May Day Bank Holiday

What lovely weather we’ve had for the Bank Holiday weekend! Except for Sunday afternoon when it bucketed down as we were eating al fresco at the local pub. Far too nice to waste time gardening, but we have managed to fit in the odd bit. Jon split up the Livingstone daisies. Can’t remember exactly how many there were but the number was in triple figures so it’s going to be a challenge to find room to plant all of them, and the sunflowers, and the nasturtiums. However, some of the nasturtiums on the top shelf of the mini greenhouse were ‘boiled alive’ so that freed up a couple of pots for more sunflowers.

I wanted to take some pictures before all the spring flowers died away, so first I had to do a spot of weeding in the alpine patch, or rather Jon told me it was time I learnt how to weed. (Hint, hint!) One of our most prevalent weeds is speedwell, which produces lovely, tiny purple flowers that are often prettier than the flowers we’re trying to cultivate, but it is invasive so unfortunately has to be removed from beds. I did take photos after I’d finished but the flowers on the alpines are so small you can’t see them. (Should have left a few of those pretty purple flowers in … )

So, to review the current state of the garden:

Underplanting the rose bed with tulips worked well. We’ll just have to remember to plant some earlier flowering bulbs as well for next year.

The tulips are now on their last legs, but the azaleas are getting ready to add a splash of colour to the garden in their place.  

 

 

 

Little shoots are starting to emerge in the veg patch now that the soil is warming up, but you may need a magnifying glass!

Finally, our mushroom box has really got going now that we’ve put it in the garage where it’s cold and dark but free from damp. I had a beautiful, large, extremely white White Cap in a stir fry and delicious it was too!

 

Harry Potter …

Should be my new nickname. Our mini greenhouse now houses 100 – yes, one zero zero – assorted sunflower, nasturtium, mangetout and pea seedlings, each in their own pot. I only gave up when I ran out of pots of a suitable size that Megan hadn’t savaged; there are still twenty-seven sunflowers and a whole tray of Livingstone daisies waiting in the conservatory.  So I’m not intending to do any gardening this Bank Holiday weekend apart from taking arty photos of the current plants in bloom, weather permitting. No doubt, however, Jon will find something to do (hopefully a few more drills of lettuce, spring onions etc.) as he tries to ignore his cravings for a cigarette. Since he gave up smoking it’s like living with someone with St Vitus’ Dance, so his excess energy has to be channelled into something useful.

Going Potty

I spent yesterday afternoon potting on sunflower seedlings before I ran out of window ledge space. The rest of them, the nasturtiums, and the other things we planted that I don’t recognise – there is probably a label somewhere - will have to wait until we put up our temporary greenhouse. After that I finished the last quadrant of the veg patch and sowed the onions (Alisa Craig) and shallots (Moon in Capricorn, an earth sign, so good time to plant root vegetables). However, all we have to show for the effort that Jon put in three weeks ago are tiny specs of green in the lettuce drills (which are still under the propagators); there is zilch activity elsewhere. Now I’m not sure whether to blame the mediocre weather or the Moon! We’re due to sow our secondary drills this weekend so we’ll have to see if they fare better.

 

Today, in between bouts of sunny blue skies and heavy showers, I put up the temporary greenhouse and moved the potted up sunflowers from the conservatory ledge. Unfortunately, this now removes my excuse for not potting up the remaining sunflowers and / or nasturtiums …

Spring Fever

Okay. Definitive proof that spring is in the air; constant sneezing and blocked sinuses. I do have a list of preventative measures that my aunt sent me so I will steadily work my way through them.

Meanwhile, Jon spent Friday morning spreading four tons of gravel. Yes, it does look better.

Oh, yes. We produced two mushrooms!! And very nice they tasted too.

Oh, “Water” To Do cntd.

So they dug and dug ever deeper, right across the road. Then at some point they realised that they were looking in completely the wrong place; the water pipe was in fact located in the middle of the grass verge adjoining our wall. You can just see the grid, on the far left of the photo.

They didn’t need to spend a day and a half digging up the road, they probably didn’t really need traffic lights to hold up the main road connecting north and south Wales for two days. Maybe we should have given the contractors a wire coat hanger when they first turned up on Wednesday to dowse for water – probably would have been a lot quicker and saved a ton of money. To be fair to the boys on site, I don’t think it was their fault. They were just given lousy instructions.

Really should have planted the shallots and onions over the weekend but we’ve missed the lunar boat so they will have to wait. We did, however, look at new garden furniture. Rather than doing as we have before and buying a traditional A-frame bench that last two years maximum, we’re considering splashing out on a rather smart, teak (FSC approved, of course) table and chairs set that can be folded up and stuck in the shed when not required. Decisions, decisions!

