Jobs in the Garden: August Week 1

Hello!

Well, it’s almost-kind-of-if-you-look-at-it-sideways-and-squint still the first week of August.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

So generally this month:

• Take geranium (pelargonium) cuttings. Pick non-flowering stems, cut about 4-5″ and plant 4 or 5 around the edge of a 5″ flowerpot of compost. Keep the compost damp.
• Keep dead heading your flowers.
• Complete the trimming of evergreen hedges, topiary and the likes.
• You can take cutting of shrubs. Hydrangea grow easily from cutting, treat them like geranium above, but 1 cutting in a 2-3″ pot.
• 2nd early potato varieties should be ready. Lift them as you want to use them rather than digging them all and having to store them.
• Feed tomatoes, keep them trained. Outdoor plants should have the growing tip pinched out once 4 trusses have produced flower. This stops makes the plant put their effort into fruit rather than growth.
• Pick ripe apples and pears. Summer prune as you pick.

And week 1 work??

• You can plant freesias for Christmas flowering. Plant 10 corms in a 6″ pot of sandy compost.
• Spring planted Onion sets can be ripened off, by bending over the leaves just above the neck of each bulb.
• If you have a heated greenhouse (with lights) (or a warm conservatory) you can start tomatoes and cucumbers now to produce fruit over the winter period. Be prepared to keep the temperature between 18-24 Celsius.

While I’m here, I may as well do week 2 as well:

• Start cyclamen from corms.
• Sow Spring and Pickling (red) Cabbages. Sow where you want them to grow.
• Lift early beetroot. Harvest before they get too large. Ideally, they should be no bigger than a tennis ball or they lose flavour and start to get woody. Twist off the greens carefully to avoid breaking the skin, which can cause bleeding and spoil the colour and flavour of the crop on storage. Store them in a cool shed/cellar/room, ideally in  damp sand.
• Prune summer fruiting raspberries. Canes that have flowered should be cut back to ground level.

Well, there we have it. The weather is with us for a little longer, so make the most if it and enjoy your gardens!

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Just a quick hello to the sun.

It started raining last Wednesday night. It carried on for nearly 7 days without any significant let up: When it did stop it wasn’t long enough even the grass to dry out.

We had a Bank Holiday Monday morning, Tuesday afternoon, and now today, Friday, without rain. Even though it has been dry all day, still by 4pm the grass was wet to the roots. In an ideal world too wet to cut. But we don’t live in an ideal world, so I have cut grass all day.

Now I have a cunning plan. (as Baldric would say, “As cunning as a fox who has been to Cunning University and graduated with a degree in Cunning”). As I’m basically 7 days behind, so on Monday I will start this week again, a do-over of this week, if you like.  So rather than being a week behind, I will just change the schedule and move everything by 7 days.

Gardening can be like that: If you get too far behind, just ignore the stuff you missed and jump forward. You’ll still catch it up, the work will still get done, just in a different way.

Well, now I will go check on my dinner; it’s in the oven as I speak -or should that be type?

Catch you all between the rain.

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3 weeks in 1 day: Jobs for May

May has been an odd month for me.

It started with Bank Holidays and bad weather, rolled into superb, long, hot, dry days; then deteriorated back into storms and torrential rain in time for the Bank Holiday again…

Just as you think you’re caught up in gardening (working till 6 or 7 on the dry days) the Great British weather firmly re-establishes that it sets the time tables.

But we have a few things that need doing, if the weather permits;

• Keep planting out hardy perennials.
• Start moving out your Hot house plants; that’s to say tropical plants. Cover them at night, and bring them back in if there is any chance of a frost.
• Prick out and thin Winter Green seedlings.
• Sow sweet corn. Sow close together, in rows, in a warm, sheltered situation. Make sure if you live in The North, you choose a variety suitable -one with a short growing season.
• Try growing Chicory. It can be a little bitter, but it’s usable cooked and raw, so lends itself for stir fry.
• Plant tomatoes in an unheated greenhouse.

