Not so Lazy Beds

Above one of our normal pedestrian access paths on my ‘north plot’ there is a section where I can make a growing plot about 4ft x 20ft. I’m preparing this section as a ‘lazy bed’, or my version of those. This area will be a ‘nursery area’. I have been collecting a variety of seeds to start my landraces, but obviously limited numbers of each. I’m hoping to increase my seeds by letting as much go to seed as possible, but with my borderline growing conditions, I’m thinking the plants can use as much help as I can give them, hence I’m making some soil improvements.

I temporarily marked out the area with string and spread out woodash over the whole area. I then loosened the compacted soil a bit by digging the fork in and lifting, but not breaking the turf. Hopefully the woodash will help the pH a bit, although since it has been sitting outside a while much of the KOH may have leached out already. Even if it doesn’t help the pH much, there is a bit of charcoal, which may act as biochar in time. Much of it is also ash from paper and cardboard which my husband likes to burn in our other stove (not the range cooker). This leaves a residue of clay (from the coated paper) which I think will help my lighter soil too.

Woodash Spreading Lazy Bed

I then emptied the first lot of seaweed bags and spread the seaweed out. This is mainly kelp, which will rot down quite quickly, topped up with bladderwrack which tends to break down more slowly.

The depression where the turf comes from will keep the lazy bed drained. I dithered a bit over whether I should make the beds N-S or across the slope, and I still don’t know whether there is a best way. In the end I went for perpendicular to the wind, which is just off up-down slope and not quite N-S in orientation. Wind is my biggest problem, and I’m more worried that orienting with the slope or sun will make a bit of a wind tunnel, than lack or excess of water.

Topping up seaweed – under puppy supervision

After spreading the seaweed, I had a go at lifting and inverting some of the turf. Ideally you want to fold the whole turf over like a carpet so as to have no holes for the grass to continue growing through. In practise I had to do this a different way. I used a spade and a mattock to try lifting a couple of strips of turf, but this is a) too heavy and b) too sticky for me to manage in a reasonable way. I think I made my bed far too wide for this technique to be practical – it is about 5 ft across.

Turning first turfs on lazy bed

I called it a day after turning three strips – one wide and two narrower. I had meant to turn over both sides like this, and then dig out the soil either side to cover it all thickly. What I did instead was cut small deep turfs (two spades by one spade probably) and cut a full spade depth of soil with each, and built the bed up by inverting these as close together as I could. I managed to fold over strips two spadewidths by two spadewidths at either edge of the bed. and infilled in between with turfs. I may get more grass regrowth this way, but I don’t think in practice it will make much difference and will save going back over doing most of the second lot of digging. Inverting the clods separately rather than trying to peel them over like a carpet definitely made the job a whole lot easier. It also exposed quite how compacted the soil is. Despite all the misty weather – a fine mizzle of low cloud that has meant the surface is quite claggy, especially where I walk often – handling the turfs has been relatively clean. The soil an inch or so down is actually – not dry exactly – but certainly not as wet as it deserves to be. The rain is not penetrating nearly as well as it should.

This leaves me with a muddy ditch either side for which I need to find a good surface for walking on. I’d prefer this to be a growing surface rather than an added material. I’m thinking something like white clover would be the obvious choice. Daisies would be good too, and self heal.

I’ve made a bit of a ramp down at the top end so that I can wheel my barrow down easily. I did the same at the bottom end too so as not to end up with a puddle or a step there, digging a little culvert to take any excess water into the bordering trees. I then skimmed the uneven soil off the paths, putting the loose soil onto the top of the bed to fill in the gaps in between the upturned turfs a bit. One of my access paths goes accross below the bed, so I had to take a bit more turf off this to get the levels more even.

Finished turf covering and drainage/ramps

I’m finding the soil generally satisfactorily deep. At the very top end was I hitting rock at about a spade’s depth, so since I am almost doubling the depth by putting turfs on top of the grass surface I should have a reasonable depth of soil to grow in. The soil at the bottom end of the bed is also shallow; the rock surface must be a bit uneven. I was finding bits of bedrock sticking up in the path a bit.

It wouldn’t be true to say the soil is completely lifeless. I don’t know about microscopic life, but there were a few pale earthworms, what I think may be clickbeetle larvae, and some weevil larvae. Not exactly teeming with life though. It is amazingly homogeneous in texture, just a fine silky silt brick, topped with grass and with pignuts throughout.

Having evened off both sides, I then I topped the entire bed with seaweed. This will protect the soil a bit from the rain and further feed the soil organisms. I didn’t bother level the earth on the top of the bed, just tried to fill in the bigger cracks. I’m pretty sure the weather will soon break it up enough, and hopefully the larger pores will keep it aerated. I needed more seaweed than I had initially thought to give a good layer.

finished seaweed mulched not so lazy bed

I think my main challenge in the rest of the planting areas will be the very compacted nature of the soil. There are no air pores in it at all. Hopefully the daikon radish will make some good holes to start off. I’ve also sprinkled some parsley seeds in already, but am not confident they will compete with the grass very well. I’d like to be in a position to start broadscale growing in 2023, but if the daikon don’t take well I may have to try some other biennials like hogweed which grows elsewhere in the field, but not on this bit yet.  The alternative is more not-very-lazy-beds!

