park 2014

This morning, at about 0815, we set off for Tatton Park, as we have the last couple of years, to the RHS flower show. It takes about an hour, and having parked and walked to the showground, we were in the queue at about 0940, giving us a quarter hour to start looking at the show catalogue (and map) before being let in at just before 10. I've been impressed, this year and last, at how quickly they scan the bar-coded tickets and get you in.

There were some really good show gardens, this year. We particularly liked a heritage/allotment fruit and veg stall from a group of local allotmenteers, and were struck by a scarlet mountain spinach (orache) that we've never seen in the flesh before. It's a possible potager plant next year.Grasses were much in evidence, as well as chocolate cosmos, sanguisorba, crocosmia, and brunnera. That suited us nicely, as we've many grasses that could be used in combination. We have one sanguisorba, 'Tanna', and a brunnera, 'Jack Frost', both bought at Tatton last year, and came looking for more brunnera. We have a few crocosmia, but one caught our eye today that is apparently a fairly new introduction; Twilight Fairy 'Gold'. It has lovely bronzed foliage, but sadly wasn't for sale from the show garden (the Young Designer of the Year garden by Sam Ovens).

We saw a couple of water features we liked, which might inform later plans.

(© Ian 2014)

(© Ian 2014)

This garden had a rebar construction for its runner beans: apparently I'm not the only one using rebar to construct supports! It also had a rather good green wall, one of which Liz still wants to find a space for.

These garden seats were very good, and next door we saw some very weather resistant swing seats by the well-named Yorkshire Swingseat Company.

(© Ian 2014)

(© Ian 2014)

One feature that we enjoyed was a collection of eight vignette gardens that encapsulated larger gardens' feel in small plots. They're all from Cheshire, and included Arley Hall, which is actually just down the road from Tatton Park, and we thought looked worth a real visit, based on their 'taster' garden.

(© Ian 2014)

The floral marquee was, as ever, phenomenally stocked by nurseries, and although we only bought two plants, the other displays were excellent, and gave us contact details for a number of specialist nurseries. One, near Cambridge, might be a good source of alpines, if we do decide to put a green roof on the mini-sheds. There were a couple of hosta specialists, too, for when we dig the bog garden.

(© Ian 2014)

The two plants we bought were both from the Hampshire Carnivorous Plants: one was a Sarracenia hybrid (a North American Pitcher Plant), which suited us because it actively requires a good cold winter spell, probably in the unheated greenhouse. The other is a dangling/hanging sort of plant, a Monkey Cup called 'Linda' (a hybrid, Nepenthes cv 'Linda') despite being a dioecious male. It now hangs, slightly threateningly, in the sitting room.

For us, though, the Young Designer Gardens were the best. We felt that the television coverage (Thursday and Friday evening) actually let these down, and all three, but particularly Alex Schofield's, were much better in the flesh. In fact, everything else we purchased came from these three gardens.

(© Ian 2014)

Acquisitions were:

• From Alex Schofield's garden:
• Brunnera; I need to check the cultivar
• Astrantia 'Gill Richardson'
• Sanguisorba (S. officionalis)'Tanna'
• Sedum (S. spectabile) 'Matrona'
• From Clare Broadbent's garden:
• Echinacea 'Secret Love'
• Eupatorium, I think E. purpureum
• From Sam Ovens' garden:
• Scabious 'Pink Mist'

(© Ian 2014)

Last Few Jobs

I'm astonished to say that, of our list of jobs we made on Saturday for the past five days, we've actually done them all. Today, I've turned the compost heaps (decomposing beautifully); replaced the satellite cable and LNB (finally we have two signals to the box, reducing recording conflicts); we've painted the bike shelter (it'll need another coat or two, but there you go); installed the loft hatch in the garage (still so named!); and hung ladder hooks in the same (necessitated by putting a hatch in the hole they poked up through). Liz has done a thorough weed of the long border over the last couple of days, and it's looking loads better. We've also managed to move all the stone (and turf) that we put on the septic tank two years ago when digging the beds on either side. This is because, having transformed the garage, we want to get some of the garden tools out; but, lacking a shed, this is tricky. Our solution (long planned) will be a set of storage cupboards along the septic tank, within the living willow structure we're growing over it. Ideally, these will each have a little green roof, probably planted with alpines (which have their interest mostly in the spring, before the willow gets into full leaf). They arrive on Friday, so in order to assemble them this weekend, the tank top needs to be clear.

