Who's the Daddy?

How did I get into gardening? As with many things, (my height, my love of Monty Python & Queen, & my colour blindness) it comes from my family.

My Mum & Dad are both keen gardeners & my Dad is King Of Veg. I think for him it started as a combo of financial necessity & sanity break, but over the years his dedication & ability have become legendary amongst family & friends.

I was recently at my folks for my Dad's birthday party, so I took some pics to show you all, & to show myself that, whilst veg plants are needy, if you look after them they will look after you.

Maximise the space

Dad's garden is bigger than ours (veg plot of... erm... about 12m x 15m I think) but he also cannily makes the most of what he's got.

Runner beans up front,
courgettes in the compost at the back,
& blackberry management over the fence

Runner beans

I used to help my Dad put up the runner bean canes in early summer. One year, we could hear my Mum laughing all the way back in the kitchen. What? Turns out that whilst I was still shorter than my Dad at that point, my legs were already longer than his. Seems it wasn't only the beans that were climbing...

Courgettes

On holiday in Switzerland the other year, we saw folk growing pumpkins on top of the cowpat compost heaps. Apparently they love the heat and aren't bothered by the high nitrogen levels that would burn many other plants. So it was interesting to see Dad doing the same this year with his courgettes. I've not seen him do this before - always learning, always evolving.

Blackberries

Brambles are so invasive. There's a large bush that runs along the edge of the arable farmland to the South of my folks' garden. Many people are amazed that Dad tolerates this invasive bully of a weed on the other side of his fence. But blackberries are tasty, & Mum makes a mean apple & blackberry crumble, so why not manage them? Fair point.

Banter

My Dad & his neighbours have an annual veg competition. It's run along the lines of an RHS show, & by-and-large to those guidelines, but it's mainly about the banter: year after year of wind-up, gloating, goading, snooping... they love it.

Onions

There are many categories the growers can enter, but the 2 onion classes (Heaviest 3; & Heaviest Single) are the ones they all want to win.

Biggest Onion is the blue riband event at the street growers annual show 

The 50p is to give you some scale... & that's one big onion.

Beetroot

Dad's been growing beetroot since the early days. He & Mum used to pickle jar after jar, but over time they stepped away from the vinegar & we all started to appreciate the fabulous natural taste of the beetroot itself.

The beets are looking canny hefty too

Since he's been competing, Dad has split his sewing. His primary concern is still tasty fresh veg, so that still makes up the majority of his plot. But he now sews competition varieties too, alongside the kitchen ones.

However, his fellow competitors agree that growing for size alone misses the key point veg growing - great taste.

Tomatoes

One of the 1st taste categories they introduced was Tastiest Tomatoes. Last year I know lots of folks suffered terrible tomato times, but we've had plenty of sunshine this Summer so I hope everyone else's look as juicy as these:

Soooo many tomatoes

The toms get pride of place in the greenhouse, although there is room too for capsicums & cucumber.  Rather than plant these guys straight into the ground, the pops them in large containers instead. He's also rigged up an irrigation system, with each plant getting its own dedicated little showerhead. Certainly seems to be working.

Pest management tips & tricks

Brassica row: Cabbages, sprouts & purple sprouting

As we were chatting, one of my Dad's friends asked for advice on how to get such great cabbages. He had 2 tops tips.

Rhubarb for club root

Once you have the club root fungus in your soil, it can be nigh impossible to remove. This usually means the end of your cabbage growing capers, but Dad said he had recently received a top tip that was working for him: chop stems of rhubarb into the bottom of the cabbage trench. Reading the RHS page, I wonder if the rhubarb changes the pH of the soil? Worth a shot I guess.

Spray for cabbage insect pests

Dad knows I'm not keen on traditional chemical pest treatments so asked me to cover my ears as he said it. The butterflies even found my kale seedlings in the greenhouse this year. It must be a massive pain in the arse to clear all the eggs off every leaf of every plant by hand. We each make our choices, but I know the chemical path is not for me, & given how lazy I am, I guess I won't be growing any cabbages any time soon.

Carrot crèche

Dad will admit however that chemicals aren't always the answer. Sometimes a physical barrier is the best defence, hence the fleecy play pen for the carrots.

