Through the garden gate--June

June was a busy month for us as we moved house. No time for gardening, but now I am getting settled in our new house I am gradually starting on the garden.

So maybe you need a tour of our new garden. The front and side gardens are quite pretty and have been well maintained. There are shrubs and a few flowers. In the front garden by the front door is a hydrangea.  There are lots of flower heads yet to open. I am waiting to see what colour they are.

There is a giant scabious in the border which I have been cutting to bring in the house and add to my shop bought flowers. I don't normally buy flowers, I have always had enough to cut from the garden, so I will have to get planting so that next year I will have plants for cutting.

We brought lots of plants from our other house and I have the chance to go back for cuttings as our daughter now lives in our previous house. This could take some time though. I would like to plant up the front garden with more flowers to give it a more cottage garden look. 

One plant I have not been able to identify is this. It smells lovely and I am wondering if it is ginger mint

The back of our new house needs some work doing. It is just a lawn and it slopes. But we have plans, it is a project we will be working on for some time.

Holly the cat is settling into her new home and enjoys sitting at the kitchen door looking out at her new territory.

This monthly 'Through the garden gate' post  is hosted by Sarah at Down by the Sea

Autumn on the allotment

The days  are getting  get shorter, and colder and our time on the allotment is often dull, damp and misty. But the work is easing up, there is no rush now to get things done, we have all winter. The leaves are falling  from the big sycamore tree.  Every time we go, we find the top of the plot carpeted with with a layer of leaves. So sweeping up these leaves is one job which will keep us busy for a week or two until they have all have fallen. But it will all be worthwhile as they will go in the leaf bin and rot down to make lovely leaf mould for the beds next year.

leeks growing well

As crops are cleared and the beds weeded and tidied up, we are covering the soil with a good layer of well rotted manure.  There are still plenty of vegetables in other beds which will keep us going through the winter--leeks, cabbage, kale, Brussels sprouts, fennel, beetroot, parsnips.

mulched bed

Both the greenhouses are now empty. The tomatoes were finished weeks ago and last week I picked the last cucumber, cut back the chillies and sweet peppers and had a good clean up. I had a lovely box of vegetables  to take home that day.

 

Today I pruned the fruit bushes-- blackcurrants, gooseberries and redcurrant and  then covered the bed with a layer of our home made compost. The blueberries got a mulch of pine needles, saved from last year's Christmas tree as they like an acidic soil.

Most of the flowers have gone over now but the Rudbekias just keep on going and every time we go I cut another bunch to take home with me. We have had frost a few mornings recently and the dahlias turned black, so I lifted them and put them in the greenhouse to dry out.

rudbekias

I love this clearing up process as the growing season comes to an end. It's bringing about a time of rest for us, although there are always jobs to be done throughout the winter, but we don't need to go down to the plot so much now. It's a time to look back and a time to look forward. Some crops may not have done well, but there's always another year to think about mistakes made and try again or try something different.

One sad bit of news is that we haven't seen Ziggy the allotment cat for a few weeks now. She was always there to meet us when we arrived demanding food and she followed us around as we worked. She had started off living on Plot 10b which was Helen's plot and when Helen gave up her plot Ziggy came over to join us on Plot 8. She was getting old and we could see that she was quite weary and struggling. We will probably never know what happened to her and where she decided to end her days, but we feel pleased that for the last few years of her life we provided her with food, love and comfort. Read her story here http://margaretspatch.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/ziggy-allotment-cat.html and here http://margaretspatch.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/greedy-cat.html

Sunny days, goats and a lot of seedlings

Last week  we had some lovely fine sunny days and it was  great to get down to the allotment and catch up with jobs. Working away in the warm sun is so relaxing and then to sit down with a welcome cup of tea admiring our hard work gives a great sense of well being.

The goats which belong to a man who lives nearby are becoming regular visitors, wandering about the lane. They are quite cute, especially the  baby ones, but we have to keep the plot gate shut otherwise they just wander in and eat anything. Up to now they have just eaten the ivy around the gate and we're not too bothered about that. They smell awful though and we can usually smell them before we see them.

I finally got the rest of the onion sets in the ground and then covered them with netting frames to keep the birds from pulling them out. The earlier planted ones had been started off in module trays to get some growth going. This does away with the need to cover with netting.