Having uncovered it, I've been reminded that two of the five manhole covers don't fit at all well. By which I mean they're alarmingly unstable, and seem too small. The concrete lid sections have also 'drifted' towards the bottom end of the tank. We've pushed them back together, but the covers are irredeemably too small. I shall buy a couple of new ones, and mortar them in, which will make it all rather safer.

While we've been working, the cats have kept us company. Chess found somewhere shady to nap (I don't know how he got through the latticework).

Chess sleeping inside a sweet-pea pyramid (© Ian 2014)

We're almost, but not quite, at the point of enough sweet-peas for every downstairs room.

Liz's sweet-pea (and berberis and alchemilla) flower display for the week (© Ian 2014)

Task List

I've had today off, though Liz has been working: that made it an ideal day to get a number of little jobs done, and I've had a pleasingly productive day.

It's the time of year when I start trying to get the window frames painted. Last week, two of the last wooden windows on the back of the house were replaced with uPVC, which (in addition to looking rather good, especially for uPVC) means I have two fewer frames to worry about. Of course, the time-consuming Georgian-barred windows on the front are no fewer, and it's those which have always taken the time.

However, before embarking on this year's painting, I decided to install some eye bolts on the front wall, in order to tie down the ladder while using it. I've had enough of bouncing on an unsteady ladder, and don't enjoy working on one at the best of time. The window at the end of the study has always needed a rather extended ladder, as the ground drops off in that direction, and the path has stepped down towards the level of the garage. It's always, therefore, been the worst climb.

To combat this, I've installed two M12 shield anchor bolts (18mm holes, which aren't for the faint of heart, or drill), one on either side of the window, at about 180cm height. Using a ratchet strap passed around each stile and angled down through the bolt, the ladder can now be tightly held in place. The result is revelatory: I felt much more secure, and less conscious of the drop...

That window, and two dining room ones, are now done: I'm only planning to chip away at the painting, with the aim of getting about half done over the next couple of months.

Next, I strimmed the half of the orchard I didn't manage to do eleven days ago. I'm hoping I'll only have to do this regularly for another 12-15 months, and that we can think about a couple of sheep by then.

I've painted some of the remaining legume/sweet pea supports, which means their bituminous feet (the underground bit) are done, and as many of their above-ground elements as I could get to (given that the tarry feet were drying).

I shan't dwell on unblocking the kitchen drain.

The work on the garage has been going on since the end of last week; sorting the foundations took a little while, but the builder started the actual walls yesterday, and has finished them today. The uneven-ness of the walls has complicated things slightly, and none of the windows are going to be quite the same height. The joiner will be along on Monday to measure up, and hopefully the building work will otherwise be done tomorrow. Next up will be the replacement of the dining room window with a set of patio doors.

After lunch, I took the time to do a wander of the garden with camera in hand. It's been a while, but here's where things are up to.

Bees foraging in the wallflower in the front garden (© Ian 2014)

The dining room windows, for now, until the patio doors go in (© Ian 2014)

The sweet pea supports (© Ian 2014)

One of the sweet peas is flowering; several more are on the verge of doing so (© Ian 2014)

The heuchera bed; not sure whether the quince has set fruit (© Ian 2014)

One of the astrantias in the copse bed (© Ian 2014)

The long border in front of the dining room (© Ian 2014)

The mess of the pond aside, the bed next to the septic tank has filled out well, and needs pruning (© Ian 2014)

The aquilegia here has gone slightly mad this year (© Ian 2014)

Astrantia flower (© Ian 2014)

Mostly-planted vegetable garden (© Ian 2014)

Red Duke of York potato (© Ian 2014)

Green roof wild flowers, with foraging bees (© Ian 2014)

Green roof on wood store (© Ian 2014)

Day lily which we didn't know was there (© Ian 2014)

Weed-membraned knot garden (© Ian 2014)

Inside the garage before work on the wall/windows (© Ian 2014)

New garage front (© Ian 2014)

Stone cills & jambs being supported while curing (© Ian 2014)

Window apertures ready for windows (© Ian 2014)

York Gate

David and Ann were with us for the weekend, and having dropped them off at the station, we carried on to visit York Gate Garden, which is on the outskirts of Leeds. It's on a similar scale to our own garden, and is pleasingly divided into a number of smaller gardens, which is the kind of approach we're trying to take. It had a pretty pond, a nut walk, and a productive kitchen garden.

York Gate Gardens (© Ian 2013)

And, inevitably, a small nursery. We picked up three alpine Lady's Mantles  (Alchemilla conjuncta), which is more delicate than A. mollis, with leaves that are more divided, and silver edged. It is, apparently, less prone to seeding everywhere, and is better behaved.

