Pulled a potatoe bag yesterday, not as big as those beauties.
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Incidentally, don’t harvest potatoes now as the skins are too thin for storage. Just dig what you need.
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It took a good afternoon to remove some ivy roots last year.
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A whole bed of spinach has been devoured … I suspect mice, but I can’t preclude my hens found a way in. I think I should not have transplanted the seedlings directly into the bed - another lesson learnt.
Second thoughts: caught them amongst the broad beans this evening. Don’t know how they got in - rascals
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Oh, it must be the hens - spinach is only second to cat food. We need to improve the fencing in our garden so that we can grow vegetables. I’ve just bought 20 metres of this stuff and some gates:
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With the lack of effort over the last few years I’m still happy with the way the garden is looking! Keeping a good lawn with a young child is a waste of valuable time in my opinion!
Atb
Kk
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Rosa Rugosa hedge is flowering now. Full of perfume. Just need to work out how best to prune it next winter as it’s getting a little old and straggly, a little like myself I suspect!
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Last month, our laurel hedges were full of bees, it should be a good sign for our area.
We also have a pretty good wildlife , squirrels, sometimes hedgehog, some hares in the spring and birds.
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As with many multi-stemmed shrubs, you should remove a few of the oldest stems completely to encourage it to produce new, less woody, more productive stems. Cut back perhaps one in five stems every year, as close to the ground as you can reach in late winter.
I have occasionally cut the whole plant back to ground level when it has become too tall and leggy. With a good thick mulch and a feed it grows back very fast.
Thanks Chris, will try hat but don’t want to take then to ground level they are about 6ft tall and the hedge is about 6ft across !
Sounds like you’ve got your work cut out! The problem I find is that if you just reduce the height of the stems they just become more tall and leggy. Even if you thin them, new growth will rapidly grow to the same height as the old. Cutting the whole thing back seems a bit barbaric, but it seems to be the only way to keep mature plants down to a reasonable height.
We have two that grow under a damson tree, and when they reach 6’ they are growing into the lower branches of the tree. I find that cutting them right back to the ground is the only way to prevent this. I’ve done it several times to the same roses, and they seem to thrive on it. Within a few months they are back to about 4’ and seem to be healthier for it.
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I have a cut-leaf beech in my front garden (otherwise known as fern-leaf beech - Fagus sylvatica ‘Laciniata’), which is a lovely tree, especially in Autumn. The downside is that nothing seems to grow underneath - it’s very dark as the foliage is dense, and it’s also very dry. I’ve tried various things, on the advice of a professional gardener - all to no avail. Have you had a similar problem? Any plants that do well in dry shade?
I’ll try to post a photograph - which is a bit difficult as it’s a big tree.
Depends what you want, but woodland plants such as Anemones should do well. We have a couple of fairly large trees at the bottom of the garden with Lily of the Valley and Cyclamen underneath which do well.
Give the soil loads of mulch such as garden compost to improve water retention.
Dug up first line of spuds this morning got about 30Kg so far.
Got another 4 rows to dig, Charlotte and Sarpo Mira
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Wow
A few from the garden
Bought 4 choice sempervivums to make a feature out of a Greek planter. The yellow green ones in the centre are called Gold Nugget and were bright red and yellow up to a few weeks ago. I potted this lot up about a month ago and within a couple of weeks one of the three Gold Nuggets rotted and died. This is partly due to the compost mix they were sold in still being attached to the rootball. I decided to redo the whole planter again, with a lot more grit added in the mix. This was a pain, as they’re a bit fragile to handle and I had to take all the pink stones off, wash them and then carefully place them around/under the delicate plants again, after replanting.
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