After Doris

   A couple of days ago my son came home from school and told me that his friend had mentioned to him that our shed had been blown over on our allotment during storm Doris. His friend lives in a flat overlooking the plots and I was grateful for the notification but a little nervous as I wasn't sure what was awaiting us. Being the sort of person who usually thinks the worst, I imagined the shed in pieces and all my gardening belongings strewn over everybody else's plots!

   All wasn't that bad. Here's what it really looked like:

Don't worry - the shed fully recovered from its little mishap!

  

    I was relieved when my husband and I lifted the shed back up carefully and found that apart from a few (probably) surprised spiders, the shed and all its goods were fine. 

   So, now to being totally honest and admitting that my two plots look absolutely awful at the moment. I'm not the only one but with two plots (one being 5 pole, the other 10 pole) it's not going to be easy work. Needless to say, the soil was quite easy to dig even after all the rain and I had the whole family chipping in to get it all started. I think this will be an interesting year on my plot, with a lot of developing ideas and new crops. 

 Even though it wasn't easy, my son enjoyed a bit of digging. In front of him is box hedging that I hope will grow well and create a nice area for herbs and edible flowers.

My daughter getting stuck in with removing last year's sweetcorn plants. She's specifically requested lots more sweetcorn for this year.

   Meanwhile, in the polytunnel...

   Things have been growing well, despite losing some broad beans earlier to root rot. I now have more broad beans germinating, adding to the season's length. This time I sowed a different variety: Masterpiece green longpod. I have grown these before and they have been reliable in the past so fingers crossed.

   Seedlings are popping up all over the place in the polytunnel, which is very pleasing to the eye. Peas and broad beans are growing on, needing repotting if I don't plant them out on the allotment very soon. I could do this but I would need to protect them from frost as they won't be hardy. Frosts can still occur this time of year right up to May. I made the mistake of planting out runner beans in late April last year without protection and lost the lot. What was hard to comprehend was that there wasn't a frost forecast that particular evening, nor did many other allotment holders suffer this bout of cold. Only two plots were affected and with mine losing the runner beans I had no spare plants. I shan't be making that mistake again.

 The heated propagators have been switched off as things are warming up naturally now, but I still keep the covers on. These are a selection of tomatoes and aubergines.

 Masterpiece green longpod doing its thing.

The Aquadulce broad beans are fast outgrowing their pots. Here you can see the roots poking through the bottom of the pot. If I don't get a plot ready then I will have to repot these to keep them growing on until I have a space prepared for them on the allotment.

   So here's a list of what I'm doing now to prepare for the growing year:

1. Prepping the allotment: by digging and adding nutrients to the soil (for me this is using well rotted chicken manure from my own feathered kin at home).
2. Switching off heated propagators. Temperatures are rising now and so I will let nature play its part instead as we look ahead to March.
3. Potting on seedlings. When these start getting too big for their seed tray cells they need to be moved on. 

   There's not much more I need or want to do as this will be enough work for now. During March I will start sowing more seeds and so will my children as the allotment chairwoman has asked if they could grow some flowers to decorate the allotment shop with over summer.

   So, prepare yourself for any mishaps like storm Doris causing some damage, also start looking at what you want to grow that will need to be sown in March. There's lots of different things that can be started off in March so take your time to choose what you would enjoy growing and eating. Finally, be ready for pests. Having spoken to a fellow allotment holder today, he told me that he had some early broad beans which he was hardening off, only to be eaten by a grey squirrel one afternoon. It's a constant battle but I enjoy it!

   Keep gardening! 

A romantic walk

   Seeing as it's Valentine's Day I spent much of today with the family on a "romantic walk" at our local nature reserve. Despite it being half term it was a very peaceful walk and there were lots of opportunities to spot some wonderful natural sights.

   It was bright and sunny this morning and dry, so the conditions were ideal. I armed myself with my camera, hoping to photograph some snowdrops and various wildlife. That's exactly what I managed to do. The children also took photos on our mobile phones, which was very encouraging. I can't tell you how pleased I am that they are interested in wildlife.

   The snowdrops were beautiful. The ones in my garden are yet to flower so to see these on the reserve in bloom were lovely.

Just a small sample of the hundreds of snowdrops adorning the reserve floor. 

   Most snowdrops were found in remote places, away from the most used public paths so we had to do a bit of walking to find them but when we did there were plenty to see. 