“Dust strawberries with sulphur…” and “spray pears with Bordeaux mix…” if they had any diseases last year is the standing instruction from Mr. Hellyer and 1936: Of the many chemicals now available, in many ways, in gardens, you will probably cause less damage to the environment using 70-year old advice than 21st century chemicals. Recent studies on bee colony collapse suggests fungicides make the colonies more prone to collapse.

• Clear beds for summer displays.
• Tidy daffodil leaves by tying them with elastic bands. Don’t remove them until the leaves have gone yellow.
• If you are growing Sweet peas as a cordon (straight up), you will need to pinch off side shoots.
• Sow runner beans out doors. Put in your canes or sticks, build a tepee or whatever type of frame you want to use, then plant 2 beans at the base of each pole.
• Plant out celeriac if you started any in March.
• Early, green Gooseberries may be ready to pick. These will only be cooking berries, but it gives you an early picking.
• Plant out bedding and half-hardy annuals.
• Plant up window boxes and hanging baskets.
• Sow marrows outdoors.
• Plant out French beans that have been hardened off.
• Thin out raspberry canes; cut off the canes that are growing in paths, or out of the line of the supports.

That covers us for May. There is plenty of work, we just need a bit more good weather.

 

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OK, it’s a little late for April; unless you live in the North.

It’s lots of excuses -or reasons- that I haven’t gotten to my blog recently.

Its taken me longer to get back here than I thought. Lots of work, lots of evenings filled. Lots of quotes to do and garden problems to solve… I’m still trying to sort out the footings for my new greenhouse!

Also my new website (www.GardenAnts.co.uk) to try to get up and running and looking how I want it to…

Then Bank Holidays to work around, coupled with a long weekend at Whitby for the Whitby Goth Weekend; attending as a trader with my wife and enjoying the atmosphere and the evenings. No gardening is a holiday for a gardener.

But here I am again, finally. On the bright side, the weather seems to be improving, so there is more time to garden; and here in Yorkshire, the season is 4-6 weeks behind the South. So there is still plenty of time to catch up those April jobs I’m yet to list…

So what are we up to?

• Plant out and stake Sweet Peas.
• Plant out violas and pansies.
• Start Dahlias in frames.
• Prune Spring flowering shrubs as soon as they are finished flowering. Cut out about 1/3 of the old wood, remove flowered branches to a few nodes above old wood, and leave any strong new growth that hasn’t flowered. The aim is to keep the younger, vigorous growth and to improve the shape for the coming year. Flowering will happen next year on this years growth.
• Hard-prune any evergreen shrubs that need it.
• Start Runner or French beans under glass.

So May jobs?

• Thin and stake Herbaceous perennials. Thin out young shoots, taking out the smaller, weaker shoots to give the stronger ones more room: Delphinium and Michaelmas daisies respond well to this.
• Remove rose shoots that are badly placed or over crowd others. also watch for green-fly; knock them off with a squirt of mild detergent, or squash them by running your fingers over the affected area.
• Put out slug traps: I find beer traps work wonders when used early to control the population before it get too high later in the year.
• Feed up the beds with a top dressing of fertiliser around perennials, roses, fruit bushes, and any other fast-growing plants.
• Harden off tender bedding in cold frames, being careful to close them at night.
• Make more successional sowings of salad plants, spinach, turnips and the likes.
• Add supports for culinary peas.
• Keep earthing up potatoes.
• Thin out root crop seedlings as needed. Many seedlings can be used in salads, so need not go to waste.
• Mulch around fruit trees.

Then… we have week-by-week…

• Dahlia tubers can start going outdoors, just be watchful, and cover them if a night frost is forecast.
• Sow Hardy and Half Hardy annuals if you want to grow your own for a Autumnal display.
• Plant out winter greens (cabbages, cauliflowers, etc..) into their final spot.
• French and Runner beans can be  planted outdoors from seed.
• Sow beetroot for a main crop.
• Straw around the base of Strawberry plants.

We don’t spray with DDT anymore, but now is a good time to treat for Scab and mildew on plants. But use proprietary brand fungicides.