Carrots play pen

As you might know, carrot plants are quite pungent little things - if you ruffle the leaves with your fingers they give off quite a strong scent, and the carrot root fly can smell that from a long way away. However, they fly low to the ground. So, if you wrap them in fleece like this, you both reduce the risk of creating carrot perfume clouds as you wander around your plot, and you have a physical barrier that stops any of the little miscreants getting in to punch holes into your lovely roots.

New kids on the block

Part of the fun of gardening is trying out new stuff, & there are several plants Dad grows now that he didn't when I left home nearly 25 years ago.

Corn

I love the look of sweetcorn plants. They're fabulous - statuesque, unusual & tasty too. All good.

No elephants to measure corn height against

Dad has 2 rows, this one was by the greenhouse sheltering from the wind. This is exactly what our neighbour did the other year - a row of corn between his greenhouse & the stinky dog cage.

Rainbow chard

Dad has tended to grow quite traditional fare, but after his asparagus success I think he's really starting to think outside the veg box. Mind, this one might've been Mum's idea...

The yellow stems of the rainbow chard

Sunflowers

Flowers?! In the veg garden?! My, things have definitely changed...

Bringing all the bees to the yard

I think I remember Dad saying these had been started with the grandkids, but it has to be said that the row of sunflowers makes a lovely line of sentinels marking the boundary between Mum's flowers & herbs & Dad's veg.

Grapes

Mum & Dad love a Summer holiday in the Med, & who can blame them. It was understandable too that they would want to bring a bit of that sun soaked gorgeousness back home with them.

This Is England. I kid you not.

The vine is on a pergola over a patio that gets sun all day long & catches the sunset too. It's also against the neighbours' tall boundary wall, so the bricks catch what heat there is & feed it back to the vine as the day fades.

The vine has taken quite a few years to get established, but there are some things you just can't rush.

If you do just 1 thing...

As you might imagine, it was lovely to wander around taking snaps of Dad's garden, remembering old stuff, checking out the new.

Some of Dad's oldest friends were at the party, & one of them is just getting into veg gardening. Dad's advice?

"Talk to people."

As it's been since before the dawn of our species.
The oldest ways are the best, eh?

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Update

Cos this post was about family stuff, I sent the link to family folk. My Aunt has an allotment & today she sent me a photo of her Patty Pans. I do like these spacey squash varieties, & given how well the courgettes grow in our garden, I think I'll add these to my Spring seeds shopping list.

My Aunt's visitors from Outer Space

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Update #2

I saw Dad recently. After berating me for "sharing his secrets" with you, I got some of his results from the annual weigh-in:

• Heaviest 3 beetroots - Won!
• Heaviest 3 carrots - Won!
  It helped that the favourite, & eventual overall winner, left his carrots at home...
• Final position overall - 3rd

Every year there's some controversy - a bit of drama is all part of the banter for them.

Where's the champ?

This year's overall winner wasn't present when the results were revealed. Why did he miss his moment of glory? Because the local football team had a match the same day & he was determined to be in front of his telly for kick off.

Let me get this right - you spend all year growing outstanding veg for competition day, & then sack it off for football, which happens every weekend for half the year? Boggling. But then, this guy wins the overall prize most years, so maybe he just sees it as a foregone... Bit of a slap in the face for the other guys tho'.

The best cucumber?

Dad says his cucumber was his best submission ever for that class. Then seeing the competition laid out on the judging table, he though his was a shoo-in. But no! Another won & Dad feels robbed.

I asked:

Did you ask for feedback on why you didn't win Best Cucumber?

No.

Why not?
Is it cos you're sulking...?

Yes.

Did I mention Dad was 65 this year?

End of April catch up

Crikey, nearly a month since my last post. Is it because I've been too busy doing actual gardening? Of course not.

But that doesn't matter as it's been a fairly sunny round here this April. Admittedly some of the showers have been a tad, erm, white & lumpy, & the temperature has been up & down like the Assyrian Empire. But the garden has clearly decided Spring is here & is just getting on with it. That's the spirit!

So how's everything getting along while I've been maximising my quality sofa time?

Bay cuttings

When I pruned the bay last year, I had a go at taking cuttings from the trimmings.

