Week 6 in the gardens

It's been a beautiful sunny week leading up to the longest day so the gardens are all preparing for productivity! The CC household are contemplating stopping the veg box order for the summer with the prospect of spicy salad leaves, chard and spinach, sugar snap peas and potatoes all begin being harvested in the next week.

The Coombe cottage garden 'allotment' triangle has switched from blues and purples and pinks to a lovely dapled pattern of green and tiny white flowered towers of peas, feverfew and foliage.

Best plants of the week have been 

1. The mixed sweet peas ( sown 18 January inside - Frangatissima, Turquoise lagoon and Purple Pimpernel as well as a few unannmed saved sed from 2014) We started picking this week, and the scent is fantastic. We are planning to give a bunch away every other day.

2. The night stocks  ( sewn 1 March and planted out 26 April)  are beginning to bloom - we'd thought they would be white but have come through beautifully pink, white and purple. We can't bear to pick them yet!

3. The bright star-white flowers of love in-the-mist - the contrast between the green frondy foliage and the white is even better than the traditional blue.

4. The cutting patch is coming along nicely with the alliums finally beginning to burst at the front and the sunflowers at the back starting the spurt to the sky phase of their lives. The technique of planting in a trench which you then earth up to give more support seems to be working alongside the new support canes and wires. 

Casualties have been few this week - black flies are continuing to really plague the beans, and are now even spreading through the feverfew and bolted spinach. We are continuing to knock them off with a hose. We really need to plant earlier in the year. 

And are those alliums going to burst? They've been at the point of flowering for nearly 6 weeks! 

The orchard allottment

S returned from her French meanderings to a mega-weeding week and now the cutting patch is coming along well. There look to be lots of lovely self sewn flowers from last year coming through. The summer palace was celebrated by book group with a balmy summer evening without any insects swarming! 

Best plants are those amazing carrots again- we swear they've put on 6 inches in a week, 

the bright orange of the calendula, and the fantastically fruitful loganberries and blueberries.

Difficulties are with the gypsophilia-n-bean-eating rabbits. However s and r are finding the organic repellant they applied before going (liquid fence) may be working after all our doubts. 

Fact of the week: For centuries, carrots have been connected with health benefits. In the Middle Ages, carrots were believed to cure anything from sexually transmitted diseases to snakebites. Carrots became associated with vision, particularly night vision, during World War II. The British Royal Air Force published a story that said skilled fighter pilot John "Cats' Eyes" Cunningham could thank a steady diet of carrots for his night vision flying prowess. In response to the story, many British people began to grow and eat more carrots. They wanted to improve their vision so that they could see better during the compulsory blackouts that were common during World War II. Although Cats' Eyes' carrot eating made for a great story, it was, in fact, propaganda put out to conceal the fact that the Royal Air Force's was actually using radar to locate Luftwaffe bombers during the night.

Week 4 in the Garden

News from The Orchard 

It's been a hard and cold week. S and R are going away for 10 days and are hoping for a turn around in the weather and the growth whilst they are away hunting down vintage costumes in France...

Rabbit attack on all the beans. This has never happened before and it's difficult to think of humane or reasonable strategies to make them go away.  R and S are trying 'liquid fence ' which is organic and safe for people pets and plants but is meant to repel by its scent. We suspect it doesn't work...

Weeds are sadly overtaking the flowers. The worst one looks like a low slung thistle. S suspects the weeds are worse this year because of rotavating so it's going to be black plastic or back to digging over next winter. 

The Sweet Williams are ready for picking - still beautiful big pink and red heads.

Aphids are still plaguing the apple tree and being harvested by ants - soapy water seems to be relatively unsuccesful but the apples themselves look ok and it's just deforming the leaves. 

All the sweet peas have been munched in the orchard by slugs but they are ok at home as the plants are stronger and the organic pellets seem to help. 

And news from the Combe cottages flower gardens...

Despite the cold week we've had some successes and the garden looks pretty good.

Highlights are: 

The amazing dahlias are now sticking up their little leaves 

(and only a few have been munged so far)

Slug patrolling  is doing well - 50 found and squashed last night. (For this technique you need one very bright torch, a pair of gloves, heavy shoes/wellies and a strong stomach! You need to go out between 11 and midnight, use the torch to spot them, pick them up and squash! Disrupting the soil around where the slug has been I think also makes sure no one uses the trail again ....) 

The front of the house is a treat!

Sweet peas are looking possibly the best ever. We sewed them in February in loo rolls - a mixture of saved seeds, 

Lovely white and black dot flowers on the broad beans

The golden Rose on the front of the house has been in full flower all week.

And lovely pinks in pots

The failures and sadnesses this week

Burning the fireblight tree - although 2 small boys did have beans and sausages on the campfire building up to it. Other apple tree beginning to fruit and looks very healthy.... Let's hope the blight has not spread. 

So much black fly on the broad beans ... I'm trying just spraying them off with the hose after pinching out the tops. 

Interesting fact of the week

The term "fire blight" describes the appearance of the disease, which can make affected areas appear blackened, shrunken and cracked, as though scorched by fire.

The flower project week 3

The Garden:

What a wonderful week. The garden has just exploded with spires of aquilegia,

bright two-toned colours of valerian in the walls around the little pond at the front of the house,

the allium heads sprouting colour, 

and the yellow-white foxgloves are beginning to flower today.