Well, hopefully I’ll get back on next week…

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Another week, a new selection of garden jobs.

I said I’d get back with the next jobs sooner rather than later. And for a change, I’ve managed to hit my target!

I’m surprised how quickly time is going right now. Not just the weeks, but the hours and the minutes! You know how you can not know where the week has gone but you seem to have spent most of it in long, drawn-out tedium? (Not a problem I suffer from, I’m going to be smug and say I don’t have a job, I have a vocation…) Well, even this evening. I got home at 5pm. Walked the dog. Did a small amount of gardening at the allotment. Helped cook diner. Now it’s nearly 9pm. I’ve no idea where the time has gone!

Anyway, I’m here to help with the next list of garden jobs…

• Sow grass seed, if the soil isn’t still too wet. It needs to be dry enough to make a loose tilth when you rake it over. Scatter the seed evenly at the rate recommended on the box. The cover with a dusting of dry topsoil. Cover the area with long pruning’s from spiky plants or birch tree twigs to stop cats using it as a toilet, and to deter birds from eating all the seed and seedlings…
• Finish pruning roses, and give them a good feed: top dress with compost or use a proprietary rose food.
• Prune back hardy fuchsias, Buddleia for a good show of flowers this year. Also cut back Cornus and Salix (Dogwoods and Willows) grown for ornamental bark.
• Lift and store any leeks you have left from last years plantings.
• Plant second early and late potatoes. Any first early potatoes will need the growth protecting from frost; either bury any green with soil or use a fleece.
• It’s a good time to plant Globe Artichoke if you want to give them a go. Being a statuesque plant, they can be grown as a vegetable or as an ornamental: Or even, put them in your flower beds but harvest them for eating!
• If you like Asparagus, and are willing to invest a few years of waiting, now is a good time to establish an Asparagus bed. Plant established plants, but you wont get a harvest even then for at least 2 years.
• If you have gooseberries and black currents that were badly affected by mildew last year, just before the blossom bursts with fungicide.
• Sow hardy annuals where they are to flower. Sow in nice straight lines… I’ve explained why before…
• Start French beans under glass.
• Sow main crop carrots outside, where you want them.
• Salsify and winter greens can be sown directly into the ground now. What are winter greens? Any green vegetable that is harvested in the winter months: cabbage, sprouts, kale… the list is long. I always say choose something interesting that is expensive or difficult to get in a shop.
• If you started any green vegetables under glass, harden them off and get them planted out.

Well, I hope it’s not too much to be getting on with: Personally I’m still trying to get my new reclaimed green house built. Next year, a I keep telling myself, I’ll be ready!

Did I mention it’s 9:30 already??

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I’m running late on my postings: Ending March, starting April

I’m well and truly behind. Never mind, “what to do in April”, I’ve not finished going through the list of things for March.

But on the plus side, Yorkshire is a month behind in planting terms as we have frosts and cold weather further into the year when compared to the south of the country. Our winter weather starts earlier as well.

Anyway, things to finish off for March…

• If you started sweet peas last autumn, get the hardened off and into the ground in their final flowering position.
• Sow hardy annuals: Either in their final flowering positions or into a nursery bed for transplanting later. Where ever you choose to sow, always plant in neat lines. This means any seedling NOT in the line is a weed to be removed. Clever, eh?
• Start half-hardy annuals under glass; just keep them protected from frost.
• Plant gladioli corms outside. Interestingly, and cleverly, Mr. Hellyer suggests planting the corms over a 6-week period, as this will lengthen the flowering season. It’s something I wouldn’t have thought of.
• Cannas, Dahlias, and other tropical bedding plants should be started in warm green house.
• Sow carrots and leeks outdoors. It’s also time to plant out First Early Potatoes.
• We are still prone to frosts, so keep early fruit blossoms protected by draping fleece over fruit trees and bushes at night, especially if a frost is likely in your area.

