Taking water cuttings of pelargoniums
The kitchen is sweet with the smell of lemon scented geraniums. I finally hoicked out our two giant 3.5 feet plants and put them in the greenhouse. We are hoping that they will survive the winter and delight us again next summer. We are planning to plant them in the half barrels either side of the front door. I rarely take cuttings but this year we have taken quite a few from the scented geraniums. We are hoping that we have discovered a giant strain. The cuttings are insurance. Years ago, Bunty taught me how to take water cuttings. I have...
read moreThe best way to ripen green tomatoes
Danny loves guzzling our ripe tomatoes straight from the vine. This is partly why I grow them. It’s great to see my tomatoes savoured and relished. Now the evenings are drawing in, I often see him out with a torch when I swing in from work, searching to see if any have ripened in the autumn sunshine. The ripening process is slow at this stage of the season. We have managed to keep the tomato blight at bay by removing blighty leaves, stalks and fruit as soon as they appear. This has to be done daily and the blighty bits burnt. We...
read moreTomato harvest
I have been bewailing my fate on the comments section of our first tomato blight post . I can’t find organic remedies for tomato blight or sterilising the greenhouse (soil and general environment) or the soil in the kitchen garden. If we have a cold winter with a decent length of hard frosts, the soil in the kitchen garden should be OK as the spores are killed by prolonged frosty weather (But how long is prolonged?). Then peter m gave us the link to a great site with organic treatments for vegetables. I can’t wait to try them on...
read moreSeven random garden facts
Ten days ago, Sara from Farming Friends tagged me for seven random facts about my garden. I have lived here for fifteen years now, creating and maintaining my garden is how I keep vaguely sane. When I first moved here it was just after I had been released from a short, unhappy marriage. A marriage that was so brief that all I tottered away with was half the wedding presents and a tattered heart. I am extremely lucky in “The boy stood on the burning deck” sort of way. My aunt had unexpectedly died and left me some money. I could...
read moreGrowing tomatoes in large recycled olive tins
After the disaster of my tomatoes getting what I thought was blight, the replacements that I bought are romping along. Good sturdy plants and much better than the understudies that were waiting in the greenhouse. These are growing but in a thin and straggly sort of way. I should have moved them to the cold frame much earlier on. Meanwhile it turns out the tomatoes with ‘blight’ didn’t have blight after all. If they had blight they would have turned black weeks ago. They are happily growing out of the carrier bags that I put...
read moreThe Bower
Last year I decided to work on our main herbaceous border. I planted it when I first came to the cottage many years ago. It is quite a big border, roughly 12 feet deep (4 metres) x 33 feet long (11 metres). It started off as 5 x 33 feet and gradually increased in depth for the first five years. I didn’t have a master plan as I knew so little about gardening at the time. I just bunged in stuff that I liked. Every year I planned to do something about it but never had the time. So I made a start. The border is south facing with sun until...
read moreWatercress update
I’ve been coddling a 24 cell tray of watercress seedlings for weeks and suddenly they have put on a growth spurt and moved rapidly from dolls house sized plantlets to doll sized plants in the space of days. This week they can finally be settled in large 12″ pots and delivered to their new homes. We have a list of happy recipients that is lengthening daily. A large pot of these (3-5 cells to a pot) should provide enough watercress all summer for 2 watercress lovers. They need to be fairly well established, flopping over the sides of...
read moreHow to remove moles from your garden
I always feel a bit sad when I find a dead mole in the garden. With its soft velvet coat and long sensitive nose, the mole seems such a small loveable creature. The Min Pins catch them and then toss them aside for their human pet to collect. Clearly they are not as appetising as the guinea pig that they killed in the garden and carried into the house for an impromptu bacchanal on a pretty pale yellow button backed chair. But that’s another story. Occasionally we get an active mole in the garden. They can be a real pest, especially if...
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