My Tiny Plot

Nominations for this year’s Mouse and Trowel Gardening Blog Awards is now open. It would be fantastic to see more British bloggers up for an award this year. I’ll certainly be making a few nominations this week. See you there!

Well you could call this the first harvest. These are my white (with a hint of yellow) tulips that I planted as cutting flowers way back in October. They have turned out very well despite being jammed into the smallest pot in the world and carted from one side of the garden to the next while the landscapers where here. Later on this year I hope to plant them in the garden where they will stay. But for now I am enjoying having some cut flowers available. I’m not really sure why they open up like this. They seem to do this in the morning and then close up in the afternoon. Maybe it’s the sun. But either way they are beautiful and definitely a sign that Spring is here.

Here at mtp there has been a burst of energy under cover of the Potting Shed. Here’s 10 things we’ll be getting on with this month.

1. Plant first early potatoes in mild areas where the soil is workable
2. Spring prune fruit trees like Peaches and Nectarines
3. Sow some Sweet Peas to grow alongside your Runner Beans
4. Plant more onion sets and also some more shallots
5. Spread some wood ash or high potash nutrient on raspberries and strawberries
6. Plant a few Gladioli corms for some early cutting flowers
7. Sow Lettuce, Parsley, Coriander, Basil, Red Cabbage, Cauliflower in the coldframe
8. Sow some Tomatoes, Chilli Pepper, Aubergine and Bell Pepper in a heated propagator
9. Sow Radish, NZ Spinach, early Carrots directly in the ground in milder areas
10. Sow Peas in guttering at two-week intervals - place in coldframe or under fleece

If you have any more suggestions for March jobs, add em to the list.

Before

The Peach tree got it’s first prune today. The maiden whip that we planted a few weeks ago needed to have its formative pruning before the flowers emerged. There were plenty of branches to work with. I was looking for two strong branches on either side, at around the same height from the ground, to make the two main arms of the final fan. After that all the other branches would be pruned to one bud, including the leader (main branch in the middle). Then the two chosen branches were cut back to one upward-facing growth bud (ie, not a flower bud).

After

This is the tree after its been pruned. As you can see I’ve attached two canes to the wires and tied in the branches to them. The canes should ideally be around 30 degrees. However, because the branches were quite stiff I didn’t want to pull them down too far and risk breaking them. So I plan to inch the canes down to the right angle over the summer months. The tree started with around 12 flower buds - now it has none, due to the prune. But that’s okay because we’re only expecting to have peaches in the 3rd or 4th year of growth anyway. Which.co.uk do a nice visual pdf on how to prune a Peach

I cut these gorgeous Hyacinths today. I planted the bulbs back in November when I planted the Tulips. The tulips are still green but these are ready and what a colour? The electric blue is almost too vibrant for the garden. It stands out so much against the plain backdrop (of virtually no plants) that I was actually quite happy to bring them indoors. And the smell - wow!

I created some plant tags today. I’d like to say that the idea is all my own but I shamelessly stole the design from the plant tags that I saw at The Lost Gardens of Heligan when we visited in the summer. I put two coats of heavy duty gloss paint on them to stop them rotting in the ground and then used a waterproof markerpen to write on them. I’m hoping I can reuse them each year - at least that’s the plan. I love the fact that they are wooden and reusable. I try not to use anything plastic in the garden - not necessarily for any environmental reason (although that’s nice too) but it’s more for aesthetic reasons. Sometimes plastic is unavoidable (for instance my temporary coldframe has plastic panels) and of course plastic is cheaper but in my opinion traditional materials sit better with the look of my new garden and I really love the idea of using the same products and materials that say, Victorian kitchen gardeners used. Maybe, I’m missing a trick here - I’d be interested to know what other people think on this.

In go the shallots for 2008. I planted the biggest specimens I could find from the batch I grew last year. I was careful to walk on a board (like Monty does) so as not to flatten my precious fluffy soil. I’ll be scattering some wood ash on there once they start growing, to give them a boost. Let’s hope it doesn’t rain constantly this summer and ruin all my onion plans!

At last, our part-trained Apple espalier arrived. It’s in its third year and has two branches trained as espaliers already, which means that we’re off to a flying start with our fruit garden. It arrived by courier and is probably the biggest package I’ve ever received . It was so well packed, in straw and newspaper and cardboard then plastic, that it was actually difficult to carry around to the garden. But once we’d got it unpacked I soaked the roots in water over night and planted it straight away. It’s a Queen Cox, eating apple variety and it’s a self-fertile clone. This means that, in theory, it shouldn’t need a pollinator, however because it’s a clone it won’t pollinate other apple trees. This means that if I decide to buy another apple tree I will need to buy two, in order to pollinate each other. Complex, I know! Originally I wanted to go for two different trees, however it turned out that I couldn’t get either variety in a part-trained espalier (sold out everywhere) so I decided to go for Queen Cox because they were available and also, to save space, I can get away with using only one tree. I’ll keep you posted on how that experiment is going!

Started the planting yesterday. You can see in the photo that we’ve planted Box bushes in each corner, with some, as yet tiny, Lavender bushes as company. In the bottom left-hand bed you can see a row of Raspberry canes (Autumn Bliss), a Blackcurrant bush (Ben Conan), a small patch of strawberry plants (can’t remember what variety), two Spinach plants and a row of extremely healthy garlic plants.
In the right-hand bed you can see the beginnings of my herb patch (Rosemary, Thyme, Sage and Chives). Against the wall on the far left corner is my small but perfectly formed Peach tree (Peregrine). And right at the end of the middle pathway my two Blueberry Bushes (Chandler - could I be any more blue? - actually have to give Ryan credit for that one!) waiting for their pots.
After a trip to the garden centre today, there should be some stakes and wires going up tomorrow for the Raspberries and Pear trees (on order). It’s all happening now!