Much of this blog post appeared in slightly different form and more pictures on the Permies web forum here

Elephants in the Garden.

Chaffinch on seeding mallow

The evenings are really starting to draw in now and we’ve already experienced our first frosts. This is a little early for Skye. It doesn’t seem to have damaged the plants in the polytunnel yet though. I have brought in the Tamarind seedling that my neighbour gave me, and have also potted on and brought in two pepper plants and two sweet peppers. The vines on the pumpkin nuts have died back, so I have brought those three fruit in to keep safe. The shark’s fin melon vine still looks healthy and I have cut it back and dug it up, so that I can try and overwinter it indoors, since the plants are perennial in milder climates. Last week I removed all the rest of the tomato fruit and made a chutney. It burnt on the pan a bit, but tastes alright. I still need to remove the remains of the plants yet.

Single Sharks fin melon before potting up

I mulched the DRG side of the new front garden area I have been working on with cardboard, and dug up, divided and replanted one of the daylillies from the original DRG. This one has quite large orange flowers. Daylillies are another of the ‘edimental’ plants I have been growing. The flowers, known as ‘golden needles’ are esteemed in parts of China and dried to be eaten as a vegetable. I think the leaves and roots are also edible, although have not tried them at all yet. Slugs certainly like the leaves, so I have protected the newly planted divisions with a cut off plant pot collar. I’m a bit disappointed that the grass is growing back quite a bit in the new area by the DRG. I obviously did not clear as much as I had thought. Since I have seeded as well as replanted this area it is a bit difficult to know what to do for the best. I guess I will have to try and spot mulch the worst patches….

As the autumn progresses the leaves are falling audibly off the sycamores in the front garden. I hadn’t realised how well the swales I had made would trap the leaves. This will hopefully enable an auto-mulching of the plants in the dips. I’ll have to reconsider what I planted there, with a view to maximising this benefit. Certainly the asparagus will appreciate an annual mulch, so I’m extra glad now I planted them in the dips rather than on the humps, but maybe there are other herbacious perennials that would benefit similarly. It will be interesting to see whether the leaves are still there after a winter gale or three….It was pretty windy last week and the leaves still seem to be staying put.

Catching leaves

Rather than leave it till all the leaves had fallen from the willow fedges, I decided to prune and tidy them earlier. This will reduce the vigour of the willow slightly and make the fedges less likely to get damaged in winter winds by providing less of a catchment for the wind. I painstakingly cut the willow into short lengths to put on top of a newspaper mulch along my new pathway around the former DRG. I first tied the willow into bundles to make it easier to handle, but it was still pretty tedious. I could have used the shredder, but my memory of shredding willow last time was that was pretty tedious as well, and rather noisy.

Mulching DRG path with willow and cardboard

Anyhow I had a good win this week! There is a band of ‘tree surgeons’ going round the area at the moment who are cutting back trees which are too close to powerlines. I noticed them shredding the prunings onto their little tipper van and asked them if they wanted to dispose of them locally and they did!  So I now have a pretty big pile of ready shredded spruce branches to use as mulch material on paths, and possibly in my blueberry patch when I get round to planting that up.

If you don’t ask you don’t get

Finally a new caterpillar sighting for us. We usually joke that Dyson is a crap guard dog, and he replies that he keeps away the elephants for us. Here is one he missed:

Elephant Hawk moth caterpillar

Silence of the bees

Dyson in new cut-through below hump

This post took a lot longer to create than normal since WordPress has changed it’s editing software and made it very difficult to justify text.  I still haven’t worked out how to centre captions either.  If I don’t get the hang of it soon I will seriously consider changing platforms.  I find it very frustrating, slower and annoying.

Mostly I’ve been working outside the last few weeks, doing a final cut round the paths in the tree field. We had a few nice warm days and I managed to cut a new path round the north side of the orchard, one below the hump that links up with the top loop, and one through the wych elm and ash that comes out on the main track opposite the existing cut way to the river fence on the south and east. I think that there are still a few potential paths that will enable greater flexibility in routes around the tree field.

Mulch Patch by pond loop

Rather than trying to rake up all the grass cuttings, which takes so long, I have just been scooping up the larger clumps and mulching round selected trees. Down in the bottom loop near the pond, there was a lot of soft growth to cut back and I decided to mulch an area in amongst the trees to maybe plant up next spring. It doesn’t seem that constructive, however it fills in a dog walk on a nice day.

