My tree wish list

Elder

Hornbeam / Whitebeam

Willow

Alder

Guelder Rose

Hazel

Damson

This list will be added to

Beans!

Swift update on the state of the bean sowings.  There are now eight runner bean seedlings from the 2 May sowing.  They're Runner Bean 'Polestar'.  This is my third year sowing them (same pack of seeds!) and they crop well and are tasty and stringless until they get very big.  It will be interesting to compare them with a different variety this year.

The very first seedling of the Dwarf French Bean 'Tendercrop', also sowed on 2 May, is poking above the compost this morning.  That's 20 days to germination.  But then, everything seems to be slow to germinate this year.

Also sowed on 2 May were Climber French Beans 'Cobra' and Dwarf French Bean 'Kinghorn Wax',  a yellow bean that I had a great crop from 2 years ago but that got decimated by slugs last year.   There's no sign of these coming through yet but we'll wait and see.  BTW, just discovered that any bean called 'Wax' is yellow.  It's the bean worlds word for yellow!

I also noted that a small patch of rocket is coming through nicely (horray!  first time I've managed to germinate rocket) but carrots (Nantes 2) and radishes haven't appeared yet.  The other good news is that the parsnip seed (Albion) I sowed between the rows of elephant garlic have germinated and are looking good although I sowed them far too thickly and am going to have to thin (sob, sob).  I HATE thinning!  Seems like such a waste.

Enough of gardening for now, it's a miserable wet, windy day again for which I'm grateful as my exam is on Monday and I really need to knuckle down and study for the next few days.  

After the Gales

We had a really bad day here yesterday, gale force winds and pouring rain.  Did a recce of the garden today and, to my surprise (and delight) there is very little damage.  My broad beans were a bit flattened and one plant broke completely.  This is the second year winds have damaged the broad beans in May so I'm now making a note to give the next crop loads of support and NOT REMOVE IT  too early to support fledgling peas!  Although there are loads of embryonic bean pods on the plants there is nothing ready for eating yet.  

There was a thread on the Irish Gardeners Forum this week about the viability of seeds and I discovered that bean seeds are only viable for two years which explained the non-appearance of 

all the beans I sowed a fortnight ago.  I decided an emergency purchase was necessary so off I toddled to the garden centre yesterday and bought a pact of runners, Scarlet Emperor and some climbing Kentucky Wonder Wax, a heritage American variety with waxy yellow pods.  When I went out to sow them in the failed seeds pots what did I find?  Yes, a seedling!  Isn't it sweet??!

The upshot is that I decided to leave the pots alone for another week so I sowed the new purchases in their own pots.  There could be a glut of beans in this house yet.

As I had the camera out I did a photo patrol of the rest of the garden.  Here's some of the highlights.

Purple carrot seedlings 

Garlic!

Herbs:  green and purple fennel, curly and broad leaved parsley, salad burnett, garlic chives, horseradish, oregano, scorzonera (re-growing from last years roots) and a sprinkling of self-seeded welsh poppies

the sister's woodland garden, two months on.

A Lidl cherry tree

Oh, the Joys of Summer!

It's been ages since I posted because I've been working hard getting assignments, etc finished so I've purposely not allowed myself get embroiled in blogs. Handed in the last of my assignments last night so now have 2 weeks to prepare for the exam. However, I've given myself today off and have had a lovely day in the garden. I finally started digging up the lawn as promised for ages. True to the principles of 1 foot gardening I dug up an area approximately 1 yard square. OK, it's triangular but so what! The thing is that I keep buying plants without anywhere in particular in mind to plant them so I've ended up with those I can't bear to part with in pots looking progressively sadder and more stressed as time passed so it was about time I found a permanent home for them. So, today was the day. In case you can't see what's in my new bed there's a lavender I rescued from my sister, the thyme came from the same place, 2 scabious plants, 1 blue (horribly potbound) and 1 red, an echinacea and a geranium whose name escapes me at the moment.










The highlight of the day was the robin who dogged my every dig and got lots of worms for his trouble.

My new flowerbed is next to my vegetable beds and will hopefully attract more insects to this part of the garden. I don't know if it's a result of the hard winter we've had but there seems to be a real dearth of insects this year. Pests as well as good 'uns. For instance, there's not a sign of black fly on my broad beans so far this year and the only aphids generally are all indoors. However, I haven't yet seen a ladybird, and neither has the next door neighbour who usually reports on seasonal visitors earlier than us. Wait and see I suppose, and be grateful for the lack of pests :-)

Planted some Greyhound cabbages at the weekend. They're supposed to be fast growing so hopefully we'll have some edible cabbage fairly soon. The seasonal stuff seems to be getting off to a slow start for some reason (probably the same reason as the lack of pests). Broad beans are only starting to form and the cabbages I sowed in the Autumn are still looking positively juvenile. I suppose we can only wait and see.

Encircled by snow

I was up bright and early this morning to drop the Ma into the seven o'clock bus. On my way out of town again I caught the gleam of fresh snow off in the distance, illuminated by the rising sun. On arriving home I grabbed the binoculars to verify that we were indeed encircled by snow and this is what I saw. OK, so perhaps it's not too obvious in this photo! But, through the binoculars it was quite a bizarre, even surreal sight with green fields suddenly giving way to white fields.

Perhaps these photos give a better idea of the impression this vista made.

Following threads through the web

I want to read this article at my leisure, just not this minute. This is the reminder.

Sunshine and Optimism

There's a shit load of really crap stuff going on in my life at the moment so I've decided that this blog is going to be the happy blog. Only good stuff can be posted here. So, on a happy note, you'd know the breeding season is getting under way. In the last couple of weeks the birds that visit my feeding station have transformed from slightly scruffy, relatively dull, untidy looking birds into brightly coloured, perfectly groomed specimens! Looking particularly dapper are the chaffinches and great tits although the rest are noticeably brighter and and sleeker than they were too. I've been trying to take some photos but my camera isn't really up to it. Instead here's a picture of the frog spawn in the pond. Although still encased in the gelatinous membrane the shape of each tadpole has become apparent. The only casualties seem to be the top layer of the first clump that was frozen solid for several days. These are still the original black dots so I can only assume they've died.

The other good news is that my tomatoes have started to germinate. I can grow them on for a month or six weeks in their current pots but then I'll need to pot them on into bigger pots prior to putting them outside when danger of frost has passed. Don't know where I'll keep them when they're in bigger pots! My sitting room is already looking like a greenhouse and I'm rapidly running of of places to put things.