Frost hits the runner beans

I’m feeling rather foolish this week. If I was eating an egg, some would most definitely be on my face, and if I had a blackboard to hand, I’d be scribing “Patience is a virtue” 100 times.

After nurturing my runner beans into fine specimens, and blathering on about “there’s still a risk of frost”, what did I do? Well, I’ll tell you… I got a bit giddy with excitement at the sniff of a bit of warm weather a week or so ago, and I planted my beans out. For a couple of days they were going great guns. They looked fit and perky, basking in the balmy climate, and I was envisaging a bean-filled summer ahead.

Then one night… just ONE NIGHT… the temperature cooled and we had a frost. And the beans now look decidedly sick.

Before the frost

After the frost… spot the difference!

I could have avoided this disaster in a number of ways. Most obviously, I could have left the beans in the greenhouse for a few more weeks out of harm’s way. But as they were already out, I could have protected them more from said frost. A blanket of fleece or bubble wrap might have done the trick, as might a cloche. Anything really, to keep the cold air off them. But the damage has been done, so on to Plan B.

The beans have well and truly carked it, but all is not lost. I have planted some stunt doubles up in the greenhouse. Runner beans grow quite quickly, and you can even plant them straight in the ground from the middle of May onwards, so the new plants should have time to catch up. I may end up with a later crop, but any crop is better than none at all.

Dashing out in the garden to soak up some Bank Holiday rays last weekend, I also cracked on with some other jobs.

I’ve planted out my vast collection of leek and onion seedlings. These should fare better than the beans, as they are now a good size, and have been totally outdoors now for a couple of weeks to harden off. They should laugh in the face of any cold snaps, and establish themselves into prize winning specimens now they can stretch out a bit. A good watering after planting them should help them on no end too.

In other news, we’ve had four new chickens. We were down to just two, and as they are quite old girls, the egg production has been a bit sporadic of late. So we popped out at the weekend and bought four new hens. They’re only 17 weeks old, so should start laying at any time. We were expecting a riot when we introduced them to the old girls, but touch wood they are getting on fine so far. I think it helps as there are four against one – Winnie and Maud are outnumbered. We just need to think of names now…

Four new chickens

This one appeared in The Hinckley Times 0n 9 May 2013

The Hinckley Times 9 May 2013

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Potting station from an old drawer

Potting station from an old drawer

At the weekend, the other half whipped up this little number for me – and transformed my old garden shed into a potting shed.

The potting station began life as an old bed drawer, that really had seen better days. First he removed all the metal runners from the sides, then removed the base. This he sawed in half. He also sawed the long sides of the drawer in half, and re-attached the end.

This now saves my compost going all over the greenhouse, and has created a tidy little area for potting up. For free.

We like the word ‘free’.

50 gardening ideas

gardening ideas … | The Garden.

How to embed a Prezi into WordPress

This week I’ve been learning how to ‘Prezi’. Apparently it’s a new way of avoiding ‘Death by Powerpoint’ so I thought it would be a useful tool to have up my sleeve.

So I made a quick and dirty Prezi to try it out. All was going swimmingly – I quickly got the hang of the basics, and the above is the result… which I can expand, amend and make new ones. This is my trial run… the guinea pig.

As it was about the garden, I thought I’d share it on this blog, just to see how the different channels talk to each other. Then I hit a problem… it seems that Prezi and WordPress don’t actually talk to each other. After trying different methods and publishing blank posts to all my followers (some of whom actually thought I’d lost the plot completely), I eventually found the solution. Which I thought I’d share with you all – it may come in handy one day.

1. Go to your Prezi, and click on the ‘Share’ button

2. In the ‘Viewing’ tab, copy the code

3. Go to http://wordprezi.appspot.com/

4. Insert your code into the left hand box and run the app

5. Insert the new generated code into the ‘Text’ view of your WordPress blog

6. Voila!

 

Insect hotel

A good friend came to stay at the weekend, which of course was great fun. But what’s better than a visit from a good friend? A visit from a friend who’s bearing gifts – that’s what!

