Raised Beds

I heartily recommend raised beds.  I started with them three years ago because my soil was poor and full of stones and they have been just brilliant.  My husband made them for me simply by hammering a stake in the ground and screwing on four foot long decking strips.  The photo probably explains it.  I painted the outside with food friendly outdoor paint and Bob's your uncle.  I  am trying to figure out a way to add a strip a year until they build up to a stand up working height which would be terrific.  I knew that I would have liked that when we did them but thought I'd never be able to afford the soil needed to fill them.  As it turned out with my own compost and some bought bags to top them up each year and I'm sure I could get there eventually.  So if you think that's a possibility- make the corner stakes the height you'd like the beds to be eventually.  If you change your mind you could always saw them off.  Meanwhile they might make good posts for draping plastic sheeting or fleece over?  Here's a posher version to get you thinking about them from Gardeners World.  Raised beds.

Change of email address

I have a link at the top of this page for anyone who wants to contact me directly rather than via the blog.  Please note I have changed my (gardening) email address to: mormson2@comcast.net.  I don't even want to attempt to explain why - suffice it to say this is an easy solution to a computer techie problem.

Thinking of home

A friend emailed me today and happened to mention that all the spring bulbs are just about appearing above ground with a particular reference to snowdrops.  They remain my most spectacular failure (so far).  Every so often I forget that I have never succeeded in growing them and duly plant the next huge batch.  I have bought them dry and 'in the green' and planted them at all different times and generally in a 'woodish' sort of area of the garden with about as much success as I have strewing poppy seeds and watching them grow.  Zilch!  It has been suggested that as I change homes like other people change socks maybe they appear the year after I've left and the new owners are inundated with snowdrops in the Spring followed by glorious swathes of poppies.  Mmmmm??.


If you have great success with either of these little blighters would you like to share how you do it?


A thought occurred to me reading Gardeners World on line today that maybe not everyone knows about it.  I do snatch the good six month offer they do each year (usually with a free gift) and subscribe to just that  but it isn't worth my buying a year's magazines as I'm not in the UK for half of it.  Even on offer and with a gift six months it isn't especially cheap and like most magazines the pictures are great (but in themselves not useful) and when you are my age you maybe get one fresh idea or bit of information per magazine, so I am happy to read it on line for half a year to ease out the cost.  Any way if you click on Gardeners World you can check it out for yourself.


I have linked to the 'jobs to do this week' page to see if you agree with me that the recommendations (from the South) run about a month ahead of what we need to do up here? Frustratingly I won't be doing anything until April.


I noticed Thompson and Morgan are promoting their seed potatoes right now on line and I saw an offer this morning to save 20% (future VAT) right now.  Again click on the name if you want a look.


Happy (gardening) New year!

A useful contact

I received the following email from a reader and thought it would be useful if I passed it on in its entirety (don't worry I do ask permission before I do this).


 I have just stumbled upon your Blog and found it really interesting. It's great to find that more people are talking about gardening locally instead of using the south as the template for all gardening. I've added the blog to my bookmarks and intend to check back regularly as spring comes round. Also, I'd like to suggest a company for your useful links section. A few years ago, I went to the flower show at greenmount held by tottington horticultral society, hoping to get some guidance with issues I was having on my vegetable patch where I was introduced to their chairman, Graham. His advice proved invaluable and much more suited to my issues than any book I could find. Since then, my wife discovered that he was in business as Hortivation horticultral services, he has undertaken several jobs for us displaying the highest level of competence in gardening, his website has some useful guides that yourself or other of your readers might find interesting. It might be worth mentioning the society on your blog for as I've found them most helpful and a great source of plants.

I am more than happy to provide the links:

website: www.hortivation.co.uk

email: info@hortivation.co.uk

address:  2 Heathfield Road, Bury, Lancashire, BL9 8HB

phone: 0161 820 8606

Thanks to a bury gardener for the tip.

Wintery thoughts

Hello from sunny Florida.  Now you didn't need that did you?  I am aware it is getting far too cold far too soon in Bury as we (or at least him indoors) do read the UK papers and news sites on line.


Gardening for me is non-existent over here as we live in a condo and the landscaping is managed to within an inch of its life by a swarm of gardeners.  I miss it dreadfully.  Yes, I know, because I keep being reminded by everyone and his brother, that there's not much gardening to be done in Bury in the winter.  Nevertheless I miss my romantic notion of puttering around outside now and again on a nice crisp sunny day inspecting this and that.  As I've not done that for the best part of ten years I suspect it isn't at all how I imagine it.


OK, to the point of this missive....  As you've gathered I can't do anything very much for the blog until about April so I want anyone who is reading this (and there have been 661 visits to this since it started) to take up the cudgel and start a dialogue.  That is why I started it.  Just answer this piece and I'll post it and maybe we can get some conversations going.  Failing that I guess there's not a lot of point in doing it.