I planted the broad beans (The Sutton) which were started off weeks ago in cardboard tubes in the greenhouse. They made a double row. We put support sticks around them with string which should stop them from flopping over as they get bigger.

 As the soil is warming up now I decided to sow a row of carrot seeds directly in the ground. We don't have a lot of luck growing carrots. We have tried different ways but the carrot fly always seems to get at them. I think sowing too many is one mistake we have made as when the first carrots are pulled that's when the root fly dives in and gets at the remaining ones. This time I sowed the seed very thinly so there will be no need to thin out. I then covered the row with a fleece cloche and secured it well to the ground. Hopefully the root fly won't be able to get underneath. I will be sowing some more carrots in a deep container in another week or two. This sometimes helps as the root fly doesn't fly over a certain height.

In the asparagus bed we've spotted a couple of  spears poking through the soil. We've also spotted Ziggy the cat sunning herself on top of the bed. So before any more asparagus appears and gets squashed I have covered the bed with prickly holly branches to try to keep her off.

We planted up another big tub of strawberries at the weekend and still had a good number left over, but our grandson's school gardening club were happy to take them off our hands.
 

The greenhouse is a busy place at the moment. It's a constant job, sowing seeds, potting on seedlings, watering and regularly checking to see how they are all doing.  There are trays of seedlings all over the place and I wonder if I will run out of space. I always pot on a lot more seedlings than I will need, some will be spare just in case any die off.  Others will be given away to allotment neighbours or donated to the plant stall at the Church Coffee morning later in May.

Garden calling

The garden has been calling me for a week or two now. But I have been neglecting it and giving all the attention to the allotment. Not that this time of year and the current weather conditions are really gardening weather. But a gardener will always find something that needs to be done. Having spent most of January doing jobs around the allotment I decided that I needed to give some time to the garden. The garden does tend to take second place to the allotment, but it's good to see that it can look after itself for a lot of the time.

In the autumn I cut back some of the very messy looking dead plants and left the rest--the grasses and seed heads, to give some interest through the winter and provide homes for insects and food for the birds  I decided that now was the time to finally cut back these plants and get ready for spring. I was glad to cut the grasses down, there were bits of dried grass blowing about all over the garden. Not sure if that was the result of the winter storms or Holly the cat who likes to roll about in them. Holly supervised as I worked and was probably a bit miffed that I had destroyed her playground. The birds might feel a bit more secure now that she can't hide behind clumps of plants as she likes to do, ready to pounce.

The garden looks a bit flat now, but soon new shoots will be appearing and the empty areas of the borders will fill up. As I cut back I discovered some treasures-- snowdrops, narcissi, crocus. I also found a lovely pink hellebore flowering for the first time since I bought it from a charity plant stall two years ago. The  hamamelis, otherwise known as witch hazel is now flowering. It's yellow spidery flowers are a welcome bit of colour at this time of year.  I  potted up some tete a tete narcissi into small pots to display on the garden table.  These can  be seen from the house and look brighter every day as a few more flowers open up.

As I worked on the borders, Richard dug out some compost from the compost bins.  He managed to fill an old dustbin. My next job after I have finished clearing all the borders of debris will be to mulch the borders with compost or leaf mould, but I will need more than a dustbin full of compost for that.

Greedy cat

 Back from our holidays and there is so much to catch up on at the allotment. We went down at the weekend to do a few jobs and check on Ziggy the cat.  It appears that, unknown to us Ziggy has been well looked after by several other allotmenteers as well as Helen. I think she does the rounds of people who she knows will feed her. That cat will not starve, in fact she might burst if she doesn't stop eating.

Ziggy came to us when Helen took on Plot 10b, she had been owned by the previous tenants who asked us if we would feed her.  She has become quite a character. When we first took on the plot, she eyed us up warily from a distance only eating her food after we had left.  She got braver and started to accept us but was a very bad tempered cat, and used to snarl and hiss at us even when we were giving her food. Now she greets us very noisily when we arrive, demanding food and even allows us to stroke her. We only get the occasional hiss or snarl. We have become quite fond of her. She sleeps on a bed of straw under the shed. She's about 15 years old now and struggles with the cold every winter. We always wonder if she will survive, but as soon as the warmer weather arrives she's back to normal.

