Along the South Side of my triangle veg garden is a 6 foot (2metre)
bank.
It’s the remnants of a large world war two air raid shelter which was partly dismantled and in recent years, covered in layers of rubble and soil dumped by local houses that have access to the site. Dumped illegally, the bank has increased in height and is encroaching onto the main path, blocking my winter light.
The air raid footprint is larger than my allotment and is a no mans land, colonised by a mass of small trees, bushes, brambles, ivy, nettles and hardy weeds. Although it’s a mess, its where the local wild things live. I have a love/hate relationship with the bank.
By the end of each year the brambles, nettles and ivy have crept down the bank and are encroaching on the path. The bushes and trees multiply and small saplings grown and start to loom and begin to shade my garden.
Luckily for me, most years in February, my friend Shanti
comes to stay and pushes the wild back up the bank, creating a new compost with
the trimmings.
Every year we pull a section backwards, lowering the height and changing the angle of the slope to minimise the winter shade. This year we began forming a stick hedge 3 foot (a metre) back from the top to keep the brambles in check.
The bank project – a long job, because there are only a few short weeks each February to concentrate on this – we are about half way through.
I hate having a fruit cage, but the dam pigeons and parakeets will eat everything I grow if I don’t have one. I don’t use fine net as it keeps out and sometimes traps the smaller beneficial birds, and I like having blackbirds, wrens, robins and bluetits eating the caterpillars and other unwanted wrigglies in exchange for the small amount of fruit they eat.
The fruit cage – bleurgh, it’s an inconvenience, getting in the way when I use the wheelbarrow or if I’m pruning as well as a bit of an eye saw but needs must!
Summer of 17 was yet another record hot summer, and the blackcurrants and redcurrants over heated and cooked on the bush, turning to uneatable mush. What with manic watering and planting going on elsewhere I didn’t realise till it was too late and even though I put up a shade net, most of the fruit was unharvestable.
This year I
have a plan!
So I’ve taken down the hodge podge of plastic netting I normally use and put up a new net. Reinforced with wire and strong struts I’m going to try and use it as a pea frame as well as a fruit net.
The new netting, The fruit bushes inside the cage, Outside with the peas planted against the mesh, The path inside the cage.
Early Mangetout peas can easily grow 8 foot (2.5 metres) and if they like growing up this net then they will provide the shade I want to create to keep the fruit from overheating.
Compared to my old mess of plastic mesh, this new netting looks rather smart! Thats a win.
This year I was lucky to be given a huge pile of logs and wood chips. Yipee! They make a great mulch for more or less everything. I’ve always thought of wood chips as lazy compost – my clay based soil loves them and I’m always very happy to have them. It takes a year or so for them to rot into the soil, leaving the top few inches loose and friable and really easy to work. Clay based soil can absorb massive amounts of compost and can be heavy, wet and cold. It has a reputation of being difficult and heavy, but given enough compost it makes a fantastic rich and fruitful soil. Wood chips is compost in the making, so spreading them around my borders and beds means less watering in the summer and less work making compost.
This winter I accumulated far more sticks than usual – too many for my compost heap to cope with. As I don’t have a shredder to make wood chips, I am going to use them directly on the garden as a mulch and see what happens.
I know, not such a
good photo, but best I can do on the fly with a phone.
Parakeet in the oak at the bottom of the garden.
This is a ring-necked parakeet, a parrot! It and a few of its family have taken up residence in the trees at the end of the garden. They used to be just summer visitors, but now we get them all year around. They’re at war with the grey squirrels and the magpies. Squirrels and Parakeets eat a lot of the same food and they like to live in the same holes in the trees. Magpies like the same trees and predate on both the squirrel and the parakeet young. Territory wars with lots of screeching, cackling and calling!
Over the last few years, parakeets visit in soft fruit season, come to feast on the wild cherries that have colonised an abandoned allotment. Cleverer than squirrels, and eventually more numerous than magpies, it will take time, but they will win this war. I’m not sure I like them any more than either squirrels or magpies – very pretty, but what a din!
The South side bank is a bit of a jungle – years of neglect and the dumping of garden waste over the fence means a haven for brambles, nettles, feral trees and anything else that can get itself established. By mid summer its a solid wilderness of scratch and sting!
Me and my wilderness have a love hate relationship. I love that it is home to blackbirds, robins and wrens, as well as feeding ground and hidey holes for hedgehogs, foxes and all sorts of small critters. I hate the creeping invasion of uncontrollable weeds that move over and down the bank and try and creep over the path and into the allotment.