Buff tip moth caterpillars on birch

I found a cluster of buff tip moth caterpillars that were feeding on a birch tree rather than an alder this year. Some had moved to an adjacent willow as well. Although they do strip the tree they are on pretty badly, I think it is late enough in the year that they don’t do too much damage. If every tree was covered I would start to worry, however it is pretty obvious that not many of the caterpillars survive at present, otherwise there would be far more moths around, so I am pretty happy to leave them be. Other wildlife of note is the sight of several toads outside as well as lots of frogs. I assume they are trying to find good hibernation spots.

The wild bramble patch at the corner of the river has tasty ripe berries on now. Not enough to make jam with, but I have put several small punnets in the freezer so far.

Wild bramble patch

As I was going round the new cut through below the hump, I noticed a hole in the grass nearby and several empty insect cases. I have now seen three such holes. There was another at the edge of the spruce patch which I found a few weeks ago, which still had several confused bumble bees scrambling about, and one down in the pond loop. I don’t know what animal has dug up the nests. Presumably it is something eating the immature bees in their cocoons. My best guesses are a stoat or a hedgehog, although I suppose it could also be birds such as crows. It may be a fox, I don’t suppose it is an otter. No sign of live bees near any of the nests now. At least it isn’t anything I can feel responsible for….just nature.

Dug up bumble bee nest

Destruction of the Dog Resistant Garden

Flowers in DRG previous life

The dog resistant garden (DRG) was enclosed when our first dog Douglas was a youngster.  He did like to ‘help’ – dig where I was digging, and so on.  I constructed a windbreak fence around what was then mostly a vegetable garden in the front garden.  Over the years this evolved, first into a flower garden with the idea I night grow flowers for the shop, and then into a shrubbery with interesting edibles.  Now with Douglas gone and Dyson a mature dog, the fencing had seen better days and I was finding the square corners of the garden annoying.  I took down the majority of the enclosure in the spring and recently took out all of the fence posts.  The original paths no longer go where I want to wander, and the soil levels between the DRG and the barn bank were humped according to where the soil had been moved when the roadway above the barn (known as Lara’s road after our croft-Rover was parked there for a while) was excavated.

Fences collapsing

Over the last few weeks I have been energised to level the soil and re-landscape the area and plant up with some of the plants I have been propagating.  Dyson was a bit of a nuisance helping when I was levelling the soil.  He is generally very good, but when something is scraped over the ground, like a broom, rake or vaccuum cleaner, he likes to bite the head of the implement.  That’s all very well for those implements, but when it came to biting at the mattock head as I was chopping the turf, I had to put him inside out of harm’s way.  I cleared the soil off the barn road bank to stop it falling in, making a precarious walkway.

Levelling soil with more or less dog help

It was a bit of hard work to clear the old paths out of the DRG.  I had laid woven weed membrane along the paths, and when it was a vegetable garden I had transferred stones I found whilst digging to the paths.  These stones had then been covered with soil, so there was quite a bit of grass and the odd docken or raspberry growing through it.  I have pulled it all up now I hope.  One of my friends in the glen has a new polytunnel and they may be able to reuse the weed membrane, since it seems to be in pretty good condition overall, as long as they don’t mind a bit of cleaning.

Removing weed membrane

I marked out the new paths, including a curved one through the DRG, with bits of wood from the old fencing.  Some of the old telegraph poles that had acted as retaining walls for the raised central bed of the DRG were used to create a border to one side of the main path that curves round to the secret garden.  I could do with a quantity of wood chippings to cover the path with and weigh down some newspaper to keep the weeds down there.

Swales and marked out paths

Having levelled the soil, I then proceded to mound it up again between the path and Lara’s road edge.  Three banks were formed perpendicular to the prevailing wind direction.  Hopefully this will create wetter sheltered parts and drier more exposed parts at least in the short term.  The whole area is fairly well sheltered and shaded by the sycamores in the front garden, and this shelter should increase as the shrubs I have planted start to grow.

The final steps I have done so far have been to lay out the plants and shrubs and plant them.  I dug up some self heal and sorrel with particularly large leaves from the tree field and transplanted these to act as ground cover.  Most of the plants however are ones I have propagated myself.  I was going to plant out the two Gevuina avellana seedlings that have survived being repotted and are doing pretty well, but I decided that they are still perhaps a bit small to plant out.  I did plant out some of the plum yews I have (both japanese plum yew; Cephalotaxus harringtonia and chilean plum fruited yew; Prumnopitys andina, which were bought as seedlings.  Again they are pretty small, so I hope they will do alright in the ground.  I need both male and female plants to survive if I want to get fruit in future.  The Miscanthus grass is the other plant I recently bought.  I’m hoping to divide it in future years to screen the barn and create a bit more quick growing shelter if it likes it here.  I was very impressed with it at the East Devon Forest Garden when I visited a few years ago.  The one I bought from Edulis when I was visiting my Mum last year got a bit swamped by the nettles in the early part of this year, but also seems to be surviving so far.  I’ve put in about 6 asparagus that haven’t found a home yet, some blackcurrant seedlings which had self seeded in the pallet garden and various known and unknown plants that may do alright there and are big enough to plant out.  When I’ve finished planting I will create an annotated planting picture like I did for the drivebank.

