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Tag: garden

Dead area. Wood chipped last year. Noon.

Broken old raised bed structure. Stuck together (mostly). Two strips of copper tape on each side to annoy slugs and snails. An hour running the garden shredder to chip all the January pruning waste.

Some considerable time swinging the axe to break up the big logs and branches that don’t fit in the shredder.

Covered in cardboard, that was then soaked with the hosepipe. Then two giant bins of compost were dug out of compost bin 1 and dumped and raked over the top.

Recyclable insulation packs left over from deliveries from my organic produce provider. They will stay on for a month or so. Once they’re off, the compost will have settled down into any voids in the layers underneath, and I’ll know how much more compost I will need to raise the soil level to the top of the sides.

Old hose pipe shoved over bamboo canes to create support for netting. As you can see, the canes turned out to be of very variable thickness, and I need to pick and insert more suitable canes next week. But it’s done, and I can adjust things next month.

And that was my Saturday afternoon. Or just under 9000 steps.

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Just at the end of today’s light: a free gift of three raspberry canes stuck in some dirt.

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24jan24

There we go.

After last year’s disasters, the constant and frankly bizarre pest pressures, and serial storms tearing the place up this year, I expect pretty much nothing to grow in 2024. But I won’t stop me trying.

I’m writing pages, sending pages, and roasting garlic and tomatoes to make chili later. I am absolutely not on top of email.

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I thought I was buying one seed tray with reusable pots. Turns out I bought a pack of ten. Oops. On the other hand, I can wash out these propagator plug holes out and re-use them to destruction. And try a hundred and twenty seeds at once, I suppose.

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It is December 29. The physalis is trying to set fruit. It’s been a mild winter so far, but this is ridiculous.

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18dec23

Note to self – trim the twisted hazel next month!

Entering the last lap of the year – firing off emails that will doubtless be ignored until January 2, summoning up the energy to finish two last rounds of rewrites, and then downing tools and starting our complicated Xmas prep (which involves preparing two different meals at two different locations a hundred miles apart). Dreading the final Xmas food shopping trip, which looks like it will fall on a Saturday, which is the worst possible day for it. Old ladies are already up all night sharpening their elbows in preparation for the supermarket crush.

Apologies to the good people of NORTHERN EARTH, but this is what happens when I find a fine bit in their excellent magazine that I want to save and think on.

Screener season continues. I have already gotten several others, that are probably scattered across the house by now, but this one just arrived. Starting a “screeners” tag so that I can log them when I collect them all up. (Amazon just sent a bunch of codes this year, which is probably smart, but I kind of miss their old elaborate screener boxes.)

Inbox is at 107.

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16dec23

STATUS: GARDEN

Raspberries pruned, strawberries trimmed, blackberries cleaned.

Monstrous climbing rose tamed. Various other roses attacked with blades, also wisteria and buddleia.

Fig tree 1 in the ground.

Fig tree 2 in the ground.

Spiky evil gooseberry planted.

One strawberry runner reached the ground and rooted.

Laurestine viburnum is thriving after a murderous spring prune.

Still haven’t put my Fitbit back on, but that was a solid four hours of cutting and digging.

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Seeds For 2024 Have Arrived

I got an unexpected royalty check and decided to hit the seed catalogues. Note to self: they’re in a bag in the utility room next to the roasting tins. The previous bag is in the utility room drinks cupboard at the back, top shelf, behind that weird vermouth. Now I have amended soil, some clear beds and the garden shredder to clear and mulch the others, I can spend the winter clearing up, rebuilding and pruning, and try lots of stuff next spring.

Next up: shopping for some fig trees, as the one I bought last year did not do anything, to the point where I suspect it arrived as a dead stick in some dirt rather than as a dormant living plant.

Yes, none of these are flowers. Do not tell my partner. I want a little food forest. I think I can probably get most of the way there next year, now I have deeper knowledge of the issues I’m facing on this small patch of the Thames Delta.

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Got given a dormant redcurrant and loganberry, and so I spent a chunk of the afternoon digging holes, digging compost and sticking them in the bed at the back left of the garden. We’ll see how they do.

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