If I’m lucky my friend Shanti comes for a visit in February and clears the bank of all the stuff that has grown since last time. She is a slow and unstoppable force, without drama or noise of machinery, just with a pair of secateurs, loppers and a small fork, she clips, cuts and digs until the wild things move back to a meter or so beyond the top of the bank.
The pile of garden waste that has been building up all summer and the trimmings from the bank all end up in a new compost – this one is made of four pallets tied together into a rough square with old hose pipe.
This Mimosa lives in a pot near the house and is always first to flower in the spring. This year it is looking the best it ever has. It is so lovely to look out of the window and have this glorious burst of yellow so close to the house.
It had grown all thin and spindly so I was brave and gave it a really hard prune after it flowered last year. By hard prune I mean I cut the end third off all the branches as thick as my thumb or thicker. I cut all the other branches to a few inches, leaving only one or two buds. Next it got a good water – I left the pot to soak in a big bucket of water overnight, gave it a good feed with a slow release fertilizer when it had drained and then away it went. Within a few weeks it had burst into a froth of new shoots – all of which are now covered in flowers.
Now I now it responds so well to a hard prune I will do it every year. Lovely.
These broad beans caught my eye and on impulse I bought two packets. The packet says “Heritage variety”. They look fantastic on the packet, but who knows, I’ve never seen this type of broad bean before. The instructions say plant outside Feb, March and April, and that they grow shortish, 3 foot or 90cm with short pods. Today I planted these with the other broad beans in the cold greenhouse in toilet roll inners. I wait and see. If they are half as good at the packet I grow them in the front row of all the broad beans just for the beauty of the flowers.
The fox set over the fence was empty last year and I had a fox cub free summer. This winter a new young vixen has moved in and she is busy making her home ready for the cubs which will be born sometime in March. This is a new exit hole she is digging, a fast escape route under the fence. She is digging along an old elm tree root that has rotted and is an easy dig.
This is quite a hole that she’s digging under the North fence! I’ll wait to see what else she does, then fill the holes with bricks topped off with soil. Then I’ll hammer a series of iron reinforcing rods into the ground about six inches apart and as far as I can get them into the soil. I’ll push some new logs in the gap in the wood pile to hide the rods. This will stop any fox digging in this place again.
It’s a hard life being a fox mother in the city, vixens only live between three and six years. Each vixen that takes over the set attempts to invade my garden, so for the first year or two we have tunnel wars. She’ll try to enlarge her set into my fruit border and create new exit tunnels and I’ll block what she digs. Happy days.
The soil where the fox is digging
The elm tree has been gone for more than 10 years, and the stump has mostly rotted away into the soil. The soil around the remains of the stump is glorious stuff, black and full of worms. The rotted roots dug up by the fox crumbles easily and will soon disappear into the soil with the next rain.
I love Broad beans! Straight from the garden they are sweet and delicious, dried they are fantastic in stews and casseroles. They’re packed full of nutrition and protein which fuels the plants vigorous and energetic growth. Growing tall, depending on what variety, they stand unsupported between 3 and +6 foot or 50 cm to +1 metre and are heavy plants. I find them usually trouble free until aphid season in summer.
Hello! Broad bean plants
Planting unsprouted seeds straight into the ground is risky in my garden, all sorts of resident critters love to eat them! There are field mice, rats, squirrels, hedgehogs, magpies, crows and foxes – and once they know the bean seeds are there, out they come – yum yum! To get around this problem I start mine off in the greenhouse.
Bean planting..
Broad beans have a long tap root and explosive first growth. This tap root need to form well and gets this tall, heavy plant anchored into the soil. Normal pots can be difficult as the plant forms its tap root before the first leaves. Ordinary shape pots just aren’t long enough. This forces the growing tap root to wind around the inside of the pot and the hard end of the pot stops me checking to see when the tap root has reached the bottom so I can’t tell when its time to get them in the ground.To solve this, I use toilet roll centres and plant as soon as the tap root shows at the end.
Here’s a list of what you’ll need to do this
Tray with drainage holes
I’m using ones picket up free from my local vegetable market – I like them because the tray mesh gives good drainage, and short stacking feet allows some air flow under the tray.
Toilet roll centres
I fold mine flat to store then fold them again just before use so they form a square. They fit better in the tray this way.
All my friends save them for me.
Few sheets of kitchen tissue paper
Not too thick, this is only to stop dry compost or soil from falling through the bottom when I fill the rolls, Kitchen roll is easy to remove when I want to check the end to see if the tap root is showing.
Soil to fill the rolls
For broad beans I just use ordinary topsoil. Use a seed or potting compost if that’s what you have – the broad beans won’t care as they don’t grow fine feeding roots straight away.