Final layout

Still to do is to mulch between the plants, lay down paper and chippings on the main path, level the curved path in the DRG, and mulch between the DRG and the main path.  I may try and seed some of the area that is less likely to resprout turf since it was dug quite deeply.  I’ll leave replanting the other side of the path for a while to try and clear some of the weeds.  These are not buried enough to stop them regrowing, so need a thick mulch for a few months, maybe till next autumn.

Achieving Courgettes

 

 

Exuberant polytunnel in August

I’ve got into a system now in the polytunnel (although as always it’s still evolving!).  I have a number of perennial fruit and vegetables that come back more or less reliably and more or less productively year after year, then I have annuals and replant perennials which I rotate through the four quarters of the polytunnel.  The four quarters are tomatoes, cucubits, yacon and grasses/legumes.  I’ll explain how these are getting on in this post.  It got a bit long when I started to include the fixed perennials, so I’ll make a separate post for those.

There are a number of annual, or biannual plants that have self seeded and come up as they feel like around the tunnel, these include a flat leaf kale (possibly originally pentland brig), flat leaved parsley, chickweed, fat hen, leaf beet and climbing nasturtiums.  I generally don’t weed religiously in the tunnel (I’m never the tidiest of gardeners!) just clearing space for sowing or growing plants as required.  When I do pull out weeds or chop back plants I will usually tuck the removed plant matter around growing plants to act as a mulch.  I am convinced that the soil in the tunnel is much happier for this as the mulch acts as a layer of insulation; keeping the soil and plant roots cooler and damper, gradually disappearing into the soil and feeding it.

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The climbing nasturtiums are funny.  I think I had just the one plant last year, an orange one which had seeded from a single lovely tawny dark orange flower the previous year.  It flowered profusely and I just left it to seed around, which it has with a vengeance!  Every colour from pale primrose to dark maroon, is now represented, clashing wonderfully with the Fuchsia-berry Fuchsia flowers.  The nasturtiums have rather taken over the tomato bed and I’m having to weed them out, train them up and cut them back.  I assume that there is interesting hidden genetics going on there, but am just stepping back and enjoying the results.  I’ll try and collect some of the seed this year, or I will be able to grow nothing else in that corner for seedlings.  Unfortunately I’m not fond of the taste of nasturtium, but do enjoy the visual effect of the flowers.  They are also supposed to be a good distraction plant for cabbage white butterflies, not that those are a problem for me here.

Wonderful clashes

The tomatoes are lovely sturdy plants this year.  I didn’t get very good germination, however I did get plenty of plants for my purposes, if a bit later than ideal.  I was trying out a different compost this year: Dalefoot bracken and wool composts.  I’m pretty impressed with it – a bit pricy especially after delivery to Skye, but the plants were definitely healthier than previous years, so I will be buying it again.  I got a pallet load organised for myself and various neighbours in the glen and beyond.  Although there didn’t seem much interest at the time of ordering, then the lockdown happened and I could have passed on twice as many bags, since compost was one of the things in short supply on the island!  The fruit set well and are just starting to ripen nicely now on the vines, so it is a race against the fading summer to see if I can get most of them to ripen off.  Other people locally already have had ripe fruit for several weeks, so I know I can do better….

Tomato truss ripening late August

Again this year I had poor germination of the sweetcorn.  Actually I got zero germination.  This means the lower northern quarter of the polytunnel is mainly growing whatever is self seeding in.  I cleared and watered a couple of beds to get some fresh leaves in a few weeks.  I sowed a couple of patches of the millet seed, but am a bit disappointed with the germination of this as well.  If I don’t get seed off it this year, I probably won’t bother with it again.

 

Tamra Cucumber

The stars of the tunnel (other than the nasturtiums) have been the cucubits.  I grew three cucumber plants myself (Tamra) and was given one (Marketmore).  The marketmore has done pretty well setting several nice fruit, and ongoing…  They are a bit spiny, but these rub off easily.  The Tamra, which last year produced one delicious fruit the size of my little finger, has had several nice fruit on one of the three vines.  I left the first fruit to try and obtain seeds, so may have done even better if this had been picked.  Given the Marketmore is next to the Tamra, they may have crossed, so if I do get seed they may not be the same as the parent.

Setting courgettes

I am very happy with the courgettes, which have been setting well and ongoing.  I think the large round fruit I found last year may well have been a tondo di picenza courgette/marrow, although it was sweet like a melon.  I am finding that the immature fruit are also very pleasant to eat raw.