   There were also many birds, which I also caught on camera. Unfortunately, some of the smaller birds were hard to see but I could hear them! When I did find an opportunity to take a picture most little birds were quick to fly away, but here's what I did take:

 The robin was certainly not shy of the camera and followed us for a bit. 

 The lovely rosy colour of the male chaffinch. This bird was difficult to photograph as he would not keep still.

 This chaffinch took to the air as I snapped away and I'm happy to have caught a picture of it in flight.

 Now more commonly seen at the reserve, an egret. This bird was keen to keep its distance from me, so I couldn't get any closer. A duck photobombed this picture too!

 There's plenty of moorhens here on the reserve. 

Not an escaped pet but a ring-necked parakeet, now naturalised in the UK. I used to see plenty of these in London but for the past four years they've moved in to this area. Although a noisy bird, there's not many here at the moment to cause too much disturbance. This one stayed still for a long time, while its partner was on the move in the same tree. I only spotted about four in total.

   Apart from the birds, there was more to see. The reserve is full of life and I hope that over the years it is loved by everyone as it is now. However, sometimes when I walk there I see rubbish such as food wrappers and drinks cans and bottles. It spoils it for those of us that enjoy the outdoors. Yes, there are picnic tables but there are also bins. Rather disturbingly, I also spotted a spillage in the springs. A nearby discarded milk drink bottle may have given away what it was but it's still not very nice to see. Please, please, please tidy up after yourselves! It's not just people that get affected by rubbish. To finish off today here are some more photos of the reserve that I took:

 A nest revealed by the winter.

 Reeds and a clear blue sky.

 A lovely Hart's Tongue Fern. Here you can clearly see the sori, where spores are made (the straight, brown lines on the undersides of the leaves).

 My husband spotted these snails.

The simple beauty of moss on a fallen tree. 

 Fungi on a tree.

 The offending spillage. Not a nice sight but I wanted to highlight this. It doesn't take much to spoil nature, so please throw your rubbish away properly.

The rushing river. I couldn't see the local kingfisher today. Maybe another time.

   So, why would I feature this on a grow your own blog? Well, there are bore holes on this reserve, where spring water comes from. Watercress was a staple food once and this was harvested here owing to the clean spring water (a needed condition for watercress). Not in use for this any longer but a good reminder of how humans used nature for growing food.  

   I hope that you have all had a lovely Valentine's Day so far.

Potting on (some more)

   Well, the weather's become a lot colder this week, following the easterly winds blowing their cold air over my way. Mind you, there'll still be plenty of frost coming this way until about May so I'm not in the least bit surprised really.

   The poly tunnel is starting to fill out with seeds trays, as is the green house, but even after my last job of potting on, more seedlings are in need of extra space. This week it's the turn of the peas and artichokes.

   The peas I had sown early (November last year) were a variety called Kelvedon Wonder and by now although only about 2-3ins tall, they do need to be potted on from their small seed tray cells. I've carefully removed them to avoid as much root disturbance as possible (as peas seem to not like their roots disturbed much) and transplanted them to 0.5ltr pots. This gives them more room for now and extra nutrients from the additional compost I've had to use. I had originally sown about 30 seeds and roughly 70% have germinated. All in all, not bad. In my experience, you should never expect 100% success and beyond the germination stage, you could see more losses, as I did with my broad beans, which I will come to shortly.

Kelvedon Wonder peas: in their new home for now. I won't be repotting them again. Instead they will go out on the allotment in a few weeks.

   The globe artichokes that I sowed during January needed potting on. Now, here's a tip to remember: I had placed them in heated propagators (see here about when I did this) and so they sprouted up quite quickly but with them came a pest! Luckily I took a close look and spotted greenfly on one of my seedlings! I promptly removed them as such an attack on my young plants could mean no success whatsoever. Always, always, always check your seedlings! You never know what lurks among them.

 A little difficult to see but if you look closely at the central leaves at the top, you can see a cluster of aphids. A much larger aphid is seen lower down and was the one I spotted first.

   When it came to checking my broad beans I was disappointed. The Bunyards Exhibition I thought would be good to grow had all but one succumbed to what looked like root rot. When I went to check them I noticed that they were all starting to look a little droopy and then I noticed that the base of the stems were black in colour. Not good. Here's what they looked like:

 This was the view while they were in their pots. You can see the blackened stem where I'm pointing to.

Taking one out of its pot gave me a clearer view of the fungal damage caused. These plants won't recover and were thrown away.

