Finally a hint of summer, the rain has stopped. The disturbed spring may now lurch straight into summer. With caution, planting out can begin, but unfortunately the slugs and snails have done very well with the wet spring so caution is required. Still, the first days without rain are welcome. Time to turn out the …Read More about June: Straight into summer
Composting
Winter harvest
The first part of each year is the lean time in the garden unless you have over wintering crops. Broad bean, onions and garlic make up the bulk of this garden’s winter crops, along with salads, chard and spinach in containers. Over winter crop are the lazy gardeners favourite as they requires a lot less …Read More about Winter harvest
Change in the weather
After 2 weeks of heatwave conditions the weather has now plunged into rain and overcast conditions and looks set to stay that way for next 2 weeks. While this is good for direct sowing lettuce seed in beds and containers, it is not so good for planting out young plants. Those already out will take …Read More about Change in the weather
Summer’s end compost
For many gardeners this time of year is actually the start of the annual growing cycle. Clearing away this summer’s crops to the compost bin and digging out the finished compost from last year’s garden waste starts the cycle for next year. With an abundance of green material from the garden (tomatoes, beans, cucumber, courgettes, …Read More about Summer’s end compost
Recycling potting soil
What do you do with your old potting soil? The current heatwave is a good opportunity to turn dry dusty old soil into a useful mineral rich medium for use in next month’s winter planting. Ideally is to mix this new medium with matured home made compost but if that is not available then the …Read More about Recycling potting soil
Feeding the garden
Making your own compost in the garden requires the space for a compost bin, with space beside it to turn over the compost (2 square metres). Using a simple process a compost bin can provide half a cubic metre of rich humus each year, excellent for feeding a raised bed or for filling pots and …Read More about Feeding the garden