A rummage in her overnight bag produced a strange structure made of wood, which she proudly thrust into my arms. I looked at it dubiously and eventually asked, “Err… what is it?”

“Oh, Lynno!” she scoffed. “It’s an insect hotel. It will be GREAT in your garden!”

A closer look at the instructions revealed that in theory, it should indeed be fabulous for the garden. Apparently, it contains all sorts of hidey holes that are a magnet for things like solitary bees, ladybirds, lacewings and other creepy crawlies. Once they’ve moved in, they should happily whiz around your garden, pollinating stuff left right and centre.

Although we’ve been lucky enough to have had tree bees in our bird box for the last couple of years, I’m all for enticing a few more varieties into the patch. Bees are apparently on the decline, so if we can help any out with a place to stay for the summer, it’s got to be worth a go.

The ideal place for the insect hotel was about a metre off the ground, in a sunny spot where it can catch some of the early morning rays. Without further ado, the other half shot out to install it, and duly shoved a bit of straw in the bottom part, as per the leaflet. We’ve gone for a sheltered spot outside the greenhouse, which should remain undisturbed – but equally is near enough to the veg patch for the insects to work their magic. I’ll be keeping my beady eye out for anything taking up residence.

Insect hotel

Meanwhile, back in the greenhouse, I’ve been busily pricking out seedlings to give them more room to grow. The best way I’ve found of doing this is to loosen the soil around the roots, hold the seedling carefully by its leaves and transplant to a larger pot, trying not to cause any damage or disturbance to the plant or the roots. Then put some soil around the roots, and gently firm around the base. Keep it well watered, and it should soon grow into its new space, throwing up new leaves and growth.

Pricked out seedlings

I’ve also popped a few more broad bean seeds in between the established plants in the garden. The plan is that the crop will be staggered, and hopefully I’ll get beans over a longer period of time. The peas and carrots I sowed a week or so back aren’t yet popping up but I’m happy to report that I have healthy-looking rows of radish, turnips and beetroot. I’m sure everything will catch up in good time.

So my final word this week is to our local insect population. There’s a lovely hotel that’s just opened for the summer. Reasonable rates, and available for rent. Come on in… you know you want to…

This one appeared in The Hinckley Times on 2 May 2013

The Hinckley Times 2 May 2013

Cluckingham Palace

Signs of spring

Wandering around the garden this week, I’m amazed at the change in just a week. Everything’s bursting into life, and here are a couple of pictures…

 

Daffodils

 

Plum blossom

 

Pulmonaria

 

However, it’s not all good news… I put my beans out a tad early, and the frost seems to have zapped them. Note to self: it may be sunny but it ‘aint all that warm at night.

Onto Plan B I think…

Runner beans – frost damage

 

 

 

The only way is up

As the weather well and truly warmed up and we were treated to a relative scorcher of a weekend, I decided to bite the bullet and get my spuds in.

Like a woman on a mission, I set to work and six varieties were soon planted in the new raised beds – with any luck I’ll be having some kind of potato to harvest right through the season. When it’s time to earth up the spuds, I’ll use that opportunity to put more soil into the raised beds – in trenches over the top of the potatoes.

Looking across at the peas that went out a few weeks ago, I was delighted to discover that these now look well established and have begun to romp away. So much so, that they looked in desperate need of some kind of support. A quick rummage behind the greenhouse produced some sticks I’d saved for this very occasion, and I poked four in the ground around the plants. Around this I wrapped some string to make a wigwam-type structure, and then gently separated the plants and arranged them up the new support. I’ve spotted some flowers already, so am hoping for good results.

Douce Provence peas

Cheered on by this early success story, I planted two more varieties of peas in the bed. One should be a good all round garden pea, and the other should be picked young as mange tout.