Now that Helen is giving up Plot 10b at the end of the year we have been wondering what will happen to Ziggy.  Will she follow us to my plot Plot 8 which is only 2 plots down the lane? The lady who is taking on Helen's plot next year, has said she will feed Ziggy if she stays on Plot 10b.  But we would love to keep her.  So I have made another bed of straw for her under the shed on my plot and in the last week we have managed to entice her over for meals.  She knows where we are and sometimes comes yowling, a bit hesitantly.  Sometimes we have found her sitting in the sunshine on one of the beds.

 I am not too worried now, I know that she won't starve and  there will always be someone who will feed her. Plot 10b is her territory and she may be too old to want to change homes, but we would love her to make her home on Plot 8.  Click here to read more of Ziggy's story.

Woodland planting

 The woodland area in our garden tends to get a bit neglected. That's because it's hidden away at the top of the garden through a little gate. I clear it up about two or three times a year. But as it's a bit of a wildlife area it doesn't look too bad for being left to look after itself. Spring is the time when It gets its first tidy up. There are lots of crocuses which start to emerge about now so I like to clear up all the leaves and tree branches which have fallen during the autumn and winter and reveal some colour from these flowers. There's ivy, vinca and honeysuckle scrambling along the fence too which always need cutting back. I noticed this week that the vinca is flowering, I love those little blue flowers at this time of year. There's also a clump of hellebores which is looking lovely.

I started the clear up last week. Once I'd cleared away all the debris and done the cutting back I was able to see what else is coming through and soon to flower. There was a small clump of mini daffodils amongst the crocus. I thought some snowdrops were needed, every woodland garden should have snowdrops. I planted three little pots, but they looked lost--you don't get many snowdrops in a little pot. I shall have to get more. I also bought some trays of tete a tete daffodils for some more instant colour. Holly the cat joined me as I planted and must have thought it was some sort of game as she kept digging up the bulbs--naughty cat!

Planting  so early in the year I had to be careful of not disturbing any other plants which had not started to show through.  The soil is  a bit compacted with roots which can make planting difficult.   Plant labels always seem to disappear through the winter and I often struggle to remember what is in there. What are those tiny leaves just poking through the soil? Ah yes I know--Brunnera!
It's looking much better now, more colourful and very spring like.

Manuring fruit beds and pulling leeks

With the cold, wet, windy weather we had in the last week, followed by snow I think most people would have been sensible to stay indoors and watch TV or read a book, but not us. We took advantage of a dry afternoon and off we went to the allotment. All we seemed to have been doing recently is manure the beds, but then that's the main job that needs doing. I decided to manure the fruit beds on plot10b, but first I had to clear up all the cat poo which Ziggy the allotment cat had kindly left for me!

We have two manure bins on each of our plots.  I used the manure from the bin on plot 10b which had been rotting down all year. In the meantime Richard went off to get more manure from the communal heap up the lane to fill up our other bin. We were rather tired after all that shovelling and barrowing, but felt pleased with all that we had achieved.

A tidy fruit bed

Ziggy  watched us constantly from her little bed of straw which I have made for her under the shed. She occasionally came out to ask for food (she's a very greedy cat). She thanked me for the food by leaving another pile of poo on my newly manured fruit bed! I think I shall have to get some cat repellent.

During the week I worked on plot 8 clearing  leeks from the big bed where we will be growing peas and beans this year. The leeks were looking messy, so I pulled them all up, cleaned and trimmed them. Some were past their best and needed throwing on the compost heap. It's a big bed and there were a good number of leeks so it took a while to do. I had intending to pull the leeks, weed and manure all in a couple of hours. That will have to wait for another day and as the weather has now turned very cold and snowy it may be sometime before we are down there again. I will be making lots of meals with leeks!

A snow covered plot 8

Putting up the Christmas tree

 

The  second weekend in December we always start the process of putting up the Christmas tree. It always takes longer than intended that's why I say 'we start the process'. It can actually take several days. The tree was bought the weekend before and was left standing in a bucket of water outside until we were ready to bring it indoors.

Getting a 6ft Christmas tree into the house is not an easy job. We have the first job of moving the furniture to accommodate it. As we move the sofas around ( and they are heavy) the carpet gets a thorough vacuuming and we usually find numerous bits of Lego and small toys which the grandchildren have lost throughout the year. This time I all I found was a ball belonging to the cat and a dead spider. The cat views all this activity with wide eyed interest and as the tree is put into place she takes up residence under its lower branches. Perhaps she is remembering the fun she had last year. We are wondering if we will find her sitting on the top branch in the morning. No she will be banned from the room overnight!

