58 - Well, hello Belgium! Welcome to my gardens!

As an avid watcher of Jardins et loisirs, it is such a pleasure to greet more and more of our Southern neighbours, and I know you are just as keen gardeners as I am.

I was always very British garden orientated (helped by my misplaced Celt inclination), but last year I stumbled on the above mentioned TV programme and realised (sorry, a bit late, sorry!) that other Europeans make damn pretty gardens as well! Not only in Belgium and France, but also in Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Italy and Finland.

Thus my internationally orientated blog this week

Gardens I love to watch 

Take Instagram@katrins_garten . She tends to go for the close-up, which I adore, as she has a very good eye. Only the names, mind, not the sort of  ramblings I write. 

Also from Germany comes Instagram@basilikum_und_kaktus again great photos, with loooong stories; an interesting garden though.

From France I follow Instagram@small_parisian_balcony because it is exactly what it says, and I have a balcony garden too and like to see what other gardeners do with theirs. This is elegant, just what you expect from Parisians. (I do follow a Delhi balcony garden too, but more about the Asian ones later)

England, obviously! I watch closely what Instagram@nigel.dunnett does. He's a landscaper, very trendy designs, often on a large scale, and I can learn from his use of grasses and earthworks.

More about my international must-follows another time.

What else is happening in Hunky Dory?

There.be.slugs.

Yeah, yeah, what else is new, I hear you think. The thing is, they are in the greenhouse, oh horror! And nibbled on my cup-and-saucer-vines, the little shits. My precious expensive vines! And it is still too cold to plant outside, so what can I do? I patroll, I turn over every pot, I grumbily remove them and throw them over the ditch. I need chickens!! Chickens are not allowed though. (Like sleeping on the plot, not allowed...imagine if I would try to sleep with chickens, I would probably be tarred and covered with nettles before rolled across the allotments' bridge on a wheelbarrow).

But the potted up potatoes are looking wonderful and the cheerful spring flowers warm my heart every time I gaze at them.

Update about the FREE Pollinator seeds

Remember I will be happily handing out seeds on April 9th from 10.00 - 12.00 at my allotment, plot 54a. Drop me a line for the address, either here or DM me at my Instagram, see below.

Read more about my garden on Instagram @songsmith2962 and have a lovely week pricking out your seedlings or whatever it is you do.

57 - Living with the seasons

 People in cities (and I lived in large cities for 10 years) tend to divide seasons according to "beer outside" and "beer inside". You can tell my time spent as a city dweller was in my twenties, right?

Spring!

These days I live by the season. Walking a dog helps a lot, because for one you realise that more often than not it is dry at dawn. You don't believe me? It is! And then by 07.30, when it is time to leave for work, it rains. What I mean is, dogwalking and gardening both immerse you in whatever the weather throws at you. If I would only garden when the weather is fine, my plot would be in a sorry state.

Thus I planted my perennials last October with rain pouring straight down my back into my jeans. My frog pond was dug when it was blowing so hard it was difficult to keep my footing. And this week I am struggling to get my earlies into rock hard soil. Hans next door used a rotary cultivator to get his potato patch ready, but since I plan to only plant 12 chitted seedpotatoes that seems a bit over the top. Still, that soil does worry me. What will my tender seedlings do when confronted with this stuff in a month's time? The only thing I can think of is to fork shop-bought garden compost through, by lack of my own compost, which I have only just started.

Still, it will not stop me from sowing even more seeds this afternoon.

Summer!

I had put two large plastic ground sheets down over the piece nearest to the ditch in October, and that has worked a treat! The soil underneath is black, crumbly, weed-free. Black gold, hahaha. So I've decided to put the potatoes there.

The plan was to make raised beds, but ...Plans can be changed. Those tatties need to get in the ground, it's a full moon and it is time!

I hope the three Artichokes I've planted (10 cm of stick with tiny roots on) will feel the pull of that moon and start to grow. I adore those plants, they are so architectural, and their large flowerheads are gorgeous.  There is something magical about huge leaves, don't you think? Gunnera, also on my wish-list, but I don't think this would survive my heavy clay. It's also a bit of a thug, and I need to keep friendly with the neighbours.

Tomatoes Summer '21

Someone asked me if I wasn't happy that the gardening season would start soon? Excuse me? My gardening season has not stopped from the moment I could drag my sorry old body back to the allotments in September! Even when the wind was screaming around the greenhouse and the rain was thundering on the roof, I was there, even if just to make sure that roof was still on!  And to talk to my salad leaves, garlic and broccoli, of course.🤗

Okay, at this moment, just when you have decided I am totally barmy (but harmless), it is a good moment to leave you. Have a great gardening week, enjoy the outdoors and why not try to talk to your seedlings? No harm done.

Read more about my gardens on Instagram@songsmith2962 

56 - Of bark and bees.

