76 - Raised beds!

 When you have been reading this blog it will not come as a surprise I have bought and assembled two raised beds, right?

Blumfeldt planter

Often I have complained about my heavy clay, which gets waterlogged in winter and turns into something most resembling concrete in summer.

The strategy behind Hunky Dory was to spend as little money on it as possible, so I sow seeds, I recycle, upcycle and cycle to friend's gardens to pick up free seedlings. But lately the impossibility to get a spade into my soil was irritating me, not in the least because I saw my cherished seedlings suffer, struggle and sometimes perish. Okay, so we've had an unusually dry spring and summer so far, but all the signs are that this is a state of affairs that we will have to get used to. 

So I looked at raised beds, that is to say, I realised when I was at the diy shop I do not like straight lines, at all. Besides, those planks are bloody heavy, and I am not strong.

First one done

There are no straight lines in nature, you see. They go against the grain, well against mine anyway. Research led me to Berlin, you must love the internet, to Germany from my easy chair. I ordered a Blumfeldt metal planter, 160x80cm, which would arrive in 'between now and in 7 days', using DPD. Perhaps folks in Germany take a week off to wait for their stuff, because no track&trace possible. I wasn't going to sit at home for a week, dogs need to be walked, food has to be bought, veg needs to be watered you know? It turned out that was just as well, because DPD did not even attempt to deliver to my home, they dropped it off at a delivery point 3 km away. 

Anyway, long story short the tiny woman there heaved the flat pack into the back of my car (she was strong!) from where I dragged it into my wheelbarrow with a great deal of swearing, and opened it with trepidation. Hm. It looked straightforward enough, 2 lengths of nuts, and bolts, plus rings. It also turned out to be very high, much higher than I had counted on. So I decided on the spot to turn it into two planters, yay, two for the price of one! It was very easy, really, even for a diy dummy like me, except instead of having a lot of leftover nuts and bolts (every time I attempted an IKEA) I now had 6 too few. Or 6 holes too many. So glad I could not find the courage to clear out my shed, yet! I found 6 different gauge bolts, and they all fit those holes, hallelujah.

To save more money, I chucked the old tired strawberry plants I dug up into the bottom of the planters. That means I had to buy less bags of garden soil. All the same, one planter took 320 litres of soil. Two planters...you get my drift. Pigs will have flown three loop-de-loops over my greenhouse by now...save money..., right.

So happy I did this!

Still. I have planted some lovelies in those planters and I have given my neighbours something to talk about. Two birds with one stone!

Read more about Hunky Dory on Instagram@songsmith2962 and Pixelfed@DutchDeltaWoman  . Have a lovely weekend!

75 - Taking stock: let go of some garden dreams?

 Hunky Dory has survived her first official heatwave.

Next to the frog pond

The greenhouse got watered, the garden did not, although I cheated myself just a bit and did water the ferns and roses.

Inevitably some plants gave up. My Japanese anemones wilted, my willow and verbena in the white pot died, and some of the salvias are feeling very sorry for themselves (but others thrive, now isn't that weird?).

Food for thought! Because all the signs and experts point to these extreme temperatures happening more and more often. So is it viable and realistic to want to have a cottage style garden? To be honest, I think not. Should I change it to a prairy style one? One of my gardening heroes (Instagram@jelle_grintjes sighed that he had to cut back many of his plants because they suffered in the heat this week, although he also seemed to have an iron problem. So perhaps not. Gardener's World Magazine suggested in July we should change over to Mediterranean plants, but how then, with my heavy clay? Work lots of grit through it, when I can hardly get a fork in to dig up my potatoes?

Very nice potatoes though

The best thing for the short term, I think, is take a good look at my plants now, and only plant those that did well so far. Forget any 'style', simply use what survives and work with that. So prepare for a garden full of gauras, echinacea, buddleia, artichokes and veronicastrum. The begonias in my balcony garden are doing very well despite being in full blistering sun, and I remember seeing them, huge, on Madeira, so I could give them a try. Agapanthus??

Gauras at the back

And perhaps lots of cannas after all. I have 6 of them ready to come to Hunky Dory after summer, they thrive on the balcony. 