Having got home, we pottered in the garden, including a contemplative look at the games lawn: Liz is floating the possibility of cutting an oval flower bed in its centre, and making the surrounding beds that bit bigger. Doing so would prevent badminton (but the combination of warm, dry and still weather necessary for a reasonable game is extremely rare), and formal croquet; but modified croquet, boules, lawn darts, and similar would all be possible. And it would make more space for plants, and probably look more attractive.

I also hooked up some new watering equipment, which arrived last week: a timer computer, which can set water going up to eight times each day, and an automatic distributor from Gardena. The latter's rather clever: each time the water comes on, it sends it out the next outlet of six, in sequence. By connecting each irrigation zone to a different outlet, and using the computer to turn the water on (and off) the same number of times, each zone will be watered. It will mean I only have to turn the water on/off once, instead of five or so times, in an evening, and the kitchen garden (and green roof) will be watered. It will also mean that the watering can be done while we're away, without laboriously inconveniencing a neighbour.

Netting

Our visit to Tatton Park was bracketed by days at home, which we mostly spent outside, of course. Saturday was dominated by going over the hillside with the brushcutter, cutting the grass, and removing or weakening as much of the brambles, gorse, rush-grass, and ragwort as possible. It's hot and hard work, but the hillside is definitely showing improvement. This time last year, it would have been tricky to get to the two 'best' apple trees, and barely possible to get to the other three or so—and impossible to reach the track up into the middle levels or hill-top.

Now, the orchard is easy to walk around, and the main clearing of the middle level is accessible. The bracken there, which I've now cut down three times, is still coming up, but not strongly. By comparison, the bracken on the other side of the wall, and further along the hill, where I've not done anything, is six feet tall, and impenetrable.

I have to confess that we saw a rather fine summer house at Tatton Park, one of the Malvern Collection. It's a few years off, yet, though, but it was very nice, and would be a lovely, secluded hideaway on the hillside.

Enough of that. Otherwise, on Saturday, I checked that the newly installed sprinkler on the woodstore's green roof is working, and established that my beer is ready for barrelling. The chardonnay I started at the same time, incidentally, is in the cellar clearing, and is probably ready for bottling. The dandelion is slowly clearing, having finished its vigorous fermentation; the elderflower is on a warm windowsill, bubbling furiously.

Monday was more varied, although we had to contend with showers. The butterfly netting is now up, covering the two plantings of brassicas (which replaced the alliums in the Q-bed, and the early potatoes up one arm of the C-bed). The sprouts, kale, cauliflowers, purple sprouting, and swedes have all settled in fine, and the rows of 'Golden Ball' turnips we sowed at the same time have germinated well.

We discovered a pot of leeks, which hadn't been planted out, so we filled a few gaps in the rows of leeks where tiny seedlings hadn't transplanted (only about three of thirty, and those three were properly tiny), and put the rest in spaces among the autumn onions. The earliest of these, Early Fen, looks like it's nearly ready. On a similar note, the garlics (Germidour) and summer onions (Radar), which are drying in the wood shelter, are coming along nicely.

We've found that we've been losing a lot of courgettes before they get to a sensible size, rotting from one end. On investigation, I think it's where the flower has started to rot, and this has spread into the fruit. To combat this, I'm going to try to remove the flower as soon as it's gone over, and let the fruit swell. Jenny & Philip are away, so we're also picking their fruit and veg (and sweet peas!), which means we're inundated with courgettes.

The hanging baskets, which we tried with dangling nasturtiums for the first time, are looking splendid: I must get a photo of the front of the house. I'm trying to remember to regularly feed them: strangely, the two on the front of the house proper (rather than on the porch extension) are doing less well, though they get more light (marginally).

Once that, and some weeding, was all done, we spent a little while clearing some spaces for our flower show purchases, before going in for lunch. This afternoon I've spent preparing David and Anne's wedding present: but more on that after their wedding...

Coming Into Leaf

The weather's been kind for the long weekend, meaning we've been able to get out all three days. Saturday and Sunday morning were both spent sawing, splitting, and stacking firewood, which isn't particularly noteworthy.

We spent a lot of time weeding the top bank, which is now looking immeasurably better: there are going to be dozens of foxgloves, soon, and hopefully the whole bank will look good. We planted a couple of dozen white cosmos ('Purity') that we've grown from seed, too.

I weeded around the Japanese quince while Liz began this weeding, pulling out about three trugs full of nettles and goosegrass. To start with, I cut the tips off the nettles, and started a batch of nettle cordial, using these, later in the day.