Oh, “Water” To Do

To recap. Our water supply is sourced by a mountain stream over the other side of the road. When the road was improved a few years ago, they removed one of our filters. Consequently our water supply has steadily deteriorated over the years. The Welsh Assembly agreed to compensate for this by paying for us to be connected to mains water. Over a month ago we had our drive dug up to lay a pipe in preparation. Since then we’ve had a whacking big hole under the kitchen sink window. The water board were supposed to connect us within fourteen days of the builders having finished their work. When we still hadn’t heard a thing three weeks later, we contacted them to be told that they would have to erect temporary traffic lights to complete the work and there was an embargo on our section of the road. First we’d heard about that! The manager was supposed to call back so I waited in all day, not even daring to go as far as the garage, to no avail. Jon contacted them again the following day. This time we were told that the embargo didn’t come into force until the summer, but they needed to give the council five days notice so the work would be done a week on Wednesday. Jon booked holiday as there was a danger that our internal plumbing would struggle to cope with the water pressure from the mains, and everything was arranged.

Wednesday morning arrived and we received a call from the contractors at 8 am. Unfortunately, the phone connection was lost (only 02 works out here) so whilst Jon tried to contact them again I busied myself filling every kettle, pot, pan etc. with water in anticipation of the water being cut off. When he did get in touch with them they said that they couldn’t do the work as they hadn’t realized we were located on a bend on a 60 mile an hour road - despite sending out a supervisor to ‘recce’ the place earlier in the week – so had to go back for the correct road signs. As the council needed five days notice, they would be back early next week. Jon told them that he had had to book time off work, to which they replied, “At least you’ve picked a nice day!” You can imagine his response. They also said that it wasn’t up to them to connect the dangling pipe under the kitchen window into the house. We pointed out that the inspector had been aware of this; their reply was “Well, he’s Australian!” Back at the office, the manager didn’t get in until after 9.30 so Jon disappeared off to climb a mountain in disgust. The next phone call was to tell us that they would be there the following day, “Well that’s good news, but the contractors said it would be next week because they have to inform the council.” “Oh no,” she responded, “We always give ourselves a window of three days.” Now I know why. Meanwhile, I vented my spleen removing self-seeded saplings and brambles. (See, I did some gardening!)

The following morning we were up bright and early. The pipe was attached to the house (we’ll gloss over that) whilst the contractors got ready for digging up the road, so Jon filled in the hole and arranged for a lorry load of more slate chippings to cover the path and drive. It was all going so well, Jon even mowed the lawn, when there was a knock on the door at 2.15 pm. “We’ll have to stop and come back tomorrow. We didn’t realize that the mains pipe is under the other side of the road.” By this time of course, the house was connected to the pipe that was connected to nothing, so Jon had to re-dig the hole and they reconnected us to the old water supply. Their parting shot was “Do you know that pipe is leaking?” And with that the various diggers, lorries and whatnots left.

Day three, and they are back out there digging away. They know they have to finish today - or at least they better had - so it could be a long day.

On the gardening front, the sunflowers and Livingstone daisies are making a good effort which is more than can be said for the veg. The noteworthy exceptions are the early spuds, which are doing well, and we have a solitary mushroom! (Yes, I’d totally forgotten about them but Jon remembered where he had moved them to.)

A quiet weekend at home

On Friday, the forecast for lousy weather was right so we did a spot of shopping in the morning. Mulch was the top priority, but some seed packets of nasturtiums, sunflowers and Livingstone daisies also found their way into the trolley, along with more seed pots (too cheap to pass up) and potting compost. Not surprisingly, the afternoon was spent in the conservatory as I messed around with watercolours whilst Jon potted up propagator trays of runner beans, peas, mangetout and the flower seeds we bought that morning. It was just as well we had something to occupy ourselves with as Sami had a bit of a limp, ruling out any walks, and then we had a power cut that lasted two and a half hours or so.

Saturday. The weather was slightly better than the previous day and we still need to plant up onions and shallots, but it was a not good day for planting root crops according to the lunar calendar. Sami still wasn’t up to a proper walk, so Jon paced around the garden looking for odd jobs to do. New mulch was laid, herbs planted out (not strictly the right time but he was bored so I didn’t stop him), patches of daffodil bulbs that had failed to produce for several years were uprooted, and war was waged against the dandelions – for some reason, his pet hate. Oh, he also washed the windows but that doesn’t count as gardening. Meanwhile, I struggled with my watercolours.

What a difference a day makes

The weather towards the end of last week was beautiful, perfect for gardening but not according to the lunar calendar. On Thursday night I was back in Liverpool – no, I didn’t dance to Joy Division – but when I returned home Friday afternoon, we, well, Jon, got to work putting layers of chipped bark mulch onto the rose garden and spreading top soil on the vegetable patch.