2 pots, 3 stems per pot, over-Wintered in the greenhouse & they seemed to be going well. But I've been as slow to get started as Spring has & the other week Hubby spotted the cuttings were wilting. With the weather heating up (a bit) they weren't getting enough water. So I've moved them outside & given them saucers, to help them keep some of the rain they catch.

Some green left on the Autumn's Bay cuttings

As you might be able to spot in the pic, at least 2 of the 6 cuttings still have green in their leaves, so hopefully they'll strengthen as Spring progresses.

Magnolia flowers

The week before I put the stairs into Stinky Dog Corner, I bought a couple of trees: a Himalayan Birch, for the top of those steps; & a Magnolia for The White Corner, bottom right of the garden. To be honest I didn't think the Magnolia's flower buds would survive a March planting, but 3 or 4 look like they might just hang on in there. Yay!

New tree: Magnolia Manchu Fan

Old bulbs

In The White Corner, the Magnolia joins some other white plants put in previously. A few years ago I started thinking about playing with some colour theory to make the garden feel a bit longer: strong colours nearer the house; paler ones further away.

So a few years ago, I declared (in my mind) the bottom right end of the garden The White Corner, & I put in some white tulips & pale daffs.

Tulips & daffs in The White Corner

I love the pale green on these tulips, & the flowers are huge.

So, normal sized daffs, fairly large tulips, large tulip-shaped magnolia flowers... yep I've just realised that my colour/distance illusion is going to be shattered cos it's not accompanied by an illusion of scale: large flowers in strong colours nearer the house; small flowers in paler colours further away. Doh!

Hellebore

Also new to The White Corner this Spring, planted underneath the Magnolia, is a white Hellebore... Well it was white when the flowers were new. I didn't realise the flowers would change colour as they aged & set seed.

White (& pink & gold) Hellebore flowers

Bonus!

Dwarf narcissus

Dwarf Narcissus in the Eye bed

The bulbs I planted late last year are going great guns & have brought much joy between the snow showers. The daffs were 1st up & have put on a beautiful show regardless of what the weather has thrown at them. Fair play.

New tulips

2 sorts of tulips went in at the same time as the dwarf daffs. The orange Shakespeares have come & gone & to be honest I was a little disappointed - their colour wasn't as punchy as I'd hoped. Hopefully the Synaedas will be more zesty when they make an appearance... & that should be an "if" cos none of the tulips currently maturing are orange... they're all purple:

The Queen Of Night tulips are starting to colour up

Wow! Looks like these Queens are going to be suitably regal. The purple edges look very much like the dupion silk of my wedding dress.

New Alliums

Last of the new bulbs are the Alliums. I've had them before but they don't seem to stick around in the beds, so this time they're all in pots so I can keep a good eye on them.

The first Allium flower head makes an appearance

The leaves are suitably & noticeably oniony, which I really like. Hopefully when the flowers explode, this tall slender pot won't get toppled.

Onions

I planted them! I found a little time a couple of weeks ago to get them in the ground:

They're alive! The shallots are sprouting! Yay!!!

I've got 2 of these module trays, plus I planted 10 out in the central Twisty Hazel bed. Most of them have started to sprout, one so vigorously it was pushing itself out of the ground... I maybe shouldn't firm down the soil in the seed tray so enthusiastically...

Salads

Hubby's done a great job of keeping an eye on the Greenhouse Gutterbeds:

Lower pipe: over-Wintered coriander & parsley.
Upper pipe: this Spring's mixed salad.

The parsley & coriander in the lowest row have struggled through the Winter - not really vigorous enough to harvest, but hanging on in there. I guess if we plant them out into the main greenhouse bed they might make for a good early crop.

I'm really good at buying seeds I never plant, so this time Hubby's stepped in & put some Spring salads in the middle gutter. A mixed leaf selection closest to us, some little gem lettuce in the middle & some flat leaf parsley at the far end. Hopefully we won't have to wait so many months to harvest these.

Weeds

& of course the early weeds are making a Spring dash too, but I did manage to get in some mid-week weeding recently. My compost bin's never hot enough to properly deal with serious weeds like dandelion & burdock, so I usually put them into my Council garden waste bin. But this time I thought I'd give Alys Fowler's soggy rotten bucket suggestion a go.