Still there’s more left from march, but it’s still good advice for us slightly chillier climes:

• Prune roses.
• Cut back ivy off walls. Cut it back hard, removing all the longer, sticking-out stems. Then brush down the wall to remove the dust and dirt. It makes it look bare for a while, but it soon recovers, and it will look better in the long run.
• Plant broad beans and culinary peas outdoors.
• Plant French beans, in a green house.

OK… That’s March. Now we’re into April…

Let’s start with “general” monthly jobs:

• Mow the lawn more often. The cuts should be a little lower than they were last month as well.
• Use a good lawn weed’n’feed (3-in-1 or 4-in-1 feed, weed and moss killer) to slow the moss and help the grass.
• It’s a good time to start planting herbaceous plants into new beds, empty spaces in existing beds. Just make sure they are hardened off as we can still have hard frosts in Yorkshire!
• Plant new evergreen shrubs as well. The same rule as above apply!
• Propagate by layering: Take a lower branch, pin it down tot he soil and bury it, but leave it attached to the plant still. In a years time you can cut it off and transplant a new rooted plant for free!
• Re-pot azaleas, camellias and the likes, if they need it, after they have finished flowering.
• Once spring-flowering shrubs have flowered, give them a good hard prune and shape.

I promise to try to post April Week One in a few days!!

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It’s March: The sun is out, and it’s time to get going.

In like a lamb, out with a roar, goes the old adage about March. Well it’s certainly come in, in a manner we were all hoping for; without rain!

It’s not only been dry though, the sun has been shining and it’s been relatively warm. The land seems to be drying out quite rapidly up here in Yorkshire. But then we don’t have huge amounts of flat land. When there is heavy rain, flash-floods and landslides are more of an issue than standing water.

But hopefully, the worst is now behind us. This time last year, we had that much snow you couldn’t see the ground. Today I’ve been cutting lawns. So what should we be doing at the minute?

It’s dry, warm and sunny. Make the most of it, get out and garden!

• Scarify and dethatch lawns. With how wet it has been, improving drainage is going to be vital this year.
• Give first cuts to lawns. To give a first cut lift your mower blades to the point where they just about cut the grass. It’s really to start levelling the spiky growth of the lawn. The next time you cut, lower the blades 1 setting. Each time you cut drop the blades until you are at the height of grass you want.
• It’s time to start planting those seeds. Under glass, on windowsills, in unheated green houses. Some even go straight out at this time of year.
• Onions, broad beans, peas and sweet peas can be planted straight out, and should be put in the ground sooner rather than later.
• Go through your seed box/bag/draw. Check the backs, they tell you when to plant… You don’t need me to tell you. If you have missed a date by a month, don’t worry; plant them anyway. It may be the crop/flower is a little late, but it wont be the end of the world.
• It’s a good time to lift, move and split any herbaceous perennials that are too big or in the wrong place. Just lift clumps and split them by cutting them into sections using a good spade, cutting ideally top-to-bottom, making sure each clump has roots and shoots. Where plants have crowns (e.g. peonies) use a knife to carefully cut the crown into sections, making sure each section has intact roots.
• Lay any fresh turf, either as spot repair, new lawns, or edge repairs.
• Plant out any hardy annuals you started last Autumn. These should be ready to be planted out to their final flowering positions.
• If your pot plants seemed a little sad last year, try re-potting them, either into a pot 1″ larger than they were in, with fresh compost around them, or in the same size pot but cut the bottom 1/4 of the old roots and soil away and put fresh compost in the bottom of the pot, then put the plants back into their pot on top of the new soil.

Some things have changed for the better: “Spray for blossom weevil with DDT” says Mr. Hellyer. Thankfully, that’s no longer available.  Insecticidal sprays should, I believe, be avoided at all costs. Although none are as environmentally bad as DDT was, still they are not selective enough to just kill 1 species. As a gardener, I understand the need for insects to pollinate our plants: No insects, no food, no people. If I have a few maggoty apples or a lower yield so be it.

Well, enjoy the sun while we have some, and I’ll post some more work for March in a while.

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February rolls on, and the rain keeps falling

Since the start of February, we have not had a continuous 24 hour period without rain: Then the wind arrived.