When the tree is finally in place and decorated we rest our weary backs and agree it's the best tree ever (it always is). The cat meanwhile is plotting what mischief she can get up to under those branches.

Ground level

I've been doing some work in the garden these last few days. I can't neglect the garden, even though there's always lots to do at the allotment. So every so often I turn my attention to the garden.  At the moment it is still needing to be cleared of winter debris, leaves, weeds that are starting to grow and cutting back the remains of the dead foliage from last year.  There's a lot of moss on the beds too, so I have found it easier to get down on my hands and knees and do some hand weeding.  I found a useful hand tool in the shed which is like a claw.  I don't know what it is called but it is very useful for scraping the soil and removing moss and surface weeds and debris. At ground level even the moss is beautiful.

Getting down so close makes me see things better.  There are lots of ladybirds coming out of hibernation now and many of them are hiding in the stems of the dead flowers I'm cutting back.  I move them to a safe place when I find them, and hope they will survive.   Many of the spring flowers are quite small so I'm admiring them. Getting down to ground level I can see their beauty.

I had my friend  Holly to keep me company, who took over my kneeling mat. I think she thought I had put it there for her, but really it was to help my painful knees.

I picked some flowers to enjoy in the house.

Ziggy the allotment cat

When we took over our allotment last June we didn't just take on a plot of land we took on a cat too. The previous tenants asked us if we would feed her as they hadn't been able to catch her to take away with them.  Ziggy had been eating and sleeping in one of the sheds. Fortunately for her we decided to keep this shed as it was a good size and in quite good condition.  The shed smelt awful and Ziggy's area was in a terrible state, littered with empty cat food tins full of flies and maggots.Ugh!  We cleared the shed out completely of rubbish, gave it a good hose down and cleaned it with disinfectant. It is now known as 'the cat shed', even though it is used for other things too.

We didn't see much of Ziggy at first, but we put food in the shed where she could get at it. We put out dried food which was cleaner as we didn't go there every day, and gave her a new bed--a box with some clean bedding. She could get into the shed easily through a little entrance, like a cat flap but with no door. We saw her occasionally in the next door allotment, watching us, but she wouldn't came near us. The cat food  was being eaten, either by her or other cats in the vicinity, so we replenished the supply every few days.

As time passed  she got braver and came on to the plot, but kept her distance.  When we were leaving she would appear near to the shed ready to go in to get her food as soon as we had left.

Ziggy is getting to know us and seems to have worked out our comings and goings at the allotment. When we arrive at the allotment she is there waiting for us. She is still wary of us, but will come closer and will eat her food whilst we are there.   We have started to put out  proper cat food for her when we are working on the plot. She loves this and will gobble a bowl of food down in no time at all and quite often sit staring at us wanting more. I think she likes to top up her tummy with the better cat food because she knows we are not there every day! She seems to know what time we will be going home because she returns before we leave looking at us expectantly, waiting for some more food. There is also a lot of wildlife around the allotments so I'm sure she gets her share of mice and birds. 

We  worried about her in the winter as she was limping and looked quite weary, but she seemed to recover and looks clean and happy now. My daughter who is a physiotherapist cast an experienced eye over her and thought she might be a bit arthritic.  

Ziggy is still a bit timid and we can't get too close to her. She seems to have taken over our lives and I think she has now accepted that we are part of hers.

Rain

 

There are times when the allotment is best viewed from the inside of the shed. Sunday was one of those days.  We went to the allotment mainly to take some tomato and purple sprouting broccoli plants which I had potted on to grow in the polytunnel. But we thought the rain might ease off so we stayed for a while.  We weeded the soil in the polytunnel borders, sorted out the plants in there, thinned out the carrots in the tub and then decided to venture outside.

There were some giant mare’s tail weeds growing in the raised beds so we went round pulling them out. We cut the emerging flowers off the rhubarb plants, admired the blackcurrants, examined the raspberries for more growth, put some shredded paper and cardboard on the compost heap and generally got very wet.

But we came away having harvested some baby leeks, chard and the last of the kale. And Ziggy the allotment cat was happy because she got fed twice.

