homegrowing's Blog

Today and yesterday have been fairly productive. On Sunday, we got three of those part manky old sleepers, but I’ve got to say they’re looking pretty darn good considering. So they’re in the ground on one side now – though the path is still a mess and the other half of the garden still looks a mess, it’s a start.

As you can see, it’s not yet 100% neat, but the sun left us far too soon. I’ll have to neaten it up after work tomorrow I should think.

Now that the old branches have finally left my plot, I’ve been sorting out that land now that I’ve got those lovely seedlings. I can’t count the amount of broken pots, rotted chunks of wood, bits of metal and plates I found in the ground, but it’s mostly done.

Those bin bags just need to slowly find their way into the recycling bin and I’ll give it a dig over. There’s the odd bits of  straw and small twigs, but they’ll rot into it anyway. I’m hoping to get a lot in this small plot – I might end up buying some big pots to grow carrots and parsnips this year, but we’ll see.

Happy growing!

Being February and the ground is finally not frozen, I thought it’s best time to get my seeds out and get the February seedlings going. My greenhouse has a pane missing so it’s a bit cold in there, so at the moment they’re sitting on my windowsill where it’s nice and warm. There’s;

Sage
Green Mint
Cabbage Primo
Parsnip White Gem
Onion Bedfordshire Champion
Aubergine Black beauty.

And I’m happy to say, despite only doing them Tuesday, yesterday I had some lovely seedlings sprouting from the sage, mint and onions.

And now, this morning, the cabbages have come up and so has another onion!

. So, now I have to complete the plot they’re going on, and we’re buying some sleepers today that are half rotted on one side – cheap – which will be used as the path edges. As they’re only going in the ground it doesn’t matter too much, so I should be showing you soon how it looks!

We’ve also cultivated one of the plots.

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours hacking my way through the wild berries that have been left to their own devices for a number of years. You can now finally see right through to the other side of the apple tree now, but there are still a couple of big, long, thick branches that I can’t reach, so will have to get my boyfriend to help me with today, and then set to digging up their roots if the ground isn’t too hard.

On the floor in there are the branches, so it’s even clearer than it looks in this. Next will be sorting the ground around that chair for the carrots and parsnips – there’s no longer going to be a bed there.

I have a job interview later at Frosts Garden Centre, Willington. I’ve got to say, I’m sort of excited! If I get it, I’ll still be staying at Sainsbury’s and work for them both.
It’s a job much more suited, but we’ll see how it goes and what good it will bring to my garden.

In the meantime, I bought some 99p secateurs yesterday, they look alright but I’ll have to test them out in a moment! Really need to finish getting rid of the rest of my thorny blackberries.

I’ll update you on this later!  Fingers crossed it’ll look nice!

Sadly I haven’t been able to do much lately, I’ve been a bit too busy. We had some family trouble last week, and visiting hospital and such. Anyway, I went out into the garden today to get a patch rotivated for some onions to go in mid Feb. Sadly, I can barely get my fork an inch into the ground, so I might have to wait until my boyfriend can fix the engine on the actual rotivator. I had a little walk around the garden and noticed that even the pond has frozen over! Ptch. And to think, 4 months ago or so we were at 30 degrees C.

I’ll get a picture up soon!

Yesterday we drove up to Wisbech near Kings Lynn to pick up a Rover V8. Matthew has a determined plan of getting a Volvo estate, lopping off the back end to make a pickup then shoving a V8 under the bonnet. Men…

I’m also starting a diet, so if anyone has any lovely recipies – especially for lunch – that would be well appreciated! I’m struggling with coming up with nice ideas.

I couldn’t be more excited about my garden in winter than now. We’ve finally got rid of ALL the branches that have been sitting there for who knows how long. I started tidying up what was left – small bits of branches and leaves, along with plastic pots, bags etc that had blown and stuck under there. I think in total so far (still haven’t finished) there’s about 5-6 bin bags full.

How can I be excited over this I hear you ask? Well… Look at that amount of space! I know it looks messy at the moment, but the new border goes from the other side of the oil drum, up around the path you can see, across to a foot or two beyond that bin that appeared from no where, and back down again where the greenhouse is. It’s fairly big, so I’m hoping to fit a lot in there, and I better do, as I’ve never had so many seeds to entertain myself with.

Bring on February.

Today, something amazing happened. I can nearly tick off something from my list. The giant pile of branches has (mostly) finally made it to the tip. So far it’s taken 4 hours and two tip trips, but there’s still a little more to go. It’ll have to wait until in the week, though, because I have to go to work tonight and then tomorrow we’re visiting my boyfriends grandfather. He has a woodburner in his house, so we saved as many useful logs from the epic pile to take over there.

The only problem is, now my poor strawberries need to be sorted out again… Good thing I didn’t finish in the first place!

I’ll post a before and after picture when this is finished!

As I said last year, when I took on the garden it really needed something doing to it. It was literally a plot of weedy land with a path and slightly smashed greenhouse in it. Since then, there has been a start – I dug out a new path and sorted out the greenhouse, chopped back weeds under the apple tree and made some room for the walk. There’s still a lot left to do, especially that needs to be done as soon as;

• Build the raised bed for the carrots and parsnips (+associated herbs)
• make a nice run for the blackberry bush
• Finish the path – bricks and slabs
• Remove the pile of branches that was going to be the path but looks like it’ll never happen
• Dig over the Earth underneath it ready for plants
• Build the final fence and gate

So there’s a lot. It was mostly supposed to occur over winter, but both my boyfriend and I became employed (finally) – he was working 6 days a week and on the 7th he didn’t really want to do anything, understandably. But that was only temporary work, and so now it will need to be speedily done.  For now, though, he had to finish re-decing the kitchen, as he’d already built the units, drawers etc there was only a breakfast table left to finish, which he’s almost done now ;

Just some drawers left, then he can help me in the garden!

2 days ago I finally got dirty in the garden. After hearing your advise from my yellow strawberries encounter, I sat out in the garden as it was lovely weather, and got rid of anything that wasn’t very alive looking. This picture is from part way between finishing and starting so you can see the difference it really made!

There’s still some green runners about, do I leave them or can they be cut off now? Most of them have killed off by now, but I don’t want to go upsetting anything with my minuet knowledge. There was a lot among them that made it look a lot worse than it really was – thorny weeds, dead leaves and runners, leaves from the trees around, and – would you believe it – stinging nettles. Which I wasn’t expecting, so I stung myself several times.
I’m much happier with how they look now, even if there are the odd few patches. Thanks again!

After this I turned loads of manure into the bed that is actually ready. It might be a little late, but there’s nothing going in there that can’t handle it. The bit next to the strawberries that is currently empty has had chicken manure on it for about 3/4 months. Apparently it’s supposed to be the best?

Ignore the odd motorcycle part. Someone decided it was a good idea to dismantle the body in the Summer and leave it so they were blown all over the garden. haha.

I remember taking this in the end of summer. I’ve no idea what kind of beetle this is, but isn’t he a cutie?
He was over by my blackberry bushes – which are now well cut back and the amount of long grass you can see is now long gone.

VERY soon – if I get his bum in gear – my boyfriend will be finally making the trellace  for them to follow to above the soon to-be carrot and parsnip plot. I can’t be more excited to finally get the structures into my garden. He’s quite the carpenter despite having no qualifications and being 18, so I can’t wait to show you when it’s done!