Mulch

A fair bit of the weekend's been spent dealing with the 6m³ of mulch that arrived on Thursday. After putting a good layer on the vegetable garden then, on Saturday we worked along the fruit beds, giving the currants and berries a thick mat. We spared a bit for the rhubarb, too, which I've already spread several trugs of compost onto, but more is definitely better for this hungry perennial. I think we'll take our first harvest next weekend: the oldest Timperley Early is doing well (and is earliest!).

The fruit beds will get a weed-suppressing layer of cardboard, and then a topping of chippings, when we next have some: this reduces the weeding so much that it only needs an annual blitz (my job yesterday), which is much better.

We've also gone along the fruit trees on the hillside (excluding the apple walk, and the pear 'Hessle', as they're too small to need it), putting a trug full of mulch under each one's anti-weed membrane. The ornamental plums are on the verge of coming into leaf and flowering.

The heuchera/quince bed is a little too full of rather dainty spring bulbs to want to mulch it (should have done so in January or February!), so we've filled two Dalek-style composters with mulch, on a nearby path, ready to spread once the bulbs die back. Lesson learnt for 2015.

That still left us with a good heap of mulch, so the last job today was spreading twenty-odd trugs over the long border. This bank is reasonably fertile, having had cotoneaster leaves dropping on it annually for twenty years, but it could still do with building up. Liz had been weeding the bank over Thursday, Saturday, and today, so the mulch has gone (as it should) straight onto clear ground, and it looks really good.

While she weeded, I've tidied the over-grown grass in the wild-er bit near the flowering currant and behind the copse bed. I should, really, have strimmed this in late autumn, as it's now full of daffodils, which obviously I don't want to damage. This made it a manual job, which is more tedious, but there you go.

Last short job yesterday was digging an exploratory trench to work out the fate of the land drain we uncovered when preparing the bed for the sweetpeas last spring. We've gone about two metres up-hill, on the other side of the path (which I didn't want to disturb just yet), and found two breaks in the pipe -- but no herringbone joint yet. I'm still hoping that we'll find some: there's no chance it's draining the whole section of garden unless there's either herringbone drains running off from it, or a second drain (hitherto undiscovered) further along. That said, the broken sections, which have filled with organic debris, would explain why they're not working. It's going to take a bit more work to get to the bottom of it all.

This afternoon, my digging was on the opposite side of the garden, as I was preparing what will become beds in front/beside the beech bench. I've cleared the turf from both, but only dug over the bed above the bench (very stony and laborious). The soil's quite nice, actually, once the stones are prised out. Fortunately, one bed was enough to plant 28 lavenders out, as a border, which has freed up enough 2½–3" pots to pot up the 'Alicanta' tomato seedlings that have been outgrowing their communal pots.

Astonishingly, it actually feels like we're more-or-less on track, without too many specific or substantial jobs that should have been done but which we've not got round to. As for actually managing to mulch 'on schedule'... I'm sure it shan't last.

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...

Tidying Up

It's been a busy weekend of mostly tidying up, meaning accumulated progress, rather than any particular thing getting very far.

We've sown some more seeds: Dianthus amurensis 'Siberian Blues' (for the rockery wall in the front); Polemonium boreale 'Heavenly Habit' (Jacob's ladder); two aquilegias, 'Magpie' and 'Royal Purple'; and a mixed selection of hostas (hopefully some of which will be pretty!).

We've planted out half a dozen rows (about ninety plants) of carrots, and another block of beetroot (about forty plants) in the bottom bed.

Liz weeded the bed at the front of the copse, and we've done another prune/tidy of the shrubs in the bottom bank, which were hit by the cold east wind.

The pots on the patios, and sitting on the old shed base, needed some attention, so we've sorted through them, removing the dead/empty pots to the back patio, and weeding, tidying and fertilizing the rest. Another heuchera's been hit by root-eating grubs (which seem to focus their predation on primrose and heuchera roots, for whatever reason), so that needed cleaning up and re-potting, in the hopes that it might survive.