Instagram@the_pollinators 

Days, I spent dithering about grass vs French chipped bark. I like grass, especially to walk on barefooted, and the sweet smell when it's freshly cut. But to lay an esthetically pleasing grass path is quite involved. And I'm afraid that on my plot it will soon morph into grass with huge puddles on for 9 months of the year.

Early morning

Thus I decided on chipped bark. It means expense, and digging out a layer of that cement-like soil, but it will look like a path instantly as soon as I've put it down. And no weekly mow. An occasional weeding, yes. But also quite nice to walk on, and creepy crawlies love it. (Oh, to have a clutch of chickens! But no)

So, I ordered 5 humongous 70 liter bags of French bark, which were unceremoniously dropped at the bridge to the allotments, and gave myself a nasty backache as a 'bonus' when I had to get them into my wheelbarrow. Not cheap, pine bark, so if you garden on a tight budget (like me, ha!) I would really think about it. But apart from easy to use, it is great to look at, and smells really good.

The French bark

What else has been happening on my plot? The Verbena bonariensis I foolishly planted outside look okay, despite a week of ground frost. And seen from the road those two obelisks really make a difference to my flat patch. Oh, I could watch that climbing rose out of the ground! But will have to be patient, so far it has just 5 clusters of tiny leaves.

Still, my weekly round of garden centres will continue, searching for bargains. This year, due to the metamorphosis of vegpatch to flower garden, I will use lots of annuals, but the plan is to gradually turn to mostly perennials, interspersed with some veg.

I adore bees

By the way: just like last year I will be a food bank for bees for The Pollinators,Instagram@the_pollinators their address link is also right on top of this blog. I will be distributing FREE seeds from my allotment on April 9th between 10 and noon. You can find my address through their website, or drop me a line in the comments or at my Instagram page.

I will sow my own pollinators mix under the apple trees,  to prolongue the pollen gift after the apple blossom has vanished.

A sea of bark

Back to the bark...

Oh dear, it seems a vast expanse of bark, and it isn't, honestly! It is just the one path circling the lavender circle. It is the angle of the photo, honestly!

 The rest of the front half of my garden will be a mass of flowers, promise. Well, at least that's the plan. I've been sowing yet more seeds today, there is hardly any space left in the greenhouse now. Time for that night frost to leave us!

Oh, and I had my last greenhouse broccoli for dinner last night, it was lovely.

Read more on Instagram@songsmith2962 

55 - Alas, not everything is an immediate success

Gardening to me is fun, hard work, rewarding, mindful, trial and error and yes, sometimes it is just plainly frustrating.

For example, when I put in all those plants one of my allotment neighbours gifted me in Autumn, my plot looked pretty full and lush. But now, come March, most of that lushness has turned into bare muddiness. That workable crumbly soil of the potato bed has morphed into, well, not concrete exactly, but to something resembling waterlogged cement. And it has rained so much and so hard these past months that my young plants are up to their necks in mud, and some of them have been swamped altogether. And don't start me on that awful sequence of storms!

It has made me think hard about my paths. Will I use grassed ones ( as I had planned), or shall I change to bark? I have had bark paths in my old garden, and the advantage is water will quickly drain. The disadvantage is little critters will drag the bark down into the soil (enriching it, so that's good!), so bark will have to be bought and redone year after year. Grass is cheaper.

Still, it will not be necessary to get a mower, nor to mowe every week.

Decisions, decisions.

Still. The obelisks are up. And so are the 5 pallets. I've repurposed them to compostheap receptables. And that ugly upright heavy iron fence is now an ugly heavy iron fence lengthways, in between the flower borders and the intended veg area. I will mask it with grasses, I think. Right now it is just ugly.

Boys will be boys

I've spoken to another neighbour about bringing  my shed door to the front, he says it's easy ( yeah, to him), and I can put one of my waterbutts to the other side, easily. Hm, I'll concentrate on the garden first.

So, what else has not gone according to plan? Well, the hederas I had put around to camouflage my waterlily vessel (no way you can call that ugly black plastic vat a pond), look pretty sorry for themselves. Golly, I do hope they will start growing soon! And my circle of lavender look at me with a frown every time I walk past. What do you call this soil, woman? It does not resemble anything we like to grow in! After I have put my glut of Verbena bonariensis and Digitalis in, the mud will be a little more camouflaged. And I have started another round of seed sowing in the greenhouse.  Jasper two plots along and I had a chinwag, like me he will put the emphasis on flowers rather than veg. Lovely, it's always nice to have a flower mate.

Remember I told you there was a huge patch of annual silverleaf anon, all stemming from just one plant but now trying to take over next door's cabbagepatch? I ripped it out, leaving 3 metres of bare soil underneath the apple trees (to sow my pollinators seeds in) and Leo kindly took it away and threw it on his bonfire. So. Water plants next, I think, to lure in those much wanted frogs and toads.

Carry on, determinedly forwards!

Read more about my gardens on Instagram@songsmith2962