I dug up the tired strawberry patch yesterday and got rid of that black plastic eyesore I called my Lily pond. The reason for that was that the ivy I put around the tub to camouflage it simply did not grow. At all. It gives you an idea of how poor and depleted my soil is. Sigh. Anyway, it is gone. I moved the nice waterlily to the frog pond and heaved the water in there as well, and now there is a mystery for you (and me!): there was so much water in there then that it slopped over the edges (making the plants there almost do a dance). To my amazement, and frankly horror, when I came to Hunky Dory this morning the water level was more than 10 cm below the edge already. How is that possible?? That much evaporation, at night, no way! A leak? In double-thick best quality pondliner? Fiddlesticks, I hope not!

 

Before the changes

So you see, hardly have you solved one problem, or the next is waving at you from behind the milk thistles: yoohoo, thought you could take it easy, did you?

The next project is assembling my Blumfeldt plantbed though, which came in a flatpack. Never a dull moment. Luckily I have neighbours who perk me up with coffee and tall tales.

Read more, and lots more photos at Instagram@songsmith2962 and Pixelfed@DutchDeltaWoman.  Have a great gardening weekend!

74 - I garden, therefor I am

 What is this urge to document, to put down on paper what is keeping me occupied other than an existential need to prove that I exist?

Pumpkin

 Woah!

Gardening, right, we are reading about gardening here?

Yes, we are, kind of. Like that pumpkin over there on the left, my being is hidden underneath a whole mass of creepers. Older ladies like myself tend to become invisible to younger people. The thinning hair, the wrinkles, the varicose veins, the sagging flesh, all not so attractive to gaze upon, I get it, don't think I do not.

But just as that pumpkin hidden under those green leaves is rather beautiful, so my soul remains all glossy sheen and firm flesh. It is just hidden inside an older person. Although my soul is an old one. And there you go. Back to Hunky Dory.

Datura

That area of high pressure is doing weird things to our weather. It is warm to very warm, but sometimes clouds hide the sun. Still, it is necessary to water the greenhouse veggies every day, and I talk to the daturas while I am doing that. The two of them appeared by magic, and are waving their amazing cream coloured trumpets at me, one day at a time. They wilt when I do not water them religiously, so I water them. I tried to grow one on my balcony last summer, but it pined, and I threw the spent pot soil in my greenhouse, and, well.

I have ordered a metal raised bed planter from Berlin for Hunky Dory, which is supposed to arrive 'within 7 days', of which 6 have passed by now. No tracker tracer thingy possible, so am I supposed to sit at home waiting for my buzzer to go off for a week? I think not!  I bet you they will try to deliver it when I am walking Puck. Anyway, I saw it on Gardener's World and several Instagram feeds and I thought I want one! It can go on the old strawberry patch (which will need clearing first) and I can fill it with a mix of veg and flowers I do not have to use a pickaxe for to get them into the soil. If this becomes a success, there will be more, folks. But first get it delivered...

The Cannas on the balcony

Mind you, the flowers are valiantly and defiantly showing they are just as good as last year's onions they have replaced. Good onions though, I am actually still eating them.

The forecast says it will be 36 degrees C next week, even though we are near the sea, holy cow! My poor garden... Oh well, her and me both, it will be over 40 under my flat roof at home. I have stocked up on icecream and made water ones for Puck, on a stick, she loves to lick them whilst I hold them up for her, eyes closed with extacy. (Hers, not mine)

If you like to read more, find my Instagram@songsmith2962 and Pixelfed@DutchDeltaWoman.  Have a lovely weekend, and keep your head cool!

73 - Tranquil ponds

 My frog pond has turned into a shallow bowl of green soup.

Obviously I knew this would happen at some stage, as I am aware of the existence of a green monster called blanket weed. Also known as spirogyra, string algae or silk weed, and that should be a warning in itself. An algae that goes by many names must be feared by many.

Before the monster struck

Blanket weed can be submerged, or float on top if the water. In my frog pond it is both. The green silky strands have twisted themselves around my mini waterlily and the logs, making it rather tricky to get out.

I have had a pond before, a much bigger one, and that had blanket weed as well in the first year, but after that it was alright. But that pond had some shade as well, and this one none at all, as Hunky Dory has no shade (yet! Working on it). It is filled with rain water, which is best, and has no fish, which is better, and I will just have to grin and bear it, raking the muck out from time to time. 