We dug up the buddleja that we planted in one of the front beds in 2010 (I think: I don't appear to have a note!), and is the bottom right of this photo (from April last year). Liz has never been sure about it, and we found a pretty acer that will replace it, and go well with the other, older acer that's the centre point of the adjacent bed.

I took the opportunity to add new guide wires to the wall behind for the Virginia creeper to run along. It's almost reached the ivy at the bottom (which I had to cut back earlier this week, as it was encroaching on the windows, again), and is looking pretty with its new growth.

Front garden (© Ian 2012–13)

We re-planted the hanging baskets, with bronze carex, cinereria, trailing nasturtiums, and petunias, and I re-hung the bracket that came off the wall late last year.

Liz potted up another 96 lavenders which arrived this week, into modules. They'll grow on ready to be planted into the herb garden edges later this year, hopefully.

The two clematis (C. florida 'Alba Plena') we bought at Tatton Park last year, and which are growing up the trellis sides of our arbour, are growing well. However, we want, if possible, to move the arbour later this year, in order to dig out and lay the paving that's going under it. That will be well-nigh impossible with clematis entwined up both sides. To solve this, I've used a couple of blocks of wood, and wire, to space two 1'x6' trellis panels, one behind each plant, away from the main trellis. We'll twine the climbers up these, instead of the arbour, so it'll still look good, but when (if) we have to move things, they can be transferred safely and separately.

To finish the weekend, we made use of a prolific spinach crop (very pleased with the spinach: it's 'Lazio', which is effectively new to us, as it didn't grow in last year's horrible conditions), and made a batch of spinach black pudding ('boudin noir du Poitou'). It's made with a kilo of spinach, a pint of light bechemal, half a pound of onion, four ounces of breadcrumbs, a pint and half of cream, and eight pints of blood; the seasoning (salt, pepper and mace) is extended to include nutmeg, too.

As with our batch of 'fry-up' black pudding (with pork fat and oatmeal, instead of spinach, bechemal, and breadcrumbs), we cooked it as cakes, in loaf tins.

It's frankly delicious, and a fine conclusion to a weekend of hard work.

Plum and Cherry Pruning

Most of the fruit trees were pruned near the end of February. That was while the trees were still dormant (just as well, given the snowy Easter we had), but we left the plums and cherries alone. These (Prunus genus) are particularly susceptible to Silverleaf infection (a fungal disease, Chondrostereum purpureum), which typically gets into the plant through wounds. Routine pruning of these trees should be left, therefore, until they're in leaf. As this was a formative pruning of a young sapling, we've waited only until the trees are starting to break bud.

I worked round the relevant trees this evening: Victoria Plum, Oullin's Golden Gage, Merryweather Damson,  ornamental plums 'Spring Glow' and Pissardii, 'Royalty' crab-apple and cherry 'Royal Burgandy', as well as 'Summer Sun' cherry in the garden. There's another Victoria in the garden, but I need to decide how to treat that, as it had its leader cut out at about 50cm when we bought it (a garden ago): ideally we'd have a 1-1.4m clear stem on it, but that might be tricky.

They've all had all feathers on the bottom third cut right back, those in the middle third halved, and the top third left. A couple of the fruit trees have a leader that's about at the right height, so we can train main laterals this year.

I also had a play with a plan for the herb garden today.

Possible Herb Garden Plan (© Ian 2013)

It could still change, of course. We're currently thinking of having three interwoven boundaries: one of box, one of euonymus, and one of lavender. The 55 sections then have different things in them. Some of them (the 'step-ins') will be rather more sparsely planted, to allow us to walk through them to get access across the garden. The ornamentals are likely to be plants like gladioli; the obelisks are probably going to wind up being  edible legumes, but attractive varieties. What the herbs are is still subject of discussion: the advantage of this sort of design is that each square can have different soil (enriched, impoverished, gritty, damp) to suit the planting, so Mediterranean herbs (sharp drainage, poor soil) can grow next to roses (deep rich soil).