Pumpkin nut squash in Y-front sling

The pumpkin nut plants got away very well, and all three plants have at least one good sized fruit supported and swelling.  One of them is already starting to turn orange, so I am very hopeful that I may get ripe seeds from this one at least.  The plant is grown for it’s hull-less seeds, and maybe I can use some of them to grow plants from next year.  I don’t think I will get sharksfin melon this year, which is a bit dissappointing.  I had just one plant survive, and although it is growing away quite rampantly now, it is rather late for it to set fruit to come to anything.  I may try digging the plant up, cutting it back and trying to overwinter it inside this year.

Yacon flowerbud

I’m pretty excited about the Yacon.  Although it is too early to tell what the yield of roots will be (it is dug as late as possible, after the plants die back in the winter) the plants are getting quite big now, and I can see flower buds developing on the two new varieties I obtained this year.  With a few big ‘ifs’ it would be very exciting to get seed to try and grow a new variety.  The tiny plants I grew a few years ago from cultivariable seeds never made it through the winter, but it would be fun to try again.  Cultivariable are unfortunately not exporting seed any more….

 

Exploring the Fruit Jungle

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The fruit garden became a fruit jungle.  This is mostly because of the raspberries, which like to move around.  There is also quite a bit of nettle(s), which make it not conducive to casual browsing.  The nettles are a good sign actually, since they prefer richer soil.  Probably decades of manure from the byre in times past have increased the fertility of the area, although there has been no livestock since we’ve been here.  I’ve tried to tame various areas in the past, but am fighting a bit of a losing battle; it looks beautiful for a few months, then nature happens.  It is probably the soft herbacious layer that I don’t understand yet and haven’t got the balance for.  Hopefully in time I can get the groudcover plants established so that the nettles and docken don’t dominate quite so much.  In the meantime I have been pulling these perennial weeds out, sometimes by the root, sometimes not.  They will probably come back next year, maybe not as strong, we shall see.

Strawberry flowers

The comfrey still seems to come back in patches where I thought I had removed it.  I think if I carry on digging out as much as I can it will eventually give up.  In the meantime the lush growth is useful to mulch around the fruit bushes.  I’ve got quite a nice patch of strawberries, although they tend to get damaged outside before they get a chance to ripen off.  They do much better in the polytunnel.  The Toona sinensis seems pretty happy, if not that vigorous. It can be seen sprouting earlier in the year in the strawberry picture above (at least if you know where to look).  It is only it’s second year and I haven’t tried eating any yet.  It is supposed to taste like ‘beefy onions’, used as a cooked vegetable in China.  The patches of Good King Henry have established well.  They will stop some weed seedlings coming up next year.  The Japanese Ginger is very late coming into growth again, and does not show much signs of being too vigorous in my garden.  I just hope it survives and grows enough that I can try that as a vegetable as well.  I forgot I had some Oca in by the Ribes Odoratum last year.  That seems to have come back of it’s own accord.  I have a feeling that Oca volunteers will be as much of a nuisance as potato volunteers tend to be, albeit somewhat less vigorous.

Mulching below path

I have mulched around the ‘Empress Wu’ Hosta, which I planted in the trees just beyond the fruit jungle, with cardboard.  I wanted to protect it before the grass grew and swamped it too much.  The bistort has come back nicely as well this year and set seed, which I just sprinkled close by.  I wish now I had sowed the seed in pots so I could determine where to plant out new plants if they grow.  I mulched the area between the path and the lower parking area as well.  The new large fruited haw there, Crataegus Shraderiana, is growing well, and it is underplanted with a Gaultheria Mucronata cutting and a Mrs Popple Fuchsia cutting.  The latter had been growing quite nicely, but unfortunately got broken off once planted, possibly by Dyson sitting on it, or the cardboard shifting against it.  It seems to be growing back again OK now.

Elder in flower from above fruit jungle

The original elder bush, which came as a cutting from Solihull is coming into it’s own now.  It flowers really well, despite being on the windy side of the willow fedge that protects the fruit garden from the worst of the prevailing winds.  It doesn’t seem to have set many berries again though.  Hopefully some of the local elder cuttings that I took will cross fertilise it and help a set; it may just be the wind though.  It’s worth it’s position just from the blossom and extra shelter it provides, although fruit would also be nice.  I used to make a rather tasty cordial from elderberries…..and I read somewhere that it used to be cultivated to make a port-like drink back in the day.  Certainly I have drunk some rather good home brewed elderberry wine (not mine I hasten to add).

Purple is the colour….

The rest of the fruit jungle is living up to it’s name.  The original rhubarb has provided a batch of jam and a batch of chutney, I could have picked more… The Champagne Early rhubarb are starting to establish well with a lovely pink colouration (I made a batch of rhubarb and ginger liqueur which is maturing as I write), and the Stockbridge Arrow is coming on, although still quite small.  The Ribes Odoratum flowered well, although only one berry appears to have set.  I will maybe try and take some cuttings from these this winter.  They are very pretty while in bloom, although it would be nice to get a bit more fruit from them.  The Saskatoon remains a bit disappointing.  I was hoping it would be setting fruit better by now.  There are a few but not many.  It maybe that it requires more ‘chill days’ to flower well, since we have much milder winters here than it would be used to in it’s native North America.  A bit of research indicates that the bushes may need pruning, or just be immature.  The raspberries are starting to ripen now, and the black currants (all Ben Sarek in the fruit garden) are tempting with a heavy crop, but need a few more days yet.  There is also at least one flower on the globe artichoke which is a division from the polytunnel plant (spot it in the top photo after clearing).  It is encouraging that it is returning and getting stronger year on year.  The cardoon seems to have succumbed this year.  I don’t think any of my new seed have germinated, but I may be better getting vegetable branded seed rather than HPS seed, which is more likely to be an ornamental variety – they are rather spectacular in bloom.