The Cutting Patch

Highlights of the week:
1. Planting out the 19 dahlias -most are in the cutting patch, with an overflow in the allottment  triangle and side bed and a few in some great pots. The cutting patch is now absolutely full to the brim with possibilities...

2. The beautiful buttercups in the field. Somehow the sheep have grazed the pasture in an odd way - we have a wonderful sweep of yellow in the third of the field nearest the house and the remainder is a waft of grass heads.

3. The conservatory's heat is bringing on the peppers and squashy-marrow things, which are waiting to be planted in holes in the forget-me-nots.

The Allotment

Casualties - no really major ones on things planted this week. The sunflowers and gladioli are slightly munged by slugs and my saved runner seed has had really poor germination. Otherwise the night patrol to remove snails and slugs and the constant picking off of aphids from the peppers and broad beans is keeping everything in an equilibrium. Coffee grounds don't seem to work at all on slugs.

Disaster - M diagnosed systemic fireblight (Erwinia amylovora) in Joes apple tree. We were very shocked as the 'treatment' was to remove it and burn it immediately as it is likely to infect our Bramley. Let's hope we got it in time.

S's orchard highlights:

Growth has been generally a little slow with little rain this week, and germination has also been poor. Larkspur has been particularly patchy but the gypsophilia  looks good and is a wonderful addition to bouquets with its frothy whiteness and filling out with fluff. 

The most exciting event of the week - the giant bee swarm! The noise was obvious first - a low pitched continuous and dense hum and then a menacing black cloud. S and her friend ran for it! P

Highlights: 

1. The iris display has  continued but the last bunch was cut today. The sweet Williams have taken their place  in the flowering line and are about to burst into pink and white and red. It's their second year and although they are not meant to be quite as good second time around these ones look promising. 

2. The carrots in the bin are coming on great - we're not sure of the variety but they are sed given by P next door who has open sown them in defiance of the badgers. It will be an interesting race to see who  gets the carrots first in each plot.

3. During the extensions on Church road S and R transferred a wheelbarrow full of daylillies (Hemerocallis) and Solomon's seal (Polygonatum)  in a bed on the side of the allottment - all looks very promising 

4. There is masses of white loganberry blossom with lots of the bees - yummy there will be a great crop if we can protect them from the birds. 

Casualties :

This is the first year of the precious Willam pear and it had 100 tiny fingers of pears formed BUT all had tiny little holes in leading to and empty nest of blackness. Some of the pears had the nests full of tiny little white maggots - galls of the pear midge (Contarinia pyrivora) . We've taken all of the little pears off and disposed of them wel away form the tree to halt the cycle. 

Aphids (aphodadidae) have attacked one of the young apple trees so it is covered in ants milking the aphid infestation - soapy water isn't really doing the trick. S and R plan to reduce the infestation next year by growing  Morning Glory and alliunms/onions near by, neem oil sprays or thyme/rosemary/peppermint/clove oils 

Interesting story of the week:

Solomon's Seal is named for King Solomon. The Hebrew God gave him great wisdom, and he had a special seal to help him in magic without demons coming to him. Legend has it that he placed this seal on this plant when he recognised its great value. Apparently you can see the seal on the rootstock in the circular scars left by the stem after it dies back!

The Garden Project Week 2

2 CC

Well it's been a week of drama - a brief frost, hail storms, slugs and snails, bright bright sun and torrential rain! However the cutting patch at Coombe Cottages is almost completely planted, and now only awaits the bounteousness of dahlias coming from Parker's Bulbs to complete the plan. (They came today! Slight mistake where E managed to order 20 tubers... but we'll find space!)

We also have cosmos waiting to fill in any bare patches, and some self seeded sunflowers to transplant for gaps. It all looks highly expectant!

Casualties at CC - so far pretty minimal all things considered - a lot of slug and snail munching of sunflowers (particularly the 'Teddy Bears'), 2 wind snapped Russian Giants before we gave them a little more support, and in the veg patch the blue lake climbing French are just toooo cold...

Fab plants of the week at 2CC - the absolutely glorious nodding spires of aquilegia and the blue clouds of forget-me-nots filling every corner of the garden, the Mulberry starting to unfurl her leaves and the huge stalks of rhubarb we've been eating for breakfast.

And at The Orchard Garden:

S's allotment is already well established, having been a cutting garden last year and inspiring 2CC's Sun Bed. It has a wonderful lines of permanent flowers. The anenomes, tulips and narcissi are finished but now are making way for the most beautiful irises! You pick them all tight budded and spiky green, and they burst into vibrant purple and yellow. Plenty more to come thanks to Poundland!

Further down the allotment R is busy with the serious business of growing veg. And the even more serious issue of keeping The Badgers At Bay! Last year, we saw the strawberry fortress and this year S sowed the Carrot Castles (in bins). All are growing happily safe from The Badgers.

S's plot has flowers that are biannual and here come her wonderful Sweet Williams looking healthy in their second year.

Interesting Fact:

Aqualigia Vulgaris, is also called columbine and granny's bonnets. The scientific name comes from eagle, because the spurs on the back of the flower look like eagle's talons. Columbine is because the petals represent five doves, nestled together. It is said to be the symbol of Aphrodite and the Nordic God of the heavens.