Although the forecast was for snow, Saturday was another lovely day, cold in the shade but quite warm in the sun. Also, the Moon was in Pisces which meant it was a good day for planting. After I fed the roses and fruit trees, I had the onerous tasks of ‘managing’ the seed packets and keeping Megan off the patch whilst Jon just staked the string guidelines and planted some drills of leeks, spring onions, lettuce (Little Gem and Salad Bowl), early carrots and early potatoes. I also had creative responsibility for the slug traps - 1 pint plastic milk bottles with a slit cut into the side. By then it was getting rather cold once the sun dipped below the treeline so we left the fourth quadrant until it was an auspicious day for planting onions and shallots.

Sunday morning was a different story. We finally got the snow they had threatened the previous day (I’d backed Snowy Morning in the Grand National on the strength of it. Typical!) so we planned a gardening-free day and took the dogs for a walk. The snow melted quickly, however the forecast at 4 pm now predicted frost overnight so Jon had to drag himself away from the log fire to dig out the protective horticultural fleece for the potatoes. We’d installed the mini propagators over the lettuce the previous day so we thought that they should be okay. Our veg patch currently looks like this:

Bordering on Lunacy

Lunar planting! I thought it was just a matter of whether you sowed your seed when it was a full/new moon. Should have known it wasn’t that easy.

With apologies to those who are in the know if I’ve simplified things too much, in a very small nutshell, planting according to the position of the moon is an ancient agricultural system. It became a ‘forgotten art’ with the introduction of fertilisers etc. which helped to manipulate the growing environment artificially.

There are three approaches: synodic, sidereal, biodynamic.

The synodic month is the length of time the moon takes to orbit Earth and return to the same position, that is 29.5 days. Tasks are dictated by the four phases of the moon – new, waxing, full, waning. This is the simplest method, certainly the easiest to observe.

The sidereal month is the length of time the moon takes to orbit Earth relative to distant stars and takes 27.3 days. This method is driven by the ascent and descent of the moon as the sap rises when the moon is ascending (scientifically proven!) so tasks like pruning should be performed when the moon is descending.

The biodynamic method is based on the sidereal month but uses the passage of the moon through the zodiac signs (hmm, yes, but bear with me) to determine the best time to take horticultural action. The idea was developed as part of biodynamic agriculture, an organic, holistic approach that uses the interrelationships between the natural elements, or to put it more simply: it works with nature. To very briefly summarise, when the moon is in:

• a fire sign, it is good for fruiting plants but bad for leafy plants;
• an earth sign, it is good for root plants but bad for flowering plants;
• an air sign, it is good for flowering plants but bad for root plants;
• a water sign, it is good for leafy plants but bad for fruiting plants.

We already know that the position of the sun and moon has a massive effect on life on Earth, determining day length, seasons, tides etc. So, if you disassociate the star signs with the horoscopes in the press and view them as names to describe a specific planetary and stellar configuration at a given time, then maybe it starts to become more intellectually acceptable.

A Universal Lunar Calendar can be found at lunarium.co.uk/calendar.php if you want to see for yourself. You just need to enter the Month, Year and nearest City.

When I started to read up on lunar gardening, I was initially sceptical on seeing the astrological references. My gardening course focussed on understanding the science behind horticulture so I prefer a proper explanation as to why something works. This was reinforced when I couldn’t find any references to lunar gardening on the RHS site, and the only reference on the BBC site was Cleve West’s blog last year, which started “Call me an old hippy …”. However, now, that I’ve looked at it myself, there appears to be a lot of observational evidence to support it. After all, that’s how horticulture started, experience was passed down through the generations before our knowledge of the natural world caught up and we understood the science behind it. I’m going to give it a try anyway, weather permitting of course!

References

The Gardeners Calendar the-gardeners-calendar.co.uk/Moon_planting.asp

Wickipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodynamic_agriculture

Lunar Organic bio-lunaire.com/us/page2.php

Gardening by the Moon gardeningbythemoon.com/signs.html

Bordering on Magic

The weather forecast was right! Saturday was awful but Sunday was dry, even sunny! So, after our morning dog walk and lunch, it was out with the trowels etc. as we tackled the top lawn border. At one a.m. British Summer Time, it looked like this;

But after relocating a couple of perennial shrubs, weeding, inadvertently removing some of the bulbs we planted last September (I bet even the most organized gardener does that sometimes), and filling the bald spots with the thirty plants we bought on Saturday, it looked like this:

We even finished in time to watch the Merseyside Derby! If you look carefully, it features one of those “guess the next in the pattern” patterns that you see in IQ tests. I probably shouldn’t admit that, but it kept me amused whilst Jon was wreaking havoc on creeping buttercup, chickweed and the odd daffodil bulb.

Our next mission is the vegetable patch. The ‘to do’ list comprises:

·        Looking up lunar planting;

·        Planning the composition of  the patch (allowing for a rotational policy);

·        Finding the propagators, slug traps and protective fleece;

·        Laying down the top soil and the markers for the drills;

and that doesn’t include actually planting anything. Suppose I’d better make a start …