Apple blossom

All of the apple trees also flowered well.  Only the Tom Putt apple seems to have set any fruit though.  I’m not too perturbed about that.  The Worcester Pearmain is unlikely to ripen anyhow, and the Starks Early (which I grafted myself!) is still very young.  Given a halfway reasonable summer however, I am hopeful of getting more than one apple this year.  There don’t seem to be any surviving fruit on the Morello cherry unfortunately, which is looking rather tatty.

Monkey puzzle with yours truly for scale

The monkey puzzles as yet are far too young to expect nuts.  They were planted in 2009 and have grown really well in the fruit garden.  All three are about twice as tall as I am.  By special request from Maureen, I’ll put a photo of one of my monkey puzzle and I above.  They are also getting wider in diameter; both in trunk and in branch reach  The branches are so prickly this means that the original path at the top of where the fruit tunnel once stood is no longer viable.  I therefore need to have another think about path routeing this winter, particularly in the upper raspberry dominated area.

The Secret Garden

This year I have been trying to tame the next section of garden by the drivebank overlooking the barn, this is where I moved the kiwi vine to over the winter.  I have been calling this The Secret Garden in my mind.  It is not particularly hidden (although it will be more secluded once mature), it is just that almost all the plants in here have edible parts, although are normally grown as ornamentals in the UK.  Steven Barstow has coined the word ‘edimentals’ for these sorts of plants.

View from Garden end

I had already forked over the area and mulched it with cardboard at the same time as I planted out the kiwi vine.  One of my neighbours has lots of lovely hosta, which I had been admiring and they very kindly gave me several big clumps of it, together with what I think may be Elecampane (Inula helenium), and ladies mantle.  I have put most of the hosta in this area, there are at least two different varieties – one with quite blue leaves.  Hopefully it won’t be too dry for it.  I also planted out some of my Aralia cordata, which I had grown from seed, and my sechuan pepper (from a danish cutting), some Lady Boothby Fuchsia (from cuttings), some golden current (from cuttings) and my strawberry tree (bought as a plant). I also planted some hardy geraniums around the base of the strawberry tree.  These were grown from seed from chiltern seeds: .  It was supposed to be a mixed pack, but only two varieties seem to have made it – a small white flowered one and a small purple flowered one.  The rest of the geraniums were planted on the drivebank.

Variegated Hosta shoots in spring

I  also got some hedging Sea buckthorne plants this spring, and have planted a number of these along the top of the bank above the barn, as well as in various places in the tree field.  Hopefully these will form a protective barrier as well as fixing nitrogen, and maybe producing fruit in the future.  They should grow fairly quickly, but I will probably cut them back fairly often to keep them bushy, assuming they do OK.

These plantings are all mostly doing fine.  The Aralia seems to be suffering a bit from slug damage.   There were three little plants, and I think one has not made it, one is OK and the other will probably be OK.  The Hosta doesn’t seem to have suffered too badly from slug damage so far.  One of the clumps is starting to flower, and they are all looking pretty healthy.  The kiwi is not looking great, but has some new growth, so may well make it.  The proof will be if it comes back into life next year!  Unfortunately the sechuan pepper plant was broken by some strong north winds we had – I did not stake it since it was so tiny.  It has sprouted below the broken point so I have removed the top part of the stem and stuck it in adjacent in the hope that this may form a new plant too.  So far the strawberry tree is looking very happy.  One of the sea buckthorne hasn’t made it, but the others look pretty happy.  I may replace the failed sea buckthorne with a female good fruiting variety if the others do well in the next couple of years.

Remulched secret garden

The weeds had been poking through the cardboard, so I have been going back over with some fresh cardboard, pulling out the nettles, docken and grasses that are a bit persistent.  Hopefully I can weaken them enough that they don’t come back next year.  I need to have more ground cover plants to stop the weeds seeding back in again (remember  rule #2)  The chilean plum yew plants I have are still a bit small for planting out yet I think, but could also be planted out next year.  I have also thickly covered the main path through to the front garden (it comes out where I have the dog tooth violet and solomon’s seal plants growing) with old newspaper and wood chippings/bark.  I still need to complete another ramp down to the barn and build a retaining wall to tidy up the join to the drivebank, however there is a Landrover parked rather long term just in the way at the moment, so this may have to wait till next year.