In the kitchen garden, I've overhauled the irrigation system, which is now ready to use once more (if we get warm, dry weather for any length of time!). The green roof is now well into germination, and seedlings abound. Today we planted out the five courgette plants, each under a plastic cloche. None of the curcubits we planted last year came to anything at all, so we're both hoping for a better crop this year.

The front garden received a lot of attention this morning, and we took out several trugs of weeds and rubbish from the paving, planted wall, and beds. The ivy needs cutting back (and the Virginia creeper needs more support wires, and the hanging basket that fell of that wall needs re-hanging), but they'll wait for another day. We need to replace a few things in the wall, where the plants have been overgrown by grass: possibly some dianthus we have growing from seed.

Most pleasingly, we uncovered loads of little hellebore seedlings under the acer, which I've carefully transplanted, so we now have forty tiny hellebores in a module tray. Of course, they'll take about three years to flower, but there you go.

While in the front garden, I lifted the slab in front of the gate, which was rather sunken, and have lifted it by a couple of inches: it's now level with the paving, and less of a step down from the lane.

We also went up onto the hillside. The deer/rabbit damaged stems of the Scot's pines are now all pruned out, and I've sprayed all the pines with animal repellent. A few of the fruit trees have had second ties added, further up the stem, to stop them rubbing. All the trees have now, finally, come into leaf (the walnuts are lagging slightly, but are on the way). James Grieve is in flower, as is the 'Spring Glow' plum. Only one of our established (anonymous) apples is in bloom (one next door, in Peter and Sara's plot, is), but almost all the others are in bud. Just one doesn't appear to be, yet.

As has been reported elsewhere, the cold winter and late spring means that there's a lot of blossom, so we're hopeful of a bumper crop from the established trees, and maybe a few fruits from the new plants.

I cut down several of the hawthorns that were between the apples: it's looking as though we'll be able to find space for up to another ten trees, once the hawthorns, blackthorn, and scrub is fully cleared, so we're making a start on removing this, so we can get a proper picture of the space available. I'm going to try to get out with Sigrid to clear some of the bracken and brambles this coming week, as we have visitors at the weekend, who will want to look 

Lastly: the dandelion wine, which I finished on Thursday, is now sat, bubbling away beautifully. I'm hoping to start a batch of beer, and maybe some nettle wine, in the next week or so.

Planting Out

A mixed day, of sorting and planting. We've planted sweet peas around the supports in the new flower bed (I'm going to have to think of a better name); about a dozen plants around each of the smaller wigwams, and about eighteen around the large, central obelisk. We've tried to pair the varieties so that they're distinct, but complementary, so we can identify which one the flowers that we like are from.

We also planted the mangetout plants ('Delikata') on a support in the herb garden, and also planted out the snow-in-summer (Cerastium) and centranthus (C. ruber 'Snowcloud') in a different square. Two squares now have asparagus peas sown in them, and we also planted the eighteen decent box plants we have, and about fifty mixed lavenders, on the edges.

That's reinforced our need for a lot more box plants!

In the kitchen garden, we've planted out thirty-odd spinach plants, and a few modules of salad leaves. The potatoes almost all needed their trenches topping up, too. Pleasingly, the onions seems to have almost unanimously found their way through the holes in the weed-suppressant membrane, and their shoots are growing on.

We've potted on forty celeriac, and Brussels sprouts and caulis, to grow on before planting out in the next couple of months.

I think there's some sign, finally, of the wildflowers on the green roof germinating, which is a relief.

Elsewhere in the garden, the second cherry (Stella) has been in flower for a couple of days, which means it's overlapped with Summer Sun -- hopefully that will mean we finally get a cherry crop. The bluebells are in full swing, which makes that bank look lovely, and the pots of tulips are going strong, making a good display from the kitchen window.

We finished the day sowing some more pots of vegetables: swedes (Golden Ball), cauliflowers (Triomphant and Romanesco), dwarf French beans (Speedy and Castendel), some ornamental sunflowers (Bicentennial and Pastiche), and then planted out a few primroses and geums (which have been around for ages: I think they're Lady Strathden, but I could be very wrong).

Flower Bed

Yesterday we worked on removing the grass and thatch from the tops of the turves we cut in the herb garden, and breaking up the turned earth. It took all day, really, to get the square we're working on sorted, which is slow going.

Today's been a bit more interesting: first, I sowed the wildflower seed on the green roof of the wood shelter. It's a mix of thirty-odd perennials and annuals, which should, in the main, cope with the thin, well drained soil of the green roof. I'm hoping that, in time, it'll be awash with colour and insects.

To sow it, I first watered the roof with the hose, before we divided the seed into approximate fractions, based on the size of each section of roof, mixed the seed with sharp sand, broadcast it over, and raked over. It should take 4 to 14 days to germinate.