And as for the roses: we'll probably get four varieties, possibly using the Sister Elizabeth and Eglantine roses we have as one group, with three others: I'd like at least one white rose, and one deep red.

Time to turn some more turf!

Herbs and Mulching

Yesterday we finished making the new wildflower/cutting flower bed in front of the quince. We'd lifted the turves last weekend: the ground then needed digging over to removes stones, the damaged land-drain needed repairing, and then it was ready to sow.

We've put four bamboo obelisks in the bed, which we'll plant sweet peas up. As the bed's roughly triangular, that's demarcated three beds, into each of which we've sown a different pack of seeds. One is a pastel meadow mix (gypsophila, Bishop's flower, poppies and cosmos); one is an 'Amethyst and Sapphire' mix (anchusa, salvia, cornflower, verbena); and the last is a combination of several wildflower annual mixes.

Once that was done, we spent the rest of the afternoon starting to mark out the beds for the herb garden. We lifted enough turf to clear a space about 6m by 6m last week, which we've now marked. The garden will be a series of beds about a metre square, set at 45°. Some will have herbs, some will have roses, and we might also include some with spring and summer bulbs in, and some more obelisks with climbers, to add some height.

The edging, we haven't quite decided on. We long intended to use box, mixed with lavender, but this isn't totally fixed. We might use euonymus (probably a variegated form) as an alternative. Partly this is because of the difficulty in propagating more box from the Witley clones, or the cost of purchasing the 500-odd plants we'll need.

Nonetheless, the pattern's more or less decided, subject to tweaks as we uncover more soil, and can lay out the grid, and work out where and how the boundaries fall.

Herb garden outline ( Ian 2013)

Then, today, we've weeded all the fruit beds, and put down a triple mulch: a layer of compost, covered by a layer of cardboard (degradable weed barrier), covered with a layer of conifer chippings. The last of these should mean that the ericaceous nature of the soil is maintained (particularly important with the blueberries), although it'll take a while to break down completely. I shall try to add grass clippings during the summer, to increase the nitrogen content, and off-set the nitrogen lock-up that the carbon-rich chippings will cause.

Hopefully, that should now mean that the weeding of the fruit beds is very easy this year, as well as ensuring that the bushes are well fed and productive.

Elephantine

Last September, I planted a dozen elephant garlic cloves, which I've not grown before. They're big, so they go in with more space (9–12") between them than normal garlic, and 2–3" deep. They grew on quite well, and I've been looking forward to harvesting them. They seemed to have stopped growing, and the foliage was starting to yellow and fall (the sign that alliums are done for the season), so up they came at the weekend. They are pleasingly huge. Each one is about the size of a decent cooking apple, and each clove is about as big as a normal head of garlic.

Clove of elephant garlic, and head of normal garlic for comparison. (© Ian 2012)

They need trimming, and then to cure for a while, like normal garlic. The biggest cloves, I'll replant in a month or so, and I shall imminently replant the small, round, yellowish bulbils that have formed around the base. They may, or may not, make it into fully formed heads next year: if they don't, but instead form a round bulb, the head the next year should be massive.

I now need to start thinking about ordering the overwinter onions and garlic, along with a new bag of green manure seed.

Potatoes and Onions

It was time to plant the potatoes and onions, as the last of the onion sets arrived, and the start of April is when we do the 'tatoes (it was the 2nd, last year). The onions are going in a little later than last year, but only by a week.

The onions:

• Autumn Gold Improved (harvest August/September) are meant to store well.
• Red Baron have similar qualities, but red. I like growing some red ones, as they make a nice change.
• New Fen Globe are heat treated, and can get very big. They're meant to store through to May, which is a little longer than the other two, and should justify the slightly higher price.

Last year we had Hyred, but didn't have any bolting problems, so we thought we'd have the cheaper Red Baron. Because of some quality issues, we wound up with twice as many Autumn Gold and Red Baron as planned. We've double-planted them, and will pull up half for pickling while they're still small. Kudos for Marshalls, though; good customer service.