Bad-asses in the bucket

But Hubby came in this afternoon & cheerily announced:

"Whatever's in the bucket is sprouting nicely..."

The leggy buttercupy things are loving it in there. I've given them another mushing but if by next week the bucket looks more like a pond, into the Garden waste they go.

Hopefully, at some point soon, I'll get out there & sow some more seeds, & fill the gaps the weeds have left.

Can I keep on top of the weeds this year? Only time will tell.
Let battle commence!

Treasure! Free onion sets!

It's been a gloriously sunny week. & despite last night's rain sounding decidedly lumpy, most folk round here are more than ready to declare Spring officially sprung. The daffs are blooming - that's good enough for me.

& if the prospect of Spring wasn't exciting enough, I scored some free onion sets from a friend at work. Result!

Don't they look jewel-like?

They're a mix of white, gold, long red & round red. No idea what specific varieties - the colour/shape descriptions are good enough for me.

I'm very excited about having a go with these. I blagged some free sets last year too but blew that opportunity by never quite getting around to planting them out. I shall endeavour not to waste this gift in the same frivolous manner.

& reading that paragraph back, I see that I need to simmer down - some alarm bells are clanging...

Shoulda woulda coulda

In the past I've given myself a real hard time for things I feel I should do. I had a really rough time a few years ago, so got some counselling. One of the best bits of advice my counsellor gave me was:

"Beware 'should' statements."

You know, those niggles of I should do this, I ought to do that. Those guilty little thoughts that have us skulking off to do something begrudgingly... but for folk like me they can open the door to the downward slide, & frankly who needs that? I'd much rather do stuff with spring in my step & a song in my heart; do things cos I want to do them, not just cos I should.

My counsellor suggested examining the shoulds when they popped into mind because, she said, they frequently come from things folk have said in the past. Not always nice things. Rarely for the recipient's benefit. Often for the other person's own ends. Not all of those shoulds were meant maliciously, far from it, but they've become poisonous over the years. So shed that baggage - Spring is the perfect time.

So, there are no promises that I will plant these onions. & no getting depressed if this lot rot in the bag just like last year. I may plant these onions, I may not. & if I don't, it's probably cos I was off doing something that was more important to my mental health at the time, like yomping up hills with hubby, or getting in some quality, guilt free, relaxing, sofa-time....
mmm... sofa....

Loving the jolly dwarf narcissus

First hack n slash of the year

Last time I said the next few post would be about the Japan trip. This isn't one of them. I'm having a spot of bother coralling that content so instead I'll tell you what we've been up to today.

When it comes to weeding, hubby tends to favour a scorched earth policy. It ain't subtle, but by god it gets the job done. It's efficient at bringing a weed-donimated border to order, but it does also tend to involve colloteral damage: the blitzing of innocents.

Potato plot

Yesterday, hubby floated the idea of spending some of Sunday planting out the potatoes that are currently sprouting on the kitchen window sill. Hmm... this means clearing some space for them.

The best spot I think is the big bed at the bottom right of the garden, but there are some items of value already in there.

Won't somebody save the children?!

So, who needs protecting from the marauding ground clearance squad?

• Cyclmen: A few years ago, this preminiscient specimen thankfully had the foresight to emigrate from a bed that no longer exists (lost to the pizza oven project). & very happy it is in its new home too.
• Primrose: Also evacuees from the defunct pizza bed, these sorry survivors may not last much longer. Sadly these poor buggers seem to get smaller, not bigger.
• Ferns: Most of them have survived last year's reshuffle in the corner of this bed, I think... most of them...
• Anemone: Planted when the ferns were shuffled, but it has had a terrible winter - we came back from our holidays to find it fair flattened by a slab of sandstone from the boundary wall. Oops :/ I hope it recovers cos its late Autumn white blooms were just lovely.
• Snowdrops: We appear to be massively down on snowdrops this year. Dunno what that's all about - we usually can't move for them. Maybe they've paid the price for last year's restructuring.
• Daffs & tulips: Bought in a giddy moment at the garden centre & planted along to boundary wall for no good reason. But at least I know where they are...
• Clematis: In another giddy moment last year, this time at Asda, I bought 4 climbers for a tenner. Just too good a bargain to miss, only I wasn't really sure where to put them. So I've procrastinated - they're in pots in various locations "to see how they work". Fair play to the one by the yard door as it's showing green shoots already. On the upside, by having it still in its pot, the one by the boundary wall is real easy to shift out of the way of today's groundworks.
• Horseradish: Very little of it above the ground at the mo, but I did mark it out during last year's labelling frenzy. Man, I'm loving those labels right now - they're telling me it's the dwarf narcissus bulbs that are poking their heads through; & this one's telling me not to flatten the horseradish.
  