Much of what should be done now still off the books: The rain has left the ground sodden. This has been a hard start to the year, and it will impact the rest of the year. As a gardener, you know if you fail to start your crops, you will have a late harvest at best, or no harvest at worse; so now you can start to imagine how farmers feel when it’s not just a few rows of bean or peas, but acres of them and their livelihoods… But that’s another story altogether.

On a brighter note, I have seen Crocuses showing colour…

Seeds that could go out to start should only be planted if the soil is crumbly; most of the UK is sticky at best, liquid mud at worst.

Ranunculus and Anemones could go in the ground, but again, planting into mud is not good. Parsnips and Turnips can be started outside from seed, and Shallot sets could be planted; but again, not into mud. If you are desperate to get things started, you could plant into pots, trays and the likes, and keep them under partial cover. However, pots etc., are easily blown away in high winds; and we’ve had a lot of high winds in the last week or 2 as well…

Things you could do in your frost-free green house or cold conservatory? Well, semi-hardy annual bedding could be started now. Seed trays, seed compost, vermiculite, and clear plastic bags are needed. Fill the seed tray to the top with the seed compost, then firm it down. Sprinkle the seeds onto the compost then cover with a light covering of vermiculite. Water lightly with rain water, then put the tray into a plastic bag and tie it shut. This keeps the atmosphere humid for the seeds until the germinate. Once you have 1/2″ of growth, take them out of the plastic bag, as too much humidity causes the fungal problem of damping off.

Begonias, Gloxinia and  Hippeastrums can be started, as can “main crop” tomatoes; just keep the green house frost-free. Any that you may have started last month will (hopefully) need potting on. Pot into 3″ pots, and pot on regularly a they grow: Planting into large pots too soon actually inhibits root growth.

So, weather the weather be good, or it seems more likely, when the weather is bad, we gardeners must still try to get the year started…

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Lets hope we don’t have the wettest February on record!

Here in the UK, we’ve just had the wettest January on record. The month was almost a complete wash-out for me; postponed work, soggy lawns, quagmire borders… So congratulations if you did achieve anything outdoors. Don’t feel too bad if you didn’t. You wont be the only one!

So where did we get up to? I said I’d post the last couple of January jobs 2 weeks ago, and I didn’t. To be honest, there didn’t seem much point; I’ve spent my time decorating.

• Potatoes: It’s too early for outdoor spuds, but you could start Early varieties in tubs in your greenhouse. Again, just frost-free should be enough to give you a crop before outdoor growing gets close to yielding anything!
• Mulch Asparagus beds: A healthy layer of well-rotted manure will make a marked improvement to the crop!
• Protect fruit trees and bushes from birds: For bushes, a fruit cage is easily made. For trees, it is harder by far; Mr. Hellyer suggests spraying the trees with a strong quassia wash, which seems a very organic thing to do (especially since the book was published in 1936). Quassia is a plant extract that is renowned for being bitter. Spraying the trees makes the buds unpalatable to the birds so fewer are lost.
• You can start forcing outdoor rhubarb and sea-kale: Either use a special forcing pot (a ceramic dome which excludes all light) or use a large plant pot that you have blocked all the drainage holes in. The important thing is to exclude all light. Place these over old, established crowns then heap up old dead leaves etc.. around them to act as insulation. Sea-kale is treated as per rhubarb.
• Sow your leaks in the green house or a very cool windowsill… the temperature doesn’t want to exceed 12 Celsius, 55 Fahrenheit.

That’s enough about January, let’s get on with February!

