Following englishrosefrenchgarden’s post on suffering squashes, we inspected ours more carefully. Alas, most of them are showing signs of fungal attack and some are in a bad way. Typically, the skin is pock marked with little round pale bits and some have developed white frothy mould. We’ve dumped the worst on the compost heap and [...]
Entries from February 27th, 2012
Raspberry suckers
February 25th, 2012 · No Comments · Cropping, Growing, Preparation
There were a few raspberry plants here when we arrived and they’ve been moved into the fruit cage. New plants from suckers came up in what is now a flower bed so we’ve dug them up and moved them to a new bed: They aren’t in the fruit cage so we’ll have to keep an [...]
Saplings & Seedlings
February 22nd, 2012 · No Comments · Growing, Preparation, Projects
We planted 33 hazel, willow and elder saplings in our field yesterday. Then we planted five berberis hedge saplings, two climbing roses and a quince in the garden. The words ‘stiff’ and ‘knackered’ need re-defining. The quince will be fan trained up against a trellis. This is where we put our table and chairs in [...]
Clearing up after coppicing
February 18th, 2012 · No Comments · Cropping, Preparation
The forecast was for rain later today, so we got straight out to clear up the wood we coppiced and get the bonfire of unusable remains started. The latter required at least a jam jar of paraffin to get the fire up to temperature, probably because the wood was so green. We will spread the [...]
Coppicing
February 16th, 2012 · No Comments · Cropping, Preparation
It has been a mild day with gentle wind today so we got out and worked. We coppiced and shortened a couple of mature hazels, the big stuff will be dried out and burnt in our wood burning stove. The straight poles will be used for making wigwam supports for beans, sweet peas etc, the [...]
Pightle
February 14th, 2012 · 6 Comments · Growing, Preparation, Problems, Storing
‘Pightle’ is a Norfolk name for a pig stye. It more commonly refers to a small strip or ‘pigtail’ of land and that’s probably why it got changed – pigtail/pig stye. Anyway, we inherited a disused pightle with our house and we’ve converted it into a potting shed. We cleared it out today, ready for [...]
Green manure
February 13th, 2012 · No Comments · Growing, Preparation
A big 5˚C today and the snow’s largely gone. The green manure (mustard) was frosted and has turned yellow. Apparently, you can dig it in or just leave it to rot and get dragged down by worms. We’ll try using worm power and if that fails, we’ll dig it in. We’re thinking of using under [...]
-16˚C
February 11th, 2012 · 1 Comment · Cropping, Growing, Storing
The BBC say it got down to -16˚C last night. It certainly looks like it around here. Everything’s frozen hard. Oddly, one of the geranium cuttings we’re over wintering on the kitchen window sill chose today to flower: Everything in the garden is looking limp and cold. Brussels sprouts are tough though; this one is [...]
Last onion
February 8th, 2012 · 8 Comments · Growing, Storing
We’re down to our last onion (apart from pickled shallots). They stored well in a cool, dark, frost free shed but we needed more. As a rough estimate we had 120 medium sized yellow and red onions. These lasted us from July to January inclusive – seven months. So, we need about 205 onions for [...]
Closer inspection of field crops in snow
February 5th, 2012 · 4 Comments · Uncategorized
We’ve been out for a walk and discovered that the snow is at least 10cm deep, with deeper drifts. We had a closer inspection of the crops in the field. The green manure – mustard has finally bitten the dust. This is OK though as it needs chopping down and digging in, so now we [...]