Come on let's get local gardeners sharing thoughts and info, maybe just chatting......  Gardeners are nice people!

Sad continued

 The rest of the garden has now had its tidy up too and, yes, this is also sad as I have to empty perfectly good pots and baskets.  The flowering pots and baskets have done really well this year and they looked to be going to last a while yet but, as I said, I have to do my tidying up earlier than I would like.

If, like me, you are enjoying a second flush of roses (and strawberries!) remember not to deadhead them like you would do the rest of the year.  If you do this it stimulates the hormones which tell the plant to make more flowers (to produce seed) and it will not give the rose a chance to beef up for the winter.  So enjoy the rose hips until the birds get them.

This season I've done battle with the mini pasture I inherited in my garden when we bought the house and after three years TLC it is beginning to look something like a lawn.  I did two weed and feeds and some scarifying and moss kill and a couple of additional feeds.  Strictly speaking I should be doing another scarifying and spiking to let air into the roots but it is a killing job and I don't have time or energy for it but for those of you who do this is the time to crack on.  What I will definitely do tomorrow rain or shine is scatter some bonemeal over it.  Again this is a bit early; next month would be better.  It gives it a good strengthening root boost for the winter.  Don't do a general purpose feed it will make too much soft growth.

The other thing which still needs doing and is important for the next couple of months (especially if they are mild) is killing slugs.  I use organic pellets which are deemed safe and work better in the rain  than the nasty ones - I start 14 February and do it 14th of every month for as long as I am around.  The last couple of months going into winter are really important as you want to get the population as small as possible so even less survive the winter and don't come back in force next year.  Again it is a battle being slowly won.  That said I found my first snail a few weeks ago so I'm not thrilled with that newcomer.

I've also planted my Spring bulbs.  It is OK to do that for daffodils but too early for the tulips.  That said I do it each year and still get results.  The tulips possibly flower a bit earlier than they should.

So everywhere is tidy and put away and ready for the snow!

Saddest time of year for me

September is the saddest time of the year for me.  We spend most of the winter hiding in the sunshine elsewhere so I am a truly fair-weather gardener and my garden is 'put to bed' early and pretty finally until next April. This means pulling up and throwing away the last of any veg which are still struggling on.  


Tons of green tomatoes hit the bin.  Freezing them isn't an option as the freezer gets turned off and green tomato chutney is a pain to make for just two people - I would have a small grocer's shop full if I used all the tomatoes I had.  It is patently silly to grow them for the dozen or so we manage to eat before they succumb to the genocide.  I plan on trying to resist growing them next year; but then I've said that before!  The banana skin experiment didn't show any difference between ripening of ones with it and ones without.  To be fair it might well work because I started it a bit late probably.


We had beautiful lettuces - green and red and celtuce - all massacred too.  


Fortunately the beans had given up the ghost pretty much and we managed to harvest and eat the last of them.  I grew Hestia dwarf runners and dwarf purple tepee French.  I complained they weren't brilliant but when I think about it they are only one sixth the size of our usual six foot tall runners and French beans so logically they produce one sixth of the crop.  Seen sensibly this is really an advantage - we aren't up to our armpits in beans and they don't blow over in any strong winds, so I may actually consider them again next year.


The peas were delightful but never enough at one time to make a meal - we just munched them from the pods - still worth growing again just to do that.


We have also eaten the last of our potatoes.  We never ate a single Swift they were hit with blight before they even began to thrive - totally useless.  They were the middle row in three rows of spuds - on either side were International Kidney (jersey royals).  They have been fantastic and I can't recommend them enough.  Not only did they not catch their close neighbour's blight but they were perfect from early babies to full size potatoes later, which could still be scraped just by rubbing the skins off.  


My green peppers were rubbish and no loss when they hit the bin.  


Courgettes were uprooted early on in the season because we were fed up of eating them.


The beetroots were tiny hard golf balls in the main and I'm reconsidering giving them any space next season.  


An interesting decision on carrot growing has been made.  I grew two lots in the ground - staggered for different cropping times and one lot in a large (Potato) pot/bin.  Both lots in the ground were ruined by carrot fly (like last year and the year before) and the ones in the pot - growing two feet above ground - were just perfect.  So that's a no-brainer.  Carrot pots next year.  I do know the carrot fly apparantly can't fly or smell carrots over two feet above the ground and that you should protect them with a fleece wall but I want to always find the simplest/cheapest method of growing things and potting of carrots seems to be the answer.


The ground cress is still romping away alongside the rhubarb which is settling itself down for the winter - I shall leave those to just do their thing.  The other three beds are now cleared out, dug over and the cat deterrent netting frames are covering them ready for what a Bury winter can throw at them.


This is the point now where anyone who is doing the veg thing properly and planting their winter/spring crops might want to share information with anyone else reading this who is doing the same - over to you..................


For example do you plant garlic - does it work up here? Do you plant your broad beans this side of winter to get an early start - does that work this far North?