New allotment--getting started

If you've been following my allotment progress you will know that my daughter and I have had a mini allotment in the form of  a council run scheme of raised beds. The good news is that we now have our own 'proper' allotment. We, along with some other people who were near the top of the allotment waiting list were invited to an evening viewing of the vacant allotments. I have to say that none of them were very inspiring, but the one we finally decided on was plot 10b.

The previous tenant had been keeping chickens on the site. Unfortunately all his chickens had been got at by the fox so he decided to give up. The new plot is L shaped  and has one large stretch of weed filled area. The other bit has chicken sheds on it. There are 3 rather ramshackle looking sheds and one huge metal cabin.

We are still keeping our raised bed plots on until the end of the year because we have planted them up with summer veg. This will give us time to get some growing areas dug over in the new allotment to plant up with winter veg.

Last weekend we started work. We cleared out the rubbish from the best of the sheds, swept, cleaned and disinfected it. Then we started clearing some of the areas in which  we want to grow things.  There are a lot of stones as well as huge weeds.

We worked really hard, even the grandchildren, who seemed to enjoy themselves. Our grandson likes to help grandad so he (assisted?) him as he attempted to build a compost bin area using wood which had been kindly dumped nearby for any of the allotment people to use.  

The new plot has come complete with a cat.  The previous owners were unable to catch it to take it with them, so we agreed to look after it. It's very elusive, sometimes we see it watching us, then it disappears.  We leave food for it, which gets eaten and there is access into the shed for it to sleep. We hope she will eventually accept us as new owners.

There's a lot of work ahead of us, but we were really pleased with the progress we have made so far.

Phyllis's garden

I've been working on a problem bit of the garden recently. This little area of the garden was for years regarded by our cat Phyllis as her spot. That was one problem, the other was the dry shade. The dryness was caused by a massive conifer taking the moisture from the soil.. The result was that there were a few plants which struggled to grow there and for most of the time the border looked dull and lifeless with a lot of gaps where nothing would grow. Whenever I tried to plant any new plants Phyllis would look most offended and either lie on them or poo around them.

Well sadly, Phyllis is no longer with us and I shed many tears at the time but I decided that I needed to brighten up this little spot in the garden. The first step was to get rid of the conifer and we did this earlier this year.

I thought long and hard about planting schemes, poured over gardening books and magazines, visited garden centres and nurseries and still remained undecided about what to plant. The area has sun for the early part of the day and the plants which seem to do best are those which flower in the spring and early summer. After that time it becomes a fairly dark looking area. I wanted some plants which would look good during the summer as well as the spring, even if they were foliage rather than flowers.

At first I was going to dig everything up and start again, but some of the plants were doing quite well and I always like to leave  plants which are happy to grow as long as they don't take over. Some plants I've just moved around to better positions, others I have been able to split up and spread around more.

At the back of the border are Solomon's Seal and Centaurea (perennial cornflower). In the middle are some Marguerite daisies and a  blue hardy Geranium. There is also some yellow Lysimachia punctata which seems fairly happy. Aquilegia self seeds itself around as does Honesty. These were all in the original border and were growing quite well. In the spring are Snowdrops, Tete a Tete daffodils and Grape Hyacinth.

When we were having the conifer cut down I dug up some Brunnera and Heuchera which would have got trampled on by the tree man.  I managed to split them into several plants and I've now replanted these at the front of the border. There are 2 varieties of Brunnera, a plain leaved one and  'Jack Frost' which has silvery leaves. The Heuchera is a purple leaved variety. Further back I have planted Tellima and pink Astrantia and a Polemonium (Jacob's ladder). Two new recently acquired plants are a lovely purpley blue Lathyrus and a yellow leaved grass, called Millum Effusum Aureum. I managed to split the grass into 3 plants when I took it out of the pot. The label says it likes shade so I have high hopes for it.  At the base of the stump of the conifer is Gallium Ordoratum (sweet woodruff) which has white flowers and looks lovely when it is in flower but is inclined to take over so needs to be kept in check.

The finished result doesn't look too bad.  And I'm pleased that most of the plants I've put in this new border are from cuttings taken from my own garden.

I'm now looking forward to the plants filling out and hoping that it will be a much more interesting and colourful border. Phyllis may not be around now to give us her opinion of the border but we still think of it as her garden.