Potatoes:

• Lady Christl (extra early) which we really liked. High yield, very quick, and really tasty. Also stores remarkably well—there are still half a dozen in the workshop. Bit wrinkled, but taste good.
• Red Duke of York (early), which we've not grown before. We like to have a red-skinned tuber for variety.
• Pentland Javelin (early), which is also new to us. Both are meant to be good yielders/storers, which are important, and tasty.
• Bounty (early maincrop); ten of these were a freebie with the other (~20 of each). We'll see!
• Cara (late maincrop); a parent of Druid, which we got on well with last year (excellent yield, and strong plants). Druid's only available from one supplier, though, and so we thought we'd see if Cara was as good.

We've planted the early potatoes about 18" apart. The maincrop aren't in yet, as the spring cabbages and leeks are still in the ground, but they'll go 30" apart. The higher spacing seemed to make a big difference to the maincrop yield, but not to earlies. We used leaf mould to fertilize the ground; it's meant to help combat scab, which we suffered with last year.

Mushrooms

We've had a day in the garden, while the biomass system continues to be installed.

The remaining green manure in the kitchen garden has been chopped and dug in, in preparation for planting the beds over the next month or so. We moved a few more bags of leaf-mould, which I collected at the weekend, down to the 'compost area': we were donated several plastic composters by a neighbour, which we'll use to store the leafmould, when we get round to siting them and transferring the leaves.

Next to the coal-bunker outside the back door, there's a small triangular bed (with sides of about 3 foot) which has had a sorry looking holly growing in it since we arrived. It's never looked attractive: stunted, poorly leafed, and dismal. I dug it out this morning, and wasn't surprised to find that it's been struggling from a shallow bed: probably only a foot deep, with loads of gravel in it. We've topped up the soil with some compost, planted a red-stemmed bamboo: Fargesia scabrida 'Asian Wonder'. It's meant to like a sheltered spot, part shade or sun, so hopefully it'll thrive. It should, when it gets to its mature height, be more attractive than the holly—and productive, too.

We also took one of the poplar logs, which I'd had cut to a two-foot length, and implanted it with oyster mushroom impregnated dowels. In about six months, it should yield a crop of tasty mushrooms, and then continue doing so every six months for a few years. A medium-term project, but hopefully a successful addition to the food we grow.

Horse-sitting

We've had a busy day, going into town for an infrequent shopping trip. I'd hoped to pick up another 10m of chicken wire, to construct some more leafmould bins. Unfortunately, no luck, but otherwise successful if prosaic: a shower-curtain rail, a bag of mortar (for repointing), a contact-lens appointment, and an engagement ring repaired.

This evening had firework displays going off around the valley, and as the neighbours were out, I had to spend some of the evening keeping their horse company (he doesn't like fireworks, predictably, and there was a display in a nearby garden). Only fair, he provides lots of manure for the garden.

Green Manure

Hmm: six weeks earlier than last time. Having cleared the onions last week, there's a patch of ground that now won't be resown with crops until the spring. Some of it will have spring cabbages, when they're big enough to transplant. In the remainder, I've sown two more rows of salad leaves, and two of radishes, but the rest (about 2–3 blocks) with green manure. This is a winter mix of red clover, crimson clover, mustard, and Italian ryegrass: it should get growing before the winter bites, and will serve four functions.

• Weed suppression: the clovers smother weeds;
• Nitrogen fixing: the clovers' roots take nitrogen from the atmosphere and fix it in the soil; the ryegrass helps release it gradually next season;
• Organic matter: the leafy bulk of the plants, and especially the mustard, add organic matter to the soil when they're dug in;
• Soil stabilization: bare soil leaches nutrients in the winter rain, but having the manure roots growing reduces/prevents this.

We'll hoe and dig in the plants in the spring, before the set seed. It didn't work brilliantly last year, I think because we only had the beds finished in time to sow the seed in late October. But with a month to get growing, I hope for greater success.