 

Mulch less work perhaps

Backway through tall grass and pignuts

S. managed to cut the grass on the main trackway down to the lower junction, but when I tried to do a bit more a few days later, I found that the scythe mower was not cutting very well.  It was out of action for a few weeks, since S. found that it wasn’t just a matter of sharpening the blades or tightening things up; the bearing on the blade pivot had broken up completely.  Luckily S. is a mechanical genius and managed to source and replace some suitable bearings so the machine now cuts better than ever.  We suspect it must have been running loose for a while.

Sparse well drained area

The weather has been pretty dry this year, so despite the delay of a few weeks, S. has been able to cut all the main trackways (which didn’t happen last year) as well as most of the backways, which are single mower width paths between the trees in strategic directions.  He has also made a new backway looping round the north side of the field about half way down.

Lots of lush growth near top junction

It is funny how different the grass is in different areas of the field.  Up at the top it is thick, tall and quick growing, where as towards the middle it is thin bladed and shorter.  Here it is made up of what I call “blood grass”, since it sometimes looks like the tips of the grass have been dipped in blood.  Nearer the pond is where most of the orchids grow, although there are a few bigger ones further up the field.  I marked the positions where I could identify the growing leaves (they are less ribbed than plantains, and wider than bluebells).  S. managed to avoid most, but mowed right over one of the more spectacular ones, a double headed one too!  I put the cut heads in water, so far they are looking pretty lively, so may open out in the jar eventually.

Sticks marking orchid positions on pond loop of trackway

I had a bit of a brainwave last winter , it occurred to me that if I had a suitable fruiting shrub or tree at the appropriate interval along the track, then as I raked I could dispose of the cut debris around the said shrubs, mulching them at least annually, without having to transport the mulch material very far.  I did distribute quite a few black currants as cuttings along to the first main junction.  The idea does seem to have worked pretty well this year.  The volume of mulch material varies according to the type of grass in the different areas as mentioned above, so when I add strategic shrubs further down they may be wider spaced than where the mulch material is produced more lushly.  In the meantime there are plenty of little spruces and pine which I planted as intermediate windbreaks in the sparse area of the field, as well as the new alder, elder, lime and sea buckthorne plantings.  I’ve tried to mulch as many of these as I can, since I know how much new plantings benefit from the grass being kept down around them.  I haven’t put a sheet material down under the cut grass, so it won’t be effective for long.

Mulching tiny trees

On the north side of the main trackway down, there is an area planted with birch.  This has the stringy blood grass growing quite vigorously.  In fact, it seemed to swamp many of the original birch trees, so I replaced them a couple of years ago with some locally sourced ones from Skye Weavers, who had self sown birch in their meadow which they did not want.  These are now growing well, but we are still concerned that the grass is very competitive and so S. mowed between the trees.  The grass came off like a huge fleece – a great mat of tangled grass rather than individual blades.  Hopefully it will still be effective as mulch and not just carry on growing.

Grass fleece

Some of the cuttings I have put in have been further back in the trees and most of these have not yet been mulched.  I was surprised how many of these took, considering they were just stuck in with no clearance (unlike the strategic ones at the trackside, which had a clearance turf turned over to give them a start).  I’ll probably leave them rather than try to move them, since it is easy enough to strike new plants from cuttings whilst pruning in winter.

Unmulched cuttings in amongst trees

Digging for Blueberries

I’m running a bit behind in my posting (got distracted by online novel reading) so will try and do a bit of catchup now.  I’m trying to get some preparation done for my blueberry patch down the hill.  I had covered the whole area with black plastic early last year to clear the weeds so it is now time to get the beds arranged, so I can start planting.

I decided to move the black plastic out to cover the area immediately surrounding the cleared patch.  I can either plant more blueberry bushes or other plants there.  It will be useful to have a weed barrier of sorts to try and keep the couch and other creeping grasses at bay.  There probably aren’t enough stones already selected to weight the plastic down properly.  Last year I had the benefit of large branches from the driveway spruce trees, but my intention is to use these to increase the woody content of the beds, so I will need additional weights this year.

Forked area and extended mulch area

Since blueberries need well aerated soil, and the area I have chosen for them is damp and compacted with generations of sheeps trotters, I have forked over the cleared area.  I din’t turn the soil, just loosened it, so that it has a chance to dry a little over the coming weeks of spring.  I was a bit disappointed by the amount of couch grass that seems to be prevalent over the whole area, despite the light excluding cover.  I guess it was kept going by areas outside the plastic, and the fact the water could still get to it due to the fact the plastic is in strips, rather than a larger entire piece.  The other plant that seems to have survived remarkable well is pignut, Conopodium Majus.  The blanched spring shoots of this are all over the area despite having been covered for the whole of last year.

Blanched pignut shoots

The thick reeds and other groundcover plants have disappeared to form a vole dispersed layer of compost.  The voles are more of a nuisance for attracting the attention of the dog(s).  They like to dig underneath the plastic sheets, thus letting in light and wind, so making the sheets less effective at weed cover.