You know, this garden really is in a state of flux. Over time I slowly learn what works and what does not, and there is quite a lot of the latter. So I spend quite some time simply observing how nature works around my garden plans, and usually puts those plans awry. You like to have ornamental grasses, dear? Well, they don't quite like your soil, but the wild grasses love it! You want clematis up your obelisks? Na-ah! Why not try bindweed instead? It loves your garden! (No way! There are limits)

I make lists of plants that do well, and I can already predict Hunky Dory will look very different next summer.

The balcony pond

On my balcony is a mini-pond as well. It was in a copper pot at first, but I changed that to a tin wider one, as Puck likes to play with the sprinkler. That toy will drain the pond within half an hour, I must keep topping it up, so I only put it in when I feel like doing that. Keeps it exciting for my doggie as well; oh, the waterthing is in, yay!!, let's bite the water! Puck is not a playful dog, there were no toys when she was living her first years on a chain I suppose, so whenever she feels like playing I am happy for her.

There are lovely plants in the tiny pond, and they are all blooming as well, which is nice. The coal tits who live on the flat roof come down to drink every day, and the dragons who live on the roof opposite do too.

Not really. The dragons. Just seeing if you are paying attention. Everyone knows Dutch dragons only drink milk.

I adore sitting in my chair surrounded by plants and watch the water. It is very peaceful. 

Buiten Leven Magazine, July 2022

 Last week I told you I have exciting news, right? This is it. My balcony garden is featured in a magazine, such fun! It is a tiny piece, with a slightly larger photograph (by me), but I am chuffed all the same. And I hope to meet some new garden friends through it, one can never have too many of them. 

Right. Do check out Instagram@songsmith2962 and Pixelfed@DutchDeltaWoman if you like to see more of my photos and read more of my garden stories, you never know, you might meet a dragon or two. Have a lovely weekend!

72 - After the June explosion comes the calm of July

 Suddenly plants that shot from the soil have slowed down their urge to get as tall as possible, and instead have set their minds to producing seed or fruit.

My echinacea has flowers

Since we have had a couple of very rainy days this week, everything is looking fresh and sparkly instead of washed out, dusty and tired. That patch of figs next door is starting to waft that fig scent I adore, I wish I could take it home with me. Us teachers are on our last legs, one more week to go, but a few hours a day in my cottagy garden or in my balcony jungle keep me going and help me combat the stresses and frustrations that work throws at me. There was a hummingbird moth on my canna a few days ago, it made my day!

So what is going on in Hunky Dory? Well.

My tomatoes are as tall as me, and a few even taller, and their friends the marigolds are so leggy that they have fallen over, trying to trip me up on the greenhouse path. So I have bound them to the tomato stakes, where they cling like a tipsy woman on Friday night.

(Before you take offence and accuse me of sexism, tipsy men don't cling, they are loud and make stupid jokes, so I could not use them for a metaphor)

I have not taken off the bottom shoots and leaves, so they are not half as full of flowers as those of my clever neighbours, which suits me just fine, as I don't know what to do with kilos and kilos of tomatoes. Note to self: eight tomato plants are six too many. I live and learn.

Slowly some height at last

But the two cucumbers are perfect. I can just about keep up with their production, and give away a cucumber here and there, but not so often that folk turn away when they see me coming whilst trying to avoid the allotmenteer desperation. Two paprika plants are fine as well. And about my two courgettes, well, the slugs have discovered them and one of them is not a pretty sight.

But the flowers are well into their stride now. When I approach my borders I can hear a buzz from metres away. All kinds of bees and hoverflies are very busy, and there are plenty of butterflies as well, with the cabbage white most dominant.

Every time I enter the greenhouse surprised butterflies flutter around, and I have met some small birds several times. Mr Waddles is hiding amongst the veg, I have not seen him for weeks now. I hope he's okay. Must find out how old toads can become.

The side

Okay, time to slice up some cucumber. Next time I have some exciting news for you, so keep your eyes peeled at Instagram@songsmith2962  . Have a lovely weekend!

71 - Liters of jam, jars of pickled cucumber and the occasional courgette

 Growing fruit & veg is new to me. Sure, I have grown cucumbers, tomatoes and loads of different berries in the past, but never from scratch.

And I must admit that buying a Tasty Tom which has a mass of tomatoes on already is a lot easier than sowing seeds, pricking them out, keeping them watered and happy and then letting them loose in their greenhouse world and hope for the best, fingers crossed.

