Gardening behind a Bungalow

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I am not sure I really know what a Blog is, I’m assuming it is a diary of events that you allow other people to read, and hope that they will not be bored out of their minds. Anyway thats how I will treat it.

My wife and I moved into this bungalow about 5 years ago, it had a small area of lawn at the rear of the back garden which she said I could use to grow my vegetables. When we moved in, she changed her mind and said it would have to stay as lawn. I ranted and raved as any man would but somehow as most wives do she managed to make me feel guilty and I gave way.

However I have fought back with low cunning and moved the shed up to the bottom end of the garden which now gives me an area of about 8 feet by 6 feet to use as a veggie patch, I steal other micro patches as well to plant things like herbs, I did plant a redcurrant bush on the front lawn last year (2010), it bore lots of fruit the first year and now it seems to have died. So I will try another bush in different position.

Vegetable wise this year I am trying to grow Welsh Oninons Leeks, small round carrots and probably runner beans. I will also try some garlic. I might be able to plant a few crops in my sons garden as he as a patch about 12 feet by 8 feet that he does nothing with.

I have a small greenhouse about 8feet by 6 feet which I use to grow tomatoes. The said greenhouse is in a sad state and could do with a replacement, but finance dictates that thay may not be this year, but I may try and build my own. I will add that I have been successful for many years in growing asparagus in greenhouses and recommend this method to anyone.

The one thing I was suprised to discover last year was the appitite of pigeons for cabbage and cauliflower plants, I thought in my ignorance that birds only went for things like peas and berries. I had always thought that my plants were being eaten by slugs. If I grow any this year they will be better protected.

Date of entry 25th January 2011

Update on February 8th 2011

Thanks to all who made comment on my previous entry

I thought at this stage I would include a few photographs for those who may read this Blog. As I referred to my small veggie patch last time, I have put this as the first photo, it looks a bit sad at the moment, but it will soon cheer up when I get a few things growing it. The second photo shows my Greenhouse which as I said last time needs replacing. I am at the moment in favour of building one myself with translucent panels, partly because they will resist the efforts of my two Grandchildren to break it when they play ball games in my garden. I think with children, especially very young ones your just have to accept that they are going to knock your garden about a bit. It’s best to take some sensible protection measures and try and get them to cooperate as much as possible, but when it comes down to it, your Grandchildren grow up to fast anyway, mine are at the stage where they like to dig for worms and luckily they have not dug up any useful plants yet in their quest to find the largest worm ever seen. We do of course return the worms to the garden to get on with their useful work afterwards.

The next photo (if they come out in sequence) shows the start of a frame I am building to train my grape vines along, in my next entry I hope to show the completed frame and one day the completed frame with Grapes around it. I am always looking for ways of making sure bottom part of the wood support (the part thats in the ground) does not rot, so I am placing them in plastic piping this time. At the bottom of the pipe I have placed a few pebbles and some small pieces of grit. The idea is that the wood stands on this and although it will get wet, the water can eventually drain away through the pebbles and does not come into contact with the soil itself. I have tried to show the plastic pipe on the photo but I am afraid that it looks a bit like a large white candle. I would be interested to know of any other ideas people have to prevent rot. I was hoping to get a fair amount of work done on the frame yesterday, but the very high winds prevented much progress, as fast as I made sure one piece of wood was vertical, the wind made sure it was’nt.

One of the persons who commented on my previous entry said that I ought to get an allotment. That would be to big for me, I think for an allotment one needs to be really dedicated and spend a fair amount of time there. So I will leave the allotments to those who will really value and use them.

Wishing you all good gardening for the next week.

Sirwolf

I thought I would try growing a few tomatoes this year in an upside down container (see photo) I don’t know if anyone else would want to try it (or has tried it) but I found that :-
The plant will grow quite vigourously.
Watering is fairly easy but has to be done regularly as there is no real depth of soil to act as a reservoir, the water gradually drips out of the neck of the container together with some nutrients. It’s best to have a container underneath to collect the water/nutrient and re use it.
To sum up, it’s an interesting novel way to try growing tomatoes, but it’s a bit labour intensive. The big plus is that damage from ground insects is eliminated.

• 25 Jan, 2011
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