That done, we lifted the turves on a flower bed that's planned for in front of the bed with the quince in. This year, we'll be directly sowing annuals: a mix of wildflowers and cutting flowers. We had a surprise when lifting turves: an earthenware pipe running from the spectral beds corner, down towards the kitchen garden. A few possibilities exist: it could be a land drain from that corner, which isn't working very well (it might be blocked). It could be a drain from the track or hillside. It isn't a sewage pipe (fortunately).

If it's a broken land drain from the corner, that could be beneficial: if we can repair the pipe, it might solve the drainage issues in that corner without further work. If it's from the hillside, repairing it might lead to flooding in the garden as the hill drains. We need to track the pipe up into the corner, to work out what it is, and where it comes from, as we certainly can't start digging in earnest before we know what lies beneath the soil.

However, the bed we were working on is now clear, and we've made a start on breaking up the soil.

New flower bed (© Ian 2013)

Filled

It's been several days of hard work, filling trugs with sandy topsoil, barrowing them to the kitchen garden, lifting them onto the green roof, and spreading it out on top of the vermiculite and weed-proof membrane. A couple of hundred of trugs, in fact. The trugs are invaluable tools in the garden, as they make jobs like this possible. Bucketing the soil up onto the roof would have been technically possible, but it would have been more like five hundred trips up and down the ladder, which would have been wearisome.

I mean, more wearisome, as we're pretty weary as it is.

Green roof, filled with soil and ready to sow (© Ian 2013).

However, the green roof is now ready for sowing, which will happen in a few weeks, once it's warmed up properly. For now, there's about 9–10cm of soil, which should settle and compact to 5–6cm, waiting. Getting the wood shelter's wild-flower roof finished has taken a large chunk of this week, but it's good to have it done, and it looks good.

Readying the Green Roof

We left the wood shelter almost finished last autumn: watertight, and complete as a wood shelter, but the intended green roof wasn't done. We've spent the last couple of days working on that, though: adding the fascia boards that will edge the soil, and adding some more struts, braces, and supports. It's now ready to have the vermiculite, weed membrane, and soil adding.

To take a break from this, we've spent today digging turves on the top lawn, outside the sitting room window. We've now cut and turned turf covering about a 7m square: it needs breaking up, though, before we can plant anything. The soil for the green roof arrives tomorrow, though, and I expect it'll take the rest of our holiday to shift the couple of tons we need onto the roof.

The top lawn (© Ian 2013)

Cutting and turning turves for the future herb garden beds  (© Ian 2013)

Wood-store

For the last month or so, at weekends and evenings, we've been building a wood store. It's where we originally thought we might put a shed and greenhouse, but we've had concerns about light levels (and the site's suitability for a greenhouse); the shape of the ground available isn't ideal; and we need the space for seasoning wood. Until now, we've been stacking the wood and covering it with a tarpaulin, the sides of the dismantled shed, and a couple of fence panels. Not the most attractive, and sadly ineffectual. The wood's not dried at all well, and in places is wetter than it went in.

It's taken so long partly because we've been building the new store around the woodstacks, because there's nowhere else for the wood to go, and moving it all wholesale onto the games lawn (the only alternative) would have taken an enormous amount of time/energy in itself. So we've worked around the stacks, dismantling them where we needed to dig post holes, and tossing it into heaps.

The woodstore is now complete. It's built of 75mm posts, with bearers/rafters at a height of 195cm at the front. There's a 5° pitch to the roof, so it's taller at the back. We stepped the roof, or the left side (where the ground's quite a lot lower) would have been very tall. The roof is made of 22mm OSB, painted with weather-proof shed/fence paint. This we covered with two layers of polyethylene, a continuous layer of pond liner, and clamped all the way around. This makes it completely watertight, and means that we can (in the spring) add fascia boards around it, and turn it into a green roof—with the sorts of plants I was eyeing up at Harlow Carr.

Wood store, from the path to the fruit beds (© Ian 2012)

It's got guttering along the front, draining into a waterbutt that I've never got round to attaching to the house's gutters. And, finally, we've cleared the ground between it and the kitchen garden beds, put down weed-suppressant membrane, made a stone-lined rill ditch (to minimize water entering from the front, and put down chippings. Constructing it has been a mammoth bit of work, but it's given us about 50m³ of wood storage, which should be two years' worth of good drying space.

Front of wood store, with mulched path and drainage rill (© Ian 2012)

And don't worry, we've got alternative/back-up plans for shed and greenhouse locating.