Cross Pollination

This may not be of interest to sensible people who spend more time in their gardens than watching TV. But I thought I'd share anyway. A show I've been working on for the last year and a half (and which nearly killed me) is on Channel 4 Monday 2nd at 8pm. It's about some present-day engineers who try to recreate the Dambusters raid of WW2 for real on a huge lake in Canada. Even if I do say so myself it's really quite good. It's called Dambusters: Building the Bouncing Bomb.

Here's the two teasers (geolocked, so can only be viewed in the UK I'm afraid):



And this one has some rude language in, so best viewed with headphones if you're at work:

The wisdom of ladybirds

Two years ago we tried to grow some climbing French Beans. I say tried, because just as they were starting to flower they became so coated in blackfly that they looked like something out of a horror movie. It was like the plant had a living, crawling rippling skin. This abundance of aphids attracted vast quantities of ladybirds (whose young eat aphids by the sackload), but despite this, the plants eventually just gave up. I think we got one solitary bean from them. But the following year I noticed that not only did we have less blackfly, but loads more ladybirds - even in early spring. Thanks to the abundance of aphids, they'd overwintered in our garden. Since then we've always had lots of ladybirds, and far fewer aphids.

However, this spring despite the lovely ladies in red in the photo above, we have a big patch of Euphorbia entirely coated in aphids. And they're not happy - the plants that is, I'm sure the aphids are very content. I'd love to say I maintain a zen-like calm in the face of these pests, trusting that the ladybirds will eventually notice such a tempting free lunch. But I'm not. Tomorrow morning I am going to go out and try to blast the sap-sucking scum off my plants with a powerful hose.

(if you've time, read the wikipedia article on aphids. I knew that ants 'farmed' them - but I didn't know they hid aphid eggs in their nests over winter, carefully putting them back on an appropriate plant in the spring - how cunning is that?)

A very unhappy Euphorbia... come on ladybirds - where are you!

Kitten Sandwich

I have to share this photo, even though it's way off topic. I listen to Adam and Joe's radio show on BBC6 music, and they invite listeners to send in photos every week. You can see the results here. This weeks theme was bizarre sandwich.

I say this because we got a bit carried away and I feel I need to put this photo in context. Our cat is looking alarmed because the bread is frozen and his ears are getting cold.

I laugh every time I see this photo. I think that makes me a bad person.

The big spring clean

A sunny weekend here, and so the co-gardener and I rolled up our sleeves and finally tackled our big garden spring clean. After spending all day out there in the sun I think I'm actually a bit red, and we're both absolutely knackered. But the garden does look much better for it.

So as part of a general tidy, I decided to tackle our pots. They've been looking manky for a while now with several casualties of winter and neglect. I have a zero tolerance attitude to pot plants. I just can't really be bothered to water them in the summer so we only grow plants that are very drought tolerant (ie can take a bit of neglect) or things we really want that we're potting on. 

Before - a sorry state...

An hour or so later, and they're looking much better! I recycled most of the soil from the pots, refreshed it with a bit of well-rotted horse manure and a few chicken manure pellets, and reused it. Hopefully they'll be much happier. There are some Sedums I'm growing on, a Phormium, some indestructable succulents, some Shasta Daisies I'm growing on, and some very unhappy thyme plants that I'm hoping will survive the slug onslaught.

Meanwhile the co-gardener was working very hard on the shed. What a difference a day makes! We're not just painting it so it looks neat - we can't afford a new shed, and the paint should protect it for a good few years to come.

Before...

And after

On the right in the photo above you can see some Cavolo Nero (black cabbage) that we've overwintered. It's now flowering all over the place, and the bees and bumble bees love it. I'm also slightly obsessed with it. I think I now have at least 30 photos of the flowers. I'll spare you the whole batch (including the arty ones I took using the flash - which just looked crap). But here's one for the road.

Sorry - couldn't resist adding one more... there's a bee and everything.

March month by month

I have just posted my new month by month pictures. There is growth. Not much, but a bit.

Follow the link above, or if you like, just follow this link.

Of parrots and pigeons

Walking home a couple of days ago, me and the co-gardener stopped to stare up at a particularly stunning cherry tree in full blossom. As we looked up, we realised that there was more up in the branches than just blossom. There was a funny-looking bird. And it looked like it was eating the flowers. In fact there were several birds, all with forked tails, hooked beaks, and bright green feathers. They were parrots. Yes, I'm not making this up, there are parrots living in London. I've seen them before in giant flocks, but this is the first time I've seen them really close up. I wish I had a longer zoom, as the photos I took doesn't really do them justice.

