Lemon sorrel | Sally Wicks

This year, my intention is to grow a beautiful garden and produce food for my family. Why not follow my practical gardening year both at home and through my working life as a professional gardener.

This blog is divided into specific sections, to enable you to find relevant information. If you have any gardening queries please email me through my contact page.

SEED SOWING

This week, I realised the majority of my chosen flowers will be pastel in colour and I would quite like to see some darker tones in my garden borders and cut flower vases. With this in mind the following were sown.

The seedlings below, were the exact colour of the container they were growing in, I was more focused on this, thinking it would make a great image on Instagram , rather than the job of pricking them out.

If only I had pricked them out earlier, so there was better air circulation around the seedlings and not watered them quite as much, their stems might not have rotted and collapsed. It was a soil bourne fungal disease called damping off that caused their demise.

Lesson learnt.

There are still a fair few packets of seeds left to sow, and my greenhouse is pretty much full . No need to panic though, there is the option to sow my remaining hardy annuals directly in the ground, and this is what I will be upto over the next couple of weeks.

It is definitely not a case, of opening the seed packet and scattering them onto the soil, and leaving them to it…

I started with my seed sowing bed looking like this

So how did the first image above, turn into the second ?

Weed seedlings, and any larger perennial or woody roots were removed.
It was raked it level, to create an even seed bed. Raking removes any small stones, twigs, which will impede root growth of the young seedling.
This is where I have left it for now, no direct seed sowing has been undertaken, just preparation. It is being left it for a week or so, to see if any fresh weed seeds germinate in the seed bed. If there are, they can then be weeded out prior to sowing seed.
By doing this, you will have created a stale seedbed. This is not a detrimental term, it just means you will be sowing into an area, where there should be no weed seeds competing with your chosen seeds for light, and water and space.
So if you are thinking of sowing seed outside in the next couple of weeks, just start this week, with a bit of weeding, and removing small stones, and twigs, and I will return back to this in next weeks blog. In the UK we are also expecting some frost in the coming evenings, so I wouldn’t recommend direct sowing if this is the forecast.

2. ORNAMENTAL GARDEN

The ornamental grasses had not been re-potted for several years. There really was more root than compost in their containers, not the best for the health of my plants. They needed to be divided into smaller sections to enable them to grow away healthily again.

I could have sliced through the roots with a spade or a sharp knife and just replanted them. However I decided to tip them out of their containers, and soak the root ball overnight in a bucket of water

The following day, I cut back last years old stems of the grasses, and divided them up with my hands, occasionally using my secateurs to cut through the roots if they were still congested.

Ornamental grasses, really don’t like their roots drying out. By soaking them prior to dividing will go along way to keep them alive afterwards.

They are now repotted, and growing on. I will keep them well watered for a month or so, until they have started to set out new roots. They will then be planted out into the raised beds and borders.

With the best will in the world, I know, if I had divided them up, and put them straight back in the ground, I would be likely not to remember to water them as much as I should, which could lead to the demise of the health of the plant.

A large block of Helianthus Lemon Queen ( a tall, late late summer flowering perennial ) was dug out from a raised bed and the clump of roots were sliced up, using a spade to make 16 new plants.

They are now replanted in various customers gardens. Over the coming weeks they will be watered regularly to ensure they settle in, and grow away healthily.

3. VEGETABLE GARDEN

Last weeks blog explained how I filled the raised beds and covered them with fleece. Within a week, the soil is noticeably warmer to the touch, than other parts of the garden that have not been fleeced. Sunday 3rd May, seemed the right time to start planting out.

The Shiraz Mangetout peas were slipped out of the guttering, and straight into the ground. This was such a simple way to sow them, grow them and plant them out.

With regard to buying seed, suppliers are on line, and part one of this series mentioned my chosen seed merchants. Waiting for delivery is not quite as fast as it was last year, but you can still buy seed, and it is only May. There are months of sowing time left to go, even if you haven’t bought any yet.

I have now planted out spinach,mangetout peas, salad seedlings and sown radish seeds. It felt great to be planting out, it truly made me feel that my gardening year had started

As you can see in the image below, there is some wire caging over the new crops, this is mainly to keep the blackbirds off, as they do like to scout around, looking for worms, and will dislodge anything in their way, including seedlings. Horticultural fleece will go over this bed on an evening, just in case it gets a little to chilly for my young plants.

Spinach, Lemon sorrel, Salad leaves, Mangetout and Nasaturtiams.

Whats this, another new project ? From next week, follow me as I set out on my new “no dig” vegetable patch .

4. GREENHOUSE WORK

Due to a rained off work day, attention turned to a much needed greenhouse tidy up. I had run out of growing space for the seedlings and Dahlias. Order has been restored, by converting the greenhouse dining table to the seedling and dahlia table.

Seedlings are being pricked out, and combinations of plants are in individual containers.

I tried mixing combinations of seedlings for the first time last year (with mixed success) This year Cosmos and Ammi majus seedlings will be individually potted on, and not be included in the mixed containers. Sadly they were swamped out by other seedlings. Live, try and learn, is always a good moto.

5. JOBS FOR THE MONTH OF MAY

Finish preparing all the ornamental and vegetable seed beds, AND sow all the hardy annual flowers in the new cut flower bed.
Finish sowing all seeds that need to be started off in the greenhouse
Start and finish, hardening off non hardy annuals, to enable planting outside at the beginning of June.
Set out the tomatoes and cucumbers in the greenhouse
Start my no dig veg plot.
Spend time, watching the fledgling birds in the garden and the house martins building their nests ( not really a job, just a wonderous thing )

6. COMPOSTING AND FERTILIZING

My nettle tea ( for the garden plants ) is fermenting away well, it stinks, only four more weeks to go, and then I can strain in, and use it. ( please note the lid was replaced swiftly after the image was taken) I have looked into why nettle tea is not too good for peas and beans, from what I can work out, nettle tea is nitrogen enriched, which would lead to greater plant growth, rather than fruit formation in these plants. I will need to think of something else to feed them then.

Last weekend, I took delivery of a wormery resuce kit from http://www.wigglywigglers.co.uk It arrived really swiftly. I am now filling my wormery bin with a mix of kitchen food waste and cardboard, and paper . It is going to take a couple of months to get my wormery to produce the liquid fertilizer to feed the plants in my garden. In the meantime I cannot tell you how great it is to actually have the wormery working again. Particularly as I no longer dump my kitchen food waste in the bin. I am so happy with my rescue kit.

7. ANY OTHER JOBS/ANYTHING ELSE ( WEB SITES OF NOTE )

Great websites of note –

These are such great courses providers, and at present, there are daily discussions with experts in the field of landscape design, horticulture, floristry. independent nurseries and florists amongst other thing. On line courses are also available to book – go to http://www.gardenmasterclass.org

8. MY WORKING LIFE

A stream side shady border, was my Monday afternoon workplace.