   Years back I would have probably cried over the loss (believe me this is true) as I would have felt extremely disappointed and would have thought that the whole thing was just a waste of time. This is why when I write about this I can't help but add that gardeners should always plan ahead, including for disasters, which in my mind this one was. Unlike the years where I would have cried because I wouldn't have had any other seeds, I've made sure that I will have more. The other variety that I had sown, Aquadulce Claudia, are currently growing well so I'm pleased with that. I will add further sowings as well to increase potential yield and lengthen my harvest time (at least, that's the idea).

   So my advice for this week would be to keep an eye on anything that you are growing as diseases and pests are awakening. Make sure that seedlings are protected from the cold by cold frames or fleece and don't over water. Throw away any plants that have symptoms of fungal disease as it will spread to others. 

  Until next time.  

Seedy Sunday

   When my husband had informed me that his local reserve volunteering day had been cancelled due to the potential bad weather, I was quite pleased as it meant that the whole family could go out on a day trip instead.

   I had previously read about Seedy Sunday in a magazine and having thought that this was a lovely idea, I wanted to visit. It was also an opportunity to see what Brighton is like these days and I must admit that the day was nice with a visit to the pier and some nice lunch.

   Now, back to the seed swap. It was being held a college so it was easy to find. The staff and volunteers there were all very pleasant. It did cost us to enter the seed swap, which was £3 per adult (children went free). What happens at this event is that you can swap seeds with others to expand your collection of varieties, using up any surplus seed that you may have, or you can simply buy seeds there. There's lots of stalls and there are talks throughout the day. Unfortunately, as my two children are quite young still, they didn't want to attend a talk so I missed out on that part of the day. We did take a good look around at the various stalls and I bought a couple of seed packets. These were white tomatoes (supposedly very tasty so I'm hoping that these will do well for me) and skirret, which has had some publicity recently as an historical vegetable that was a staple for people in Tudor times.

   The event was busy with a lot of people showing interest in preserving heritage seeds and charities and communities looking for volunteers. It would be great if something like this could be held where I live as there's much interest in gardening. We shall see. Seedy Sunday is something that is held once a year and has done so since 2001. Maybe now it's time that such events were held in other towns and cities?

 The Seed Swap event this year.

  It's not too difficult to collect seeds no matter how big or small.

   As for my own seeds and seedlings, I shall be returning to those for next time. Till now, keep gardening.

Gardening for your health

   I'm guessing that I got my love of gardening from my mother. She would grow fruit and veg, harvesting everything possible and then storing the excess over winter with foods such as pickles and passata. One of our neighbours would pop round for some fresh mint, dropping off home grown cooking apples in return. Another would donate some home made elderflower wine for home grown offerings. As a child I would run around the framework of runner beans, observing ladybirds eating the blackfly, while at school my mother would drop off excess seedlings to other mums and school teachers who would be interested as she came to pick me up in the afternoons.

   However, now, that lovely garden that was once so rich with plants is overrun with weeds and overgrown trees. It's as though no one has looked after it in years. Wait...maybe because no one really has. Since my father died my mother has suffered bouts of depression and where she had grown so much of her own food there now stands weeds. Looking back at it all, society has somewhat changed. Most of those lovely neighbours (I knew the whole street when I was a child) have passed away or moved and new neighbours have been reluctant to integrate with everyone or have unfortunately been absolutely horrible. It's all very sad but my mother doesn't want to move and as I visit her once a week I thought it would be a lovely idea to work on her garden again so that she would enjoy it once more and reduce her shopping bills by growing her own.

   It's not going to be an easy project as the garden has become so very overgrown but I see this as a positive challenge! Over time I want to introduce easy to maintain plants and shrubs in the first half of the back garden, with fruit and veg in the second half. There is a shed in need of restoration and a greenhouse that is alive with the biggest spiders I've seen for a while!

   This will take a long time but I made a start late last year and I think that it would be a nice thing to share, to show people how gardening can be good for your well being and that it can be rewarding to work at something like this. For now I leave you with some images of how the garden looks at the moment:

 A very unloved lawn but one that can be fixed easily.

 Rubbish and overgrowth cover the entrance to the front garden.

 A leftover broken gnome sits sadly close to where there was once a big, beautiful hardy fuchsia. 

 There is a path buried under here which leads to the greenhouse, behind which grew raspberries.

 A close up of the greenhouse.

The shed that my father built and in front was the veg patch (imagine runner beans, carrots, onions, tomatoes and herbs)