Garden Diary: June

It's getting worse, isn't it? My late posts I mean. Been a busy few weeks, what with work and not-work, so the garden and garden blogging have both been a bit neglected.

The patio area is starting to become vertical gardening, with hanging baskets and behind them a trough with strawberries in. The potatoes are getting huge. I've had some Swift new potatoes, but I think I'll have to dispense with the Roosters as they are starting to fall over. The King Edwards went through a bad patch but are now looking better, and the Pink Fir Apples are looking good.

Garlic ready to harvest and rather too many tomato plants, now pushing at the top of the mini-greenhouse again. Tumbling Tom in the hanging baskets with nasturtium. The latter were lovely for a bit, then got the worst blackfly I've ever seen. Maybe they were too stressed (the nasturtiums rather than the blackfly) as those are not very big baskets. Bigger ones next year.

Onions are filling out, but a little slowly. Carrots, not unexpectedly, didn't really like the clay soil and its accompanying slugs. You have to give these things a try. Sugarsnap peas in the middle, with an undercrop of sorrel. Slightly unconventional. In front of those are french beans with the plastic slug-protectors, which do seem to help. I've now planted kohl-rabi among these... any pretence at planning has gone by the wayside! Behind are beetroot, but like the carrots and radish, they don't seem to like the soil. Also they are probably not getting enough light. It's very easy when you've only got a little plot to get very carried away. As summer turns to autumn I'll start sowing winter salads, and this plot will become herbs and salad.

The main garden looking even more verdant.

This is the same alpine trough as here. Evidently my weeding did do more good than I expected.

Free plants

Variegated privet for mending the hedge at the front; Euonymus from a shrub we dug out; sage from Hilary's nice sage bush; rosemary from the allotment; blackcurrent sage in case it didn't survive being moved (it did) - all cuttings taken in the last year. Plus a quartet of Nicotiana which (literally) fell off the back of a lorry.

Three different types of Hebe, a really nice shrub to take cuttings from.

Pics taken just after I'd potted the plants into individual pots from the pots I'd struck them into.

Thrifty Gardening

Dwarf French Beans and Kohl Rabi in loo rolls; Achocha in mushroom tray; Gherkins in cut-off plastic milk-bottles (the tops used as greenhouses until they germinated); Courgettes in butter containers. The time taken to make holes in the bottoms is a bit of a faff - but done to a good radio programme it's not a problem. I could have also used cut-up milk bottles for labels.

Garden Diary: May

This is getting to be a bad habit! The photos were taken a week and a half ago...


I've now got 4 different types of potatoes in tubs or bags.

At the back, in the green pot: Swift, a first early with low foliage deemed ideal for container growing.

In the old compost bag, Rooster, some spud which chitted in the pantry so I decided to give them a go... I know you're not really supposed to, but though they are too big for containers, they look jolly healthy.

In the brown pot, with lettuces, King Edwards. These are giving some concern: they are very tall and thin, don't look right at all. They were seed potatoes so maybe it's just that they don't like a container at all. I've now extended the pot with a compost bag and will earth up with a mixture of lawn clippings and shredded newspaper (The Guardian - it has non-toxic ink...)

Not visible in the black tub: Pink Fir Apple. These only went in a couple of weeks ago, and are just starting to appear. I tried these years ago and was disappointed so thought I'd try again with a really big pot - but I used that for the first ones in, the Swifts.

In front of the spuds, the garlic with rocket seedlings in a terracotta pot. Going a bit droopy. The bulbs are filling out, but not budding off new bulblets - so far as I could see. Didn't want to dig them up!

In the mini-greenhouse: tomatoes, achocha, kohl rabi, french beans, three different sorts of courgette, basil, more tomatoes...

Out on the plot, the lettuces have exceeded all expectations and turned from pale droopy leaves to bright green hearts. The French beans (Brittle Wax) in the pots are now established among the lettuces. The radishes have got too big and have now been harvested, there are new ones on their way. Sugar snap peas and spinach are starting to appear in the centre. The propagator is protecting French marigolds from slugs. Coffee grains and egg shells are now doing this.

