Gardening blog
Week forty one October 28th - November 4th2006
Saturday Sunday 28/29th October 2006. Another lovely warm still weekend.
Clean up time. Ive made several trips to the dump, sorting and taking old
metal, plastic and broken glass away from the plot. The old metal I inherited from previous owners, the glass
I took up there years ago as windows that had been removed to be replaced with
plastic ones with intention of building some kind of green house. Over
the years
some of the widows that had been laid to one side had become neglected
and broken. I had let the brambles to grow over them (and a multiple of other
sins) allowing the area to grow wild as a wild-life haven. When the Head
Gardener saw the old broken glass under the brambles on her search for
foxes she was beside herself with anger and all the glass has had to be
removed and
taken to the dump.
The Aqua Dulce broad beans seeds we sowed a couple of weeks ago were just up and poking through the ground and ready for a first hoeing around.
Harold has given me two varieties of winter lettuce seedlings this year.
They will be the first lettuces ready in the spring next year.
2005
Sunday October 30th 2005 Another extremely mild day. I've started a new tulip
bed next to the little apple tree that has been doing so well in recent years.
It's a bed that I dug over in the spring in order to get the bind weed out.
Judging by how much bind weed was still in there, not very successfully apparently.
It's a bed that has
had rocket left there to go to seed in the last few years so I'm
hopefully that it will produce more rocket and possibly land cress as well
as tulips in the spring. After the tulips have finished and been dug up I will
give the bed a dig over and remove more bind weed and add plenty of manure
before planting out squashes there for the summer.
I planted out what was
left of the Japanese onion seedlings.
Saturday October 29th 2005 This autumn the weather has been record breaking.
Never have we experienced such warm weather at this time of the year. And
this week was no exception as we experienced several warm days of continuous bright
sunshine. Today it was a little gray but still warm nonetheless. I haven't thought much about snowdrops
and aconites recently until today when I decided to give the area under the
apple tree a weed. Evening primrose is quick to established itself throughout
my allotment as I tolerate a lot of it letting it flower and go to seed
for the birds. But those growing under the apple tree I pulled up along
with any verbascum that is just as prolific if left to it's own devices.
The japanese onion sets got their first weed and liquid feed today.
I pulled a few good sized leeks today. The leeks did get quite consistently
attacked by leek moth this year and I think this new pest is going to be
with us from now on. The organic control method for leek moth that seems
to be effective is to screw or cut the top of the plants off as soon as there
is any sign of moth damage thereby removing the grub before it can develop
and eat it's way right down into the center of the plant. The leeks soon
recover from the loss of leaf and the moth doesn't it seems lay more than
one egg per plant or on the same plant twice. Obviously if the leeks are well established
and healthy before half their foliage is removed they will stand a better
chance of making a good recovery and growing to good sized plants and those
few plants that moth misses altogether will be bigger and better plants than
the rest. Maybe this will be another crop that will need to be grown under
fleece to get maximum results in future.
Friday October 28th 2005 The greengage tree outside my window has just had
a visit from two Great Tits one Blue Tit and a Firecrest I'm
sure it was a Firecrest although they can be easily confused with Goldcrests.
As the leaves have have fallen from the branches I guess the bugs have moved
to the nooks and crannies in the bark for their winter quarters and are going
to provide a winter larder for these insect eating birds.
2004
31st October This weekend sees the end of an era for me as I move the shed out of the apiary site and down to the allotment.
31st October This weekend sees the end of an era for me as I move the shed out of the apiary site and down to the allotment.
