Hot Bed

When we demolished the shed we saved as much wood as we could ( don't like to see any waste!) with the intention of making cold frames and raised beds . During the prolonged cold spring we made  a start.

The sides were made from old walls - easy enough to cut to size and the sides of the cold frames just cut through at the angle we wanted the cold frame cover to be.

The covers were simple frames that we covered with reinforced polythene kindly donated by Rob as a by- product of the building of Cordwood . www.sustainablegarden.blogspot.co.uk

April 2013

With what was left we made a " hot bed" - the sides about 2 feet high and filled with a mixture of manure, leaf mould and compost. The idea is to generate heat from below as the contents rot down and the plants get a good boost. We set seed in this bed - salad leaves, herbs, salad onions and beetroot and the results have been great, we have been picking leaves and herbs for nearly a month with plenty more to come.

Hot bed   - April 2013

The cold frames have really helped us get tomatoes, courgettes, squash and other tender plants off to an early start . The other cold frame we have used to plant up squash to see if it helps bring fruiting on earlier; one of the problems we have always had is the short growing and ripening season for squash.So in this bed we have put - Crown Prince, Golden Hubbard and Musquee de Provence, and because they are in a frame I have been checking for female flowers and giving them a helping hand to pollinate- just in case the bees don't find them!

May Sunshine

I know it's a long time since I last (I want to say set pen to paper! ) wrote an entry on the blog, but we haven't been idle in the allotment or garden. The first of May is officially the beginning of summer and the weather rose to the occasion- lovely and sunny although a slightly chilly breeze. After such a cold start to spring I reckon the gardens are about 3 to 4 weeks behind last year. The weather has been so cold there have been hardly any flying insects to pollinate the plants so it's just as well they weren't out sooner.
Our new cordon fruit trees are just beginning to shoot and in the garden the greengages and cherry are flowering; and luckily we seem to have an influx of pollinators -a mixture of bumble bees, solitary bees and other flying insects. This year of course we have no hives in the garden but still have seen some honey bees.

The spring time is my favourite season in the garden, I love to see the fresh new growth and early flowers. This year we are rejuvenating a couple of areas in the garden and have made some changes in the allotment, of which I am aiming to get up to date with soon on the blog! 

Cordon Fruit Trees

For Christmas this year we bought ourselves fruit trees- last year at the Southwell Apple Day we had been tempted by two apple trees, so it seemed a good idea to add some pears as well and build a frame work to grow them as cordons. The frame is simply made with fence posts with wire at 2 foot heights .

Cordons are grown at a 45 degree angle and the spurs are kept pruned so the trees only fruit on these short   spurs along the trunk. If possible the tree should face north or east to encourage the short spurs to turn to the sun, so obviously tip fruiting trees are unsuitable as each year the growing tips will be removed. Pruning is carried out in August time, the spurs are cut back to either 2 buds- or about 4 inches long. The growing tip is rubbed out when the tree is between 6-8 ft and kept this height.

The trees are supported by bamboo canes at about 3 feet apart. The pears we got were bare rooted so we put them in straight away, but the apple have been in containers so these will go in during the next week or so .

The pears are on Quince C root stock and the apples on M9- we choose Beurre Hardy and Concorde pears- these give different fruiting qualities, will help to pollinate each other and spread out the harvesting time.The apples are Pixie- a small fruited apple but with a good flavour and Reinette d'Orleans - a heritage variety that has a russet look to it, apparently it can be variable fruiting but the flavour was great so we thought it would be worth a try.

Compost Corner

The recent wet weather has meant we have been unable to get on the ground at the allotment so we are pleased that the compost bays were complete before a stream began to flow through the middle of the plot.

There are four bays allowing for rotation and turning, leaves are delivered to the allotments in the autumn and these along with layers of manure compost down in about a year or so. Leaves on their own give good soil conditioner but not much nutrition so mixing them with manure gives a good all round finished compost.

In to the other bays and 2 black bins go annual weeds, trimmings and prunings and some of the compostable rubbish from home. Along with the wormery we are doing fairly well in cutting down what we ahve to throw away!

Wormery

I have long promised myself a wormery and as the compost bin in the garden was on the verge of collapse it seemed the perfect time to get a wormery to put in the garden to cope with the waste we produce in the kitchen. So I ordered a wormery from Wiggly Wigglers (www.wigglywigglers.co.uk) and this week I have set it up! It fits neatly next to the recycling bins, is easy to to set up and the worms are fascinating. Most of the things that we would put on the compost can go in, as well as things like dust from the vacuum cleaner.

Adding worms!

When the worms have settled in it is OK to start adding waste. Not too much to start with, the worms need a chance to get going - but to keep the wormery fresh it is a good idea to add crushed egg shells or lime mix regularly to stop everything getting too acid. We keep a caddy in the kitchen to collect the waste so it is more convenient to go to the wormery when that is full. An important spin off to getting lovely compost to use in the garden or allotment is that the worms produce liquid feed that can be drained off and diluted to water on the fruit and veg!

Worm Cafe in use

Beeing Busy

Well the weather doesn't know what to do- it's cold and wet and it looks like the bees don't know what to do either!
We thought that we had them under control- but life finds a way to show you it has a mind of it's own.
We knew that because of circumstance 2 hives had not been rechecked to ensure the bees had not tried to make emergency queen cells from larvae that is too old, but hoped that they would raise the one cell we had left and knock down the others. But no- too much to ask - they had obviously raised more because last Wednesday we had a swarm- a beauty, which luckily Rob spotted and tracked and we were able to collect.

What I don't understand though is why the bees in our garden hive raised a queen cell on the frame of egg and brood we had put in with the old queen when we did the artificial swarm- this had been checked and seemed fine, not drawing the comb very vigorously even though they had plenty of stores and there were lots of bees in the hive. They capped the queen cell and the old queen swarmed., in the garden the bees don't seem to go far- they were easy to catch, but made us realise that maybe the garden is not the place for them.

All equipment having been used, these bees went back in the hive they came from with a queen excluder under the brood box after knocking out the queen cell and checking there were no more. We will see what they do now- they are filling the 2 supers up, hopefully they put some effort into developing a strong colony as well.

March Pollen

Today in the garden there were bees collecting pollen from the Hellebores, Hazel, Snowdrops, Christmas Box and maybe pollen and nectar from the Viburnum, neighbours have winter heather in flower so I'm sure they will have found that as well!

Maybe not the best focus, but it's tricky getting the catkins and the bees to keep still!!

Figs

I was given a recipe recently for Fig, Honey and Thyme Tart- it looked tasty and being keen to try my honey in recipes I decided to give it a try. However, I could not get my hands on any figs, I made the tart with blackberries as we have been picking them for some weeks. The tart was lovely. At the top of our garden we have had a Brown Turkey fig tree for a few years- it often tempts us with some tiny,green figs- but they never come to anything, dropping off way before they are ready.

So, imagine how suprised I was when I was checking on the bees and whether the apples were ready to pick,when I spied not one but two brown figs!!

They were soon eaten and were absolutely delicious!

Garden Orchids

In common with the rest of my family I like to grow orchids- both more exotic ones in the house and hardy ones in the garden. This year I wasn't sure how they would respond after having been moved and disturbed during our garden redesign. But they don't seem to have been too badly affected, although the dry weather is probably having an effect which may reveal itself as the year progresses.

The Trilliums in the garden have also done well despite the transplanting- I particularly like the way this Grandiflora changes to a dark pink before it fades away.