The rest of the garden is looking very lush and verdant. The transparent pots in the foreground are temporary cover for asters, snapdragons and phlox which I grew from cheap Lidl seed. I'm nomally more a marigold, Californian poppy and nigella person so this was an interesting trial.

Finally, indoors in good company with the cacti is a little troop of 'Ring of Fire' chillis. I first came across this when I was working at Ryton, and thought it must be a joke... but no, it's their official name. Thanks to Charlotte from Transition Nottingham for giving me the seeds.

Plant-hunting on poisoned soil

Once in Matlock (see below) I 'did' the charity shops and fortified myself with tea and sticky bun. Then off up and over the hills in search of fields full of industrial waste. It's ironic that the most popular National Park is covered with the remains of quarrying and mining - in this case lead. (And something other than ironic that quarrying continues to threaten areas just outside the park).

Looking back down into Matlock. An excuse to rest my knees.


An enticingly cool pathway and a typical Derbyshire stone squeeze-stile - mustn't eat too many sticky buns!

The view from a stone step stile, north towards the Derwent Valley and the Edges.


Bonsall market cross. There is a small carved face at the intersection of the arms of the cross. Bonsall is a small village strung out along the valley, and used to house mine-workers. It's got a well, but no water was running. Just as well that I'd found the Evian well in the Matlock Co-op...

The fields above Bonsall are pocked with craters like this, with lush grass in the centre, and one side with few plants, just a dusting of white.

These are the white flowers - the Spring Sandwort or Minuarta verna. This is one of my favourite plants, and it's only found where the soil is so polluted with lead that it's the only thing that will grow. It (I think I remember rightly) packages up the lead in its cells so that it doesn't harm it.

This was another charatcteristic plant - Wild pansy, Viola tricolour. This is it's rarer yellow form. Other plants were Wild Thyme, Kidney Vetch, Tormentil, and Common Milkwort (in mauve and blue) all making a gorgeous rock garden.

Plus several billion Buttercups. Glorious!

Transpeak

Nottingham to Matlock for £8.

Broadmarsh Bus Station

A52.

Derby.

Duffield.

Belper Bus Station cafe.

Mill at Belper (a World Heritage Site).

Amber Valley. We were queued at a roadworks.

Woods nearing Cromford. We'd speeded up again.

Masson Mills, Matlock Bath.

Matlock. The mighty Transpeak (actually a Derby University shuttle bus) reverses out to continue its route to Manchester.

One of the other passengers was reading 'On the Road'. Was she seeking, like me, the geniune 21st century travelling experience, or merely passing the time on a journey dulled by familiarity?

An old friend showed up at the door

The mile posts flying by

He said come on. I said what for

He said I'll show you why

I got a call from north of here

They say some girl's broke down

There's good money in it for you and me

If we can get her back to town

She's somewhere north of Baslow

Lost on A6

An old Transpeak by the side of the road

That needs a headlight fixed

Transpeak

Apologies to Neil Young!

Menage a trois

I have three bicycles. The Raleigh Touriste is an old friend of nearly 20 years, the Hawk Trakatak a secondhand rather lumpen but useful introduction to mountain bikes, and the Revolution Trailfinder the newbie. I can't ride them all at once. When I got the new one I meant to find a new home for the Trakatak, but I keep finding it useful to have a scruffy bike to ride into town (Nottingham being a den of iniquity as everyone knows...)

I've been cycling more than ever over the last month or so: it's a great way of taking myself and a modicum of gardening equipment to the places where I teach gardening. I went out for a 'proper' ride today for the first time this year, and did about 20 miles up to Blidworth Bottoms (being Nottinghamshire this is pronounced 'Bliduth'). I went on the tourer, and it's really noticeable that it converts my inputs of energy into forward motion far more effectively than the mountain bikes. Try to cycle on the sandy bridlepaths around there, though, and it's all over the place. Horses for courses I guess.