I gave them friends, marigolds in fact, and neighbours: cucumbers, pumpkins and paprikas. Across the greenhouse path is lettuce, beetroot, broccoli and paksoi. The cauliflowers have already been re-housed to my freezer.

Outside the heavy heady scent of ripe strawberries has almost been replaced by that of fig leaves. I picked so many strawberries my fingers were stained red, and cooked litres of jam.

The few berries still on the plants are for the animals. The potatoes are growing, and so are the courgettes, although I must say the courgettes I grew in pots on the balcony two years ago did a lot better than the twosome I have in my garden. They are quite puny. Still, the taste is fine! Don't know how you eat them, but I prefer courgette gratin.

Even though I only planted two cucumber plugs, I now have a cucumber glut. I have 2 to 3 ripe ones every day now, so I decided to try my hand at pickling. I chucked in kurkuma, chili flakes and dill. Could not find those round pepper corns, hence the chili. I have to be patient now, first tasting in a fortnight. When you read reports of a green tinged woman with botulism found on her balcony whilst being eaten by ravenous magpies, it will be me.

This week, last Wednesday in fact, I tried to explain to a colleague that there is a difference between a shop-bought straight and a greenhouse-grown crooked cucumber. Yes, obviously, the shape. But also the skin, which is much firmer and the flesh, which is less pale and watery and far, far tastier. Compared to my crooked green godesses the shop cucumbers are what Jack Daniels is to Talisker, darling. (Now you can work out for yourself which whisky I prefer. No? I will give you a hint: it starts with a T)

Meanwhile that rain last night freshned up my garden again. I cut the tall grass next to the ditch, and will do a second cut soon. And I posted a video of Hunky Dory on Instagram@songsmith2962,  so you can take a look.

Look for the yellow cat

Have a lovely weekend!

70 - I dream of green

 For a TEFL teacher like me, but any teacher really, June is a hectic stressful month, with tests, resits and exams, and happy students who can finally pick up their diploma. But June is also the month where the explosion of greenery that has taken off in May really consolidates in the garden.

The frog pond

Every day I walk down the path to my plot I see new plants in flower. The beans and peas of my neighbour are shooting up, and my own plants are suddenly playing catch-up. 

Remember I almost despaired of my gorgeous Princess Elisabeth rose? Well, it now looks much better and has a gorgeous rose and five very promising buds. I am overjoyed, because that rose was struggling on my balcony for two years and I had taken it to Hunky Dory especially to give it a better life, and its very own pretty obelisk to climb up against. 

And the Salvias are doing really well too. So are the many Verbena bonariensis I raised from seed.  They hardly grew during that drought, but now they are finally growing and blooming their hearts out.

The greenhouse

Broccoli

This week I spent some time not only watering, but also howing the mass of weeds that have sprung up amongst my spinach, cucumbers, bell peppers and tomatoes. There is chickweed and tall grass and I was amazed...where did all this come from??

The rose shows buds, yay!

When I put my small tomatoes in, it was pristine and all I did was spread some leftover potting soil. It really did make me think my no-dig experiment with cardboard on the other side of the greenhouse path will be the path forward (that sounds weird. But you know what I mean). Hardly any weeds on that side.

The cucumbers have given me 8 perfect ones already, and many more to come. And the tomatoes have lots of flowers and have grown up to over 1m. Not bad, from those seeds I saved from last year's crop, eh? Obviously what tomatoes they are, I don't know, it will be a surprise.

This week I have also harvested my beautiful cauliflowers, for the freezer. And then put some new veggies in, making sure I avoided last time's mistake of watering without a sprinkler head, washing all the seeds to the edges of the bed. Silly me! Will not do that again in a hurry! The thing is I have inherited 6 watering cans, but no heads...that gives me a good excuse to visit my favourite gardening centre. And sow in seed trays first may also be a good idea...Ah...I could always buy plugs... (here comes the impatient gardener in me, rearing its head). And I pulled out 5 wheelbarrows full yet again - weeds, my dear. The thistles looooove my heavy clay.

Anyway, when you would like to read more about Hunky Dory and/or my balcony jungle, visit Instagram@songsmith2962 and Pixelfed@DutchDeltaWoman and in the meantime take care in that mini-heatwave this weekend and release your inner plant nerd, go on, you can do it!