I hear you cry. You didn’t? Well, a man can dream. So what are we on with? Well…

• It’s still a good time for planting bare root trees and shrubs.
• Apparently only sluggards still have digging to complete in February, so I guess I’m a sluggard as well. And the soil that has been dug needs to be finished now to a nice fine finish. However, this is where it gets problematic at the moment… to break down soil to a fine tilth you need dry weather, as the soil needs to be relatively dry. A problem for most of the UK…
• Keep an eye out for the need to ventilate cold frames and green houses; it should be getting brighter and hence warmer under glass.
• Did you start cauliflower last Autumn? Yes? Well, it’s about time to start hardening off the young plants; take away all sources of artificial heat and bring them outside for a few hours in the day (when it’s not frosty), making sure to put them away again at night.
• Clematis should be cut back now. Most of the garden varieties, I believe in cutting back to about 18″-2′ (45cm-60cm) from the ground. This encourages bushy growth from the base, and leaves plants less prone to Clematis wilt. Once established, clematis grow remarkably fast, and by cutting back low most of your flowers should stay at eye-level, rather than ending up at the top of whatever you have it trained up.
• Dogwoods (Cornus spp.) grown for their ornamental stems (bright red, yellow, green or black bark) should be cut back hard now. Remove twiggy branches completes, and cut all the others to within 2 nodes of their start.
• Sow Broad Beans under glass for an early crop. Once germinated and the seedling are big enough to handle, they can go outside provided they are covered by fleece or similar on frosty nights. Culinary peas can be treated in the same way now.
• Start more cauliflowers in your green house.
• If you have the space and the heat, you can also start early cucumbers. I say heat, s cucumbers need to be kept warm (24C, 75F) to encourage germination and rapid growth.
• Plant Jerusalem Artichokes: These are a tuberous crop, that is very low maintenance (put ’em in and leave ’em!). They grow in all but the poorest soils; crop well; and even if you think you have removed them all, you still find enough growing next year to give you a good crop again… They can be an acquired taste (a bit “Marmite”, you either love them or hate them). They roast, boil, or mash. are a nice addition to soups. But par-boil before use and change the water; they have an unfortunate side-effect on the alimentary canal that can be reduced but not removed…
• Cut away the old stems of autumn-fruiting raspberries. Cut to within 6″ (15cm) of the ground.

That’s it for the moment. Is it too much?? Possibly, but remember, all the timings are for guidance. If it doesn’t happen this week, there’s still next week… And sometimes things just have to give, and it’s easier and cheaper to buy a small pot of leeks in March than start them in February. Starting from seed is fun, but it’s time-consuming; and if you don’t have lots of pots and space can be expensive to start.

Speak to you all again soon!!

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New Year, New Start: Jobs in January

What a wet start to the year: Torrential rain, flooding… The last thing to be worrying about is the garden. Keep off the soil, keep off the lawn, and let the land drain out a little before you go wandering about on it.

If, and it’s a big “If” in the UK, you do happen to have a dry garden, there are a few things to be doing out there. I’ll keep using Mr. Hellyer as a reference, as it makes an interesting comparisons to modern mind-sets as to those of the 1930’s.

So, what are we at?

• Keep digging are soil when you can.
• Fruit trees can still be pruned.
• Carry on forcing rhubarb and pot daffodils that you set up last October-November.
• It’s a good time to take root cuttings from Oriental Poppies, Verbascum, Phlox and Gaillardias. Pot them into small pots, then put them in a frost-free greenhouse.
• Start small salad leaves under glass.

Once, and maybe if you have an orchard, you would be spraying your trees with tar oil to kill any over-wintering insect pests and their eggs. The only down-side of this is it also kills all the useful, over-wintering insects and their eggs…

What else to do?

• Start looking through your seed catalogue. Order what you want to grow; especially seed potatoes. But don’t plant them yet!
• If you have bush roses in pots, you could put some into a greenhouse to bring them on and have an early display.
• If you fancy your chances at competition growing competition onions, start them off now in a frost-free green house, on a bed of sandy soil till the shoots are showing.
• If you have a hot bed, you could start early variety carrots. A hot-bed is a basically a trench filled with rotting manure then covered with soil. The manure will warm the soil for growth.

If you have a frost-free greenhouse, you could start:

• Sweet peas
• Begonias
• Early tomatoes

We don’t want the greenhouse too warm, else the plants will bolt and with the short days they will not be able to support their own weight.

There are some other things to do this month, but I will post those next week…

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