Pleased with my handiwork, I stood back and smugly perused the patch. Then it dawned on me. The legumes bed is now fairly well stocked: I seemed to have overlooked the three varieties of runner beans growing in the greenhouse. These should be ready to go out when there’s no more risk of frost, but space is now premium. So I decided to use the space in the air…

Runner beans… coming on nicely

I dashed off into town, and whipped three do-it-yourself arches off the shelf of our local bargain store. Assembling them wasn’t a massive task, and that done, me and the youngest dragged them off down to the vegetable plot. We positioned them so that they straddled the plots, and I think they will look great when they are full of flowers and beans. Hopefully harvesting will be easier too: no more scrabbling into the middle of a wigwam; the beans should just dangle in and around the arch. 

Three new garden arches

Elsewhere in the garden, I’ve also sown turnips, beetroot, carrots, lettuce and a row of radish.

I also used the burst of good weather to have a quick clear up in the flower borders. All the dead foliage has now gone, and some of the weeds have been plucked out. I haven’t gone too mad though – I don’t want to miss any self-seeded plants that may pop up – so I’ll wait until things get a little bit bigger to be sure it’s weeds I’m pulling out, and not potential flowers.

I’m great fan of the word “free”.

This appeared in The Hinckley Times on 25 April 2013

The Hinckley Times 25 April 2013

Slugs and spawn

Hear ye, hear ye… I have an announcement to make. But I will say it in hushed tones: “I think spring may finally be here.”

I don’t make this claim lightly – I’ve been gathering evidence. Out in the garden there are a number of things that suggest that we may finally have shrugged off the winter coats, and will soon be skipping around in our next season.

1.    I’ve found the first slugs
Whipping the cloche off the broad beans, I noticed tiny holes in some of the leaves. A good old rummage around at the base of the plants revealed slugs. No bigger than a fingernail, but they are there nonetheless. I’m hoping if I catch them early enough, they won’t mature into stonking great specimens, so I’m trying a couple of cunning plans this year. As well as setting beer traps for them, I’m sprinkling roughly crushed eggshells around the stems of any small plants. I’ve read that slugs find it hard to glide over the rough surface. We’ll see.

2.    We have frogspawn
The pond is alive with froggy love at the moment. Wherever I look, they are … ahem… ‘at it’. Coupled with that, there’s a massive clump of frogspawn in one corner. Now, going back to Point 1 above:  I thought that having frogs in your garden cut down your slug population. I’d heard that the frogs go out at night in search of tasty sluggy snacks. Our frogs evidently had other things on their mind this week. I will say no more…

Froggy loving in the pond

3.    The greenhouse is going bonkers
Seeds that I planted months ago are finally popping up. I’ve got five kinds of tomatoes (one of them a mystery as the packet got wet and unreadable), courgettes, celery, cucumbers, runner beans, borlotti beans, chillies and aubergines. All very tiny at the moment, but they are there; they are healthy, and hopefully I can keep them all alive for the season.  Exciting times indeed.

Five varietes of tomatoes – including a mystery one

With all that extra growth going on in I’ve also been making sure that things don’t get overcrowded. I’ve split up my celery, onion and leek plants and replanted them in trays to give them a bit more elbow room. Some of the onion plants were a fair old size, so out they went into the garden. And they are not alone! The first of the raised beds is now full and complete, so into that have gone a row of purple sprouting broccoli, and two rows of cabbages. I’ve left room for some broccoli and cauliflowers that are in the greenhouse but are not quite big enough to go out yet.

Brassica raised bed

The other two raised beds are now filled with a layer of rotted horse manure and yet more compost, and are now ready for some potato planting. I’ve been holding off doing this as the ground was simply too cold, but this week I’m going to bite the bullet. The spuds are going in.

Raised beds

This article appeared in The Hinckley Times on 18 April 2013

The Hinckley Times 18 April 2013