Home made mini green house

Just a quick one today, managed to make a couple of shelters for one raised bed, comprised of 10mm polycarbonate from work, some wood panel i came by and a little bit of graft, you can see from the photos how it all turned, the back was alittle too tall to start with so i cut that down...i'm very happy with the results.....good job...so to celebrate, i popped in some parsnips, cauliflower, beetroot and red onions.....smaller qty's this year but properly spaced out...

Day 2 of making raised beds

As you can see raised bed no2 is now finshed. No3 is constructed but i need some more soil to put in that one, no3 is based further up the garden. The layout is designed around what plants require what amount of direct constant sunlight (see previous post). The other 2 photos on here today are from the seeds i planted about 3/4 weeks ago which seems to be quite well, almost too fast....come on the spring!

Raised Beds!

So as the year starts again for all the garden chores, mine start with making 3 raised beds. This includes the fact of i obtained 6 sleepers free of charge!...result you might say!...indeed i agree! ....however they are the heaviest thing on the planet and i have the war wounds to prove it...anyhow the attached photos show of todays efforts to build them...so far i have 1 and a half done, only because someone was supposed to drop around a scaffold board but never made it, so there is one complete and the 2nd halfway through....looks good i think considering i have never built them before. There seems to be an important fact for using sleepers that may have been treated with some sort of protective liquid, it seems that they may weep the said treated liquid through the summer months and could do some damge to your soil, so the recomended course of action is to line the inside of the sleeper with plastic (as you can see in the photo)......thats it for now

So it seems that the time has come around again to start growing things again and seeing how i forgot and just did not bother with my blog last year or i am more determined this year to follow through. I have a new plan this year which includeds raised beds for a start and armed with now 3yrs of growing knowkledge. So at this stage i planted Garlic in october 09 so there will be plenty of that to follow around may 2010. Now as promised i have drafted my plan (see photo) and i have put in my first seeds (see photo) which have taken up the whole of the dining room windowsill until there ready to go outside. The raised beds have yet to built but seeing how most of the other things won't be ready to go out until march or around then...there's no rush, plus i need to gather said materials....watch this space

Results are coming in!

At last i can see the fruits of my labour coming through and most of all i have a flowering rose..cool...i've been watch that rose develop for months, so hopefully more will follow, more good news as you can see in the pic's is that there are lots of peas coming my way now too! and i have tasted on of the cheeky pods and yep...they are very nice, starwberrys too are now starting to ripen and gain size and quatity (looking forward to eatin those) and with god like promise of some good weather to come this week, it should help things on. Everything else is just plodding along at natures own speed, savoy is good but not ready until august, along with parsnip, onions, leeks. The tomotoe plants almost got killed in the winds as i forgot to put longer support sticks in, hence when i went out to water them the day after they were all lying down, so there was an emergency rescue at hand, all seem to have recovered including the one that had almost complety snapped in the main which i stuck back together with gaffer tape (you can't beat gaffer tape). thats it for now

June update

So then...it's been a while since i last put an update on as i keep meaning to do it but never seem to have the bloody time!. Anyhow as you see from the photos thing are moving on quite well at present, although these photos were taken about 2 & 1/2 weeks ago when everything was great and the sun was shining, since then, like last sunday there was quite a big storm to say the very least which also included the biggest hail storm i think i have ever seen which left my garden completly covered in a sheet of hail ice, well when i went out the next day to check the plants, there has been some major damage, all the peeper plants had been completly wiped out by the power of the storm!, as in mashed into the soil by the force of it, the savoy cabbages actually there branches snapped! (and they looked quite strong to me) the tomatoes did not enjoy it at all, nor did the starwberrys..the peas stood strong but still took a good battering. I will be posting some of the photos to show this, but seeing how it's been raining pretty much since, its not ideal photo taking weather. The storm seems to have left a white staining on everything which seems quite odd, however you'll see the photos. the only plant that did'nt seem to give a shit about the storm was the good ol beetroot....???odd that. thats it for now.....