Turns out London has been home to ring-necked parakeets since the 19th century - although their numbers have shot up since the 1990s. No one knows where they came from, and they are now so successful that they can legally be shot as pests (if you have a proper license). While some might get upset by the thought of these foreigners invading our shores, I'm a big fan. They brighten up the city, and they're much prettier than the bloody pigeons.

Spot the parrot...

Spudlings

We buried our baby spuds in record time on Saturday as we spent the afternoon getting mildly political. We're growing an early variety this year, so hopefully before too long we'll be eating delicious hot buttered new potatoes. I love digging them up - I always feel like I've struck gold.

The variety we're growing is Anoe (a variety a bit like a Ratte hopefully - ie french and fancy), and having sat them in a light room (away from direct sunlight) for a few weeks chitting, they have nice solid little greeny purple sprouts. 

Spuds - chitted

We buried them with lots of well-rotted manure a few inches down at the bottom of a small trench and as the leaves emerge we'll heap soil over them until we've got the more traditional potato mounds. This means that if there are any late frosts we can hopefully cover any leaves with soil to protect them.

The spuds are in the trenches - not the mounds

Gardeners against cuts

I don't really want to get into politics in this blog. Unless it has something to do with gardening of course. But I did happen to be on a certain demonstration march on Saturday in central London (and for the record, it wasn't me throwing tables through the windows of the Ritz).

While strolling slowly through Picadilly, this incredible green wall caught my eye. I've not seen it before as it's in a swanky part of London I don't visit very much. The photos don't really do it justice; at 8 stories high, it's absolutely massive. Looking directly up at it is like having the opposite of vertigo - you feel as if you're looking out across a flat green field, not directly up. Very disconcerting.

What's more, the plants (few of which I recognised - apart from a couple of Euphorbias and a rogue Fatsia Japonica) all seem to be thriving - god knows how they water it. I've just looked it up, and it was designed by botanist turned green wall proponent Patrick Blanc. 

The man has style.

 

Signs of spring and plot protection

Trees are looking amazing with the warm weather - this is a local Blackthorn (I think)

A belated post about last weekend (rather than a prescient one about the weekend to come - obviously). It was unexpectedly warm in the garden on Saturday, which meant I managed to spend the entire day out there - tuckering myself out in the process. It was one of those deceptive early spring days that tempt you into planting things that then get caught by the frost. I managed to resist - mostly. 

I did however plant:

A single row of peas - I'll plant another row in two weeks time, and another two weeks after that to try and extend our picking season - a row of swiss chard, and a row of perpetual spinach. The last two literally keep us in greens all year round. We've got some that's over wintered, but it will probably bolt come the warm weather, so it's useful to plant some more now. I also couldn't stop myself from planting a row of swede and a row of beetroot. I should know better, as it's way too early really, but it's old seed, and who knows - it might work. We tried swede last year, but got no crop at all as we put them in too late, so I'm determined not to do the same again.

All this planting means that I have to take elaborate precautions to protect the bare soil and seedlings from the local wildlife. No it's not the urban rabbits - it is in fact the local Felis Catus population (two of whom are ours - and the wost culprits I might add) who are irresistibly drawn to crap all over any newly dug soil. I wouldn't mind (long term I'm sure it's good for the soil), but after relieving themselves, they scrape the surrounding earth all over the place, digging up and killing any seedlings nearby. Well not this time. This plot is bullet proof. I even used the gardeners version of barbed wire - thorny rose trimmings. Only a crazy cat would choose to crawl under those babies to take a dump.

A Monday morning pick-me-up

Something to cheer up what promises to be a grey and chilly Monday morning:

"In the late 1940's Edward James, an English traveller on his way to Mexico City stopped off for a rest in a forest just outside a monastry at Xilitla. Edward was apparently looking up at the sky, when a cloud of butterflies descended, blocking out the light of the sun. This inspired him to build a public garden in the middle of the forest, and the resulting gardens, Las Pozas, are a delicate fantasy of towering colonnades, impossibly elaborate fountains, doors that appear to be entrances but are actually exits, and staircases that lead to the sky."

From 'The Gardener's Companion' - edited by Vicky Bamforth.

Some pictures here: http://www.eyeconart.net/mexico/pozas.htm

Definitely worth a visit - although how and when I've no idea.