  & finally, & most importantly
• Nameless plant from a friend: Bunged into this bed for "safe keeping" during the restructuring & then lost under the rampaging burdock that lept the wall. This is the most precious to me cos its not one I've bought. Donated plants seem that bit more special. They're not my plants; they're their plant in our garden. & I always refer to them that way: Richard's raspberries or Anna's purple ground cover plant.
  
  Problem is, I'm not exactly sure what this plant looks like, which is going to make saving it a little trickier. Pants.

Division of labour

So, as I said up top, when it comes to ground clearance, hubby is very enthusiastic. And I am glad for that: it was hearing him battering through the swollen garage door & out into the garden this lunchtime that spurred me off the sofa & into action, to channel his energy.

We established our goals:

1. Don't flatten the valuables.
2. Evict the weeds.
3. Create a potato patch alongside the path.
4. Find the lost plant if poss.

It's good to have a plan.

The bed's a quarter circle easily big enough for us to work in without tripping over each other.

Hubby was on potato plot duty: clearing the strip closest to the path but being careful of the cyclamen, the clematis & the bulbs. He knows some of our regular plants, so he can spot an aquilegia & they can all come out of this bed today cos we've got loads elsewhere.

For myself, I'm hunting the missing plant whilst also clearing the marauding burdock & ivy from the lea of the boundary wall. The burdock didn't go down without a fight:

Burdock burrs: nature's Velcro

Don't I know you?

There were loads of green leaves underneath last year's dead but still bolshy burdock stem, so I'd assumed they were either new leaves of this year's burdock, or new baby burdocks. But as I put the big fork in & lifted the 1st clump, I spotted flowers amongst the foliage. Hang on... this isn't burdock then... Looking over the rest of the leaves I found more little flowers. Ace! I've found the missing plant! It was right in front of me all the time... I'm an idiot.

It's been busy while I've been ignoring it & had fended well amongst our usual bullies. So I lifted a big chunk of it, dumped it into a bucket of water so it didn't dry out while I dug over the rest of the bed... I say I dug over the rest of the bed, hubby volunteered to do it. As I said, he does like a bit of slash & burn, & Sunday is usually an exercise day for him... I'm sounding pathetic so I'll shut up & get busy with the coffee machine...

All done

Bed turned, weeds expunged, potatoes planted, friend's plant re-homed, garden waste wheelie bin filled & 2 bags over. Now to do the washing up.

Gardening has helped me get into the zen of the clean up. Every job creates mess & you could view the tidying as a bit of a chore (OK, to be honest, when tackling the hedge from hell, it is). But I've found I really like cleaning the mud off the tools & putting them away on the rack. Does that make me sound like James May arranging his spanners? Don't care, cos I like an ordered socket set too so nur!

However I always forget to clean my boots. They may be on my my feet but they're just not on my radar. I use these very same boots when I ride my bike, & that usually means I realise they're still caked in half the garden just as I'm pulling them on before heading out to work.

But today was different cos hubby was gardening too, & his boots were the 1st, nay the only thing he cleaned. He hates cleaning up after a job, but he does look after his boots, & so following his good lead my boots actually got a timely scrub today too. I might even polish them once they're dry. Maybe.

Tomorrow morning I'll not only have clean boots, but I'll open the curtains & see a corner of order amongst the chaos. A good start to the coming gardening year.

Dig for Victory!

Watched The Wartime Farm last night & they mentioned the Dig For Victory leaflet. I knew about the poster, but not the pamphlet. Issued by the Ministry Of Agriculture, it provided a year round planting guide for British households during World War II.

Cool!

So could I get my hands on a copy? You bet your dibbler I could, thanks to the lovely folks at Quest For The Good Life. Plus they've taken the time to transcribe the info into calendar form - yay!

Int the Internet maaaaarvelous?! :D