13th may update 'which compost'

Hmmmm,..well there is now some action starting happen within the garden after all the turmoil so far, the peas as you can see seem to be on there way, althougth the photo might not show it most of them are now about 1ft tall and looking healthy, you may have noticed a small bed next to them with a new netting, well that what was left of all my dwarf beans, so in ther i think there are 7 plants in total and i think they will be alright. I have however come across an interesting problem with compost's...note from the photos that the savoy cabbage in the big black pots by the beetroot and peas are growing quite happy with big healthy leaves to boot (they are in a john innes compost) however the othe5 savoy cabbage on the table (planted at the same time) but using a organic compost designed as it were for veg!....are growing at the same rate at all if any..?????confusing stuff , or should i just re-plant in some john innes?...who knows? all i know is there is a good 3inch (general) growth between the two. Everything else seems fine at the mo, toms seem to be happy, althougth i think these will need to be bedded in at some point rather than grow bag, leeks are good, peppers are thinking about, parsnips have finally got the idea nad ...oh yeah i moved the final strawberry basket to the back of the garden, so now there are 3 hanging pots all looking very good, although i might adjust the line they hang on to go across to the othet trees so they get more sunlight (you see) One last phot was of my two climbing roses who are springing into life qute happily. thats it for now.......

A short blog

Ah,....seeing how you 'Mr B' have some very odd growth going on as per your pic's' and well done by the way as you guy's have put the effort in by the way, i'm not gonna post any pics yet as its tooo earl from the last...but there is movement...i think i'm gonna post pics...every 3 weeks or so.......so you'll have to wait now for how they are gonna look..ah...haaaaaaaaaaaaa!

After the weekend Project.

Ah......the blog...some time to sit down and waffle abit...so the garden, well after finally submitting to the red ant problem, which seems to be anywhere you put something on the grass, they suddenly know about it and think...ohhh .....nest...hmmm...bloody gits,..i told by my neighbour about it, he said that as the gardens already have red ants nests dotted about that if you leave something of a large size on the ground it creates warmth and they create there nest there because of it (smart little gits) i'll give em that, anyhow he knows about this stuff cause he's a pest controller and yes i have thought about getting him to deal with it....so the above photos is the garden after the re-arrangement and what was left after the feast.

Well i lost quite a few of the french dwarf beans, i have only 6 left, clearly they are quite tastey, onions, shallots are all ok as they have not popped up yet, savoy cabbage which half is now off the ground and on the table is fine and so is the other half on the undiscovered path behind the peas and beetroot, also now on the table is the leeks..they seem to be fine although it's pretty windy today....note to all...there is no poly tunnels ...(bummer) errr....peas seem to be doing fine although there is still alittle munchin going on but quite alot less now. The strawberrys are going great guns as they were already hanging, looking forward to some of those...hmmm.....

So the other job was to split the beetroot plants,....not a good job as they are so small and all tangled together...dunno know?,...just a tricky job, and you kinda feel whilst doing it that this is the end, however the ones that i have split seem to be recovering fine and a couple seem to be having huge growth burst 2 days on, there are still a few that need spliting, but the one's attached were still too small for that operation,..so beetroot i think is going good.

what else, parsnips are just coming up, the peppers (all kinds) took a real battering from the ants, so i have about 7 left from i think about 15 plants of them. like i said (bloody gits).

So other than the veg that i'm trying grow, the flowers are having no trouble,...it seems to be plant me, water and watch me go...and thats exactly what they are doing, i'm looking forward to them flowering, that should make the garden look really nice, the photos of now until some months on will show that difference.

The herb garden: No problems here all...here's the list:

Wild mint from a cutting from snowdonia, grows every year without fail, i think i have had this about 6 years now...just best mint ever.

Chives, again about 6years aold, grows every year without fail. the rest are all 3 year old, rosemary, oregano, sage, basil, garlic which if you just replant one of your home grown one's again, just grows again..cushd'y....parsely (curly leaf), thyme...the best thing about the herbs is just popping into the garden and whacking em in with your cooking...un-beatable!

So i think thats enough of this blog for today, the odd thing about gardening is that i find i hve to check em on a daily basis, almost like lookin after you own child..odd eh?...but then would you let your child go thirsty...enough said...Good work Mr B & co...looking really good, al;l those bad backs will soon pay off, and Simon, i'm just jealous you have all that sun...git....lol...thats it for know......GMEL

The weekend project

Ok, so seeing how i have some temporary homes for my plants at the mo, i need a cunning plan on how to keep everything of the ground with some sort of order involved and with any luck no cost...this is 'The weekend project' what i need is a raised bed on legs.....easy stuff eh Mr B....lol....on top of this little project according to the book of knowledge i have split out all the beetroot plants too, sounds dangerous to me as they seem quite happy all bunch together, however if i don't do it then they will all die too, this gardening lark demands alot of your time! thats for sure, there always seems to be something to do