My intention is to create sort of raised beds, with the woody trimmings, bracken remains, and leaf mould/grass clipping compost from the lodge, together with soil excavated to create drainage channels and paths.  As I was forking it over, I discovered that the soil depth is not consistent; it gets quite shallow at the downhill side of the patch.  Probably this rock forms a bit of a bowl, which is why it seems so damp there.  Until the area surrounding the cleared patch is also cleared, I won’t really be able to create the levels properly to ensure bed drainage.  I’m hoping that I can clear most of the couch grass out when the soil is drier as I create the raised beds themselves.

I have ordered some more blueberry plants, but haven’t managed to find some of the varieties I wanted.  If necessary, I will just sow some annuals to build up the soil structure and keep it covered and pre-order bushes for next year.  I know ART will propagate fruit trees to order, so they may do fruit bushes too.

Eviction

Having decided that the Kiwi vine wasn’t worth the space and the daylight it took in the Polytunnel, I spent a few wet afternoons in January and February digging it out.  Since it was pretty much in the corner I had to be careful of the polytunnel sides when digging.  I wasn’t certain when I started whether I was taking the bramble out as well.  Actually I rather though I would be digging that out too, despite the great crop of sweet early brambles it usually gives.  However in the event, it really was too close to the polytunnel corner to take out.  Also it seems to be quite separate to the kiwi root mass so didn’t naturally come out at the same time.

Kiwi roots

Although I tried hard to take up as much root as possible, the kiwi roots are surprisingly fragile, so most of them got broken quite short during the excavation.  Eventually the last roots going out under the tunnel wall were cut through and the rootball was undercut and freed.  It was interesting that most of the larger roots were extending into the tunnel rather than out into the damper soil outside the tunnel.  I think this indicates that the kiwi will prefer drier soil.  That corner of the tunnel outside however, is also particularly wet, since there is a shallow drainage ditch I dug along there quite early on, which doesn’t yet have a destination except just by the corner of the tunnel.  It usually fills with water there after any significant rain.

Out of polytunnel – giant Dufflepud

I had decided to plant the kiwi against the largest of the sycamores in the front garden.  I don’t expect it to be quite as vigorous outside as it is in the warmth of the tunnel.  It may not like the extra wet as well as the cooler temperatures.  However I remember seeing kiwis swamping a tree in the Fern’s field, so don’t want to plant it somewhere where the trees are still establishing.  In addition, it will be more difficult to prune the vine in a tree so I’m actually intending to let it run free as much as possible.  This means that I may not get so many flowers, but since I am not expecting to get any fruit outside it doesn’t really matter.

Kiwi in new position

I started by working out roughly where the kiwi was going to be planted; a little way from the tree trunk.  It means that there will not be a way around between the tree and the road above the barn.  However, there wasn’t before either due to the way the soil has been heaped up, and the clump of branches growing from the bole of the tree.  I managed to get the kiwi up the drive bank and in position, with a bit of a struggle.  I loosened the soil where it was to go, and dug just a little bit out, since I needed to adjust the soil levels to a bit higher there to blend them in more.  I didn’t give the kiwi any extra compost; I’m expecting it, if it survives, to be quite vigorous enough already!  Having backfilled the hole to level, I lifted soil from adjacent to the barn roadway to smooth out and level the area between the kiwi and the drivebank.  There is quite a bit of nettles well established there.  Although I pulled out quite a bit of root, there is plenty more undisturbed there still.  I threw those roots I did pull out between the kiwi tree and the barn roadway.  There will be a little shaded wild spot where I don’t mind the nettles staying.  There were a few dock roots and couchgrass too, which will probably persist.

Newly mulched and levelled

Luckily over the past few months I have built up quite a reserve of sheet cardboard, so was easily able to mulch the whole area pretty thoroughly.  I weighed the sheets down with rocks that had been used to weigh down the cardboard at the top of the drivebank last year.  That cardboard is pretty much gone, and the soil underneath looks pretty weed free.  I’m now thinking about planting this area in the next few months.  What I found pretty exciting is that the soil I was moving from the edge of the barn driveway was pretty dry.  Despite the fact that this January was the second wettest month locally for about ten years.  I can therefore think about planting things that prefer to be well drained.  I’ve got several plants growing nicely already (for example those japanese and chilean plum yew may like it there) but also I’m thinking that along the drivebank edge may be just the spot for some sea buckthorne.  I’ve really fancied this shrub for ages,  especially after trying the fruit in Cornwall and Devon.  My research so far suggests it doesn’t like a damp soil, but should be OK with salt winds, although fruiting better with some shelter.  I’m intending to get some general hedging plants, but will maybe get some fruiting cultivars too.  I’m not sure whether I should get these at the same time, or instead, or try out the cheaper varieties before spending a lot on something that doesn’t do well.  Difficult decisions!