Bean seeds
This depends on where you are, check what time of year the recommended planting is when you are buying them.
What to do
Line your tray
Fill with empty toilet roll centres
Fill the whole tray so they don’t move about or fall over – you can always leave some empty.
Fill with soil
Soak the whole tray in water until the top of the soil changes colour (goes darker)
I do it this way because I find watering from the top causes the soil to compact and sink to the bottom of the roll and it over wets the soil.
Take the whole tray out of the water and leave to drain – a few hours should do it.
Push your beans into the top of the soil so they are just showing.
I plant mine side on as they go into the soil easier – but I don’t think it really makes any difference.
Some people soak their beans before planting – I don’t find it makes any difference.
Move the tray somewhere light and cover the top of the beans with some soil.
Wait – depending on the temperature, anywhere between a week and three weeks. Don’t let the soil dry out – you can tell this by the paper colour. it should be darker than a dry one. If getting dry, wet with a few drops of water.
Wait a week and then check for roots at the bottom every few days – when one appears all the beans will be ready to plant out together.
The growing tip is very fragile so be really careful when handling
Into the soil
Before planting I use a garden fork to work some compost into the soil, remove any weeds and sprinkle some fertiliser. I’m a fish, blood and bone person, but use what you like.
Broad beans aren’t too fussy although they do like a moist soil when growing, so in a dry year I will water the soil of the area they are to go in a few times before I plant. This makes sure the soil is damp below the surface few inches, which encourages the roots to grow deeper.
Broad beans are usually planted in two close lines (called a double row) with a wider gap before the next two lines. This gives enough space to walk between and pick, and makes sure so each double row has enough light to grow well. I use a bulb planter to make the holes for the rolls.
The planting hole in the soil must be deep enough that the paper of the roll is below the top of the soil, otherwise it will dry out and stunt the young plant, the hole needs to be about 4 inches or 10 cm, with an inch or so of soil above.
I make all my holes first, pop in the rolls and then fill the holes with water before I cover them over. The top of the roll must be an inch or so below the surface of the soil and damp. Once it’s damp and covered and surrounded by soil, the broad bean roots will push it apart and it will quickly rot away. The shoot and first leaves will pop through the soil within a week or so.
Logs, branches and twigs, that most difficult to dispose of garden waste, is what is needed to provide food, shelter and homes for our most loved native birds.
My big ash tree on the east garden boundary was causing problems for next door and has been taken down. I was lucky to be in the garden the day it happened and blagged a huge pile of wood chips, and some of the smaller logs and branches. (Ones I could carry myself!)
I’ve used the logs and branches to refresh the slowly rotting wood pile stacked against the fence behind my magnolia bush. The chips are covering the soil in a cosy layer, protecting the overwintering bulbs and plants.
Here’s an old photo of the original woodpile taken 10 years ago. The Magnolia is so small its hardly visible.
Back boundary 09
This wood pile was created when the garden was cleared of fallen elms that died of dutch elm disease and the remains of an old oak tree top that blew down in the huge storm of 1987. I stacked it along the fence to deter my local fox from digging escape routes all along the boundary. It took a few years for me to notice the effect this had on the bird and insect population, and the garden overall health compared to other allotments in this area.
Over time, as its rotted away I’ve added to the pile. The fruit trees and bushes planted in the back border have grown in size. This new sheltered area has matured into a bird and insect haven. The slowly rotting wood is home and food to uncountable wrigglies of all shapes and sizes, living under, in and on the wood itself. All are food for the birds and hedgehogs that make their home in the garden.
Rotting wood in the wood pile . The blackbird and the hedgehog both scratch away, eating any beetles and grubs they find and scattering the shredded wood into the surrounding soil.
The wren hops quietly in and out of the small spaces, winkling out grubs and beetles from the wood itself with her thin sharp beak, enlarging holes burrowed by grubs and allowing the rain in, which accelerates the rotting. The robin does the same, but also hunts among the vegetable and flower beds for caterpillars, beetles and worms. The blackbird and the hedgehogs are mini compost makers, scratching and turning the crumbling wood into the soil, shredding the rotting areas and digging away in their hunt for insects and grubs. The also take caterpillars, beetles and worms. The blue tits take the seeds from the grasses and flowers as well as insects on the wing, caterpillars and beetles.
There is a predatory pecking order among the wrigglies and bugs themselves. Starting with ting sap sucking bugs and aphids and ending with huge beetles, most of which shelter and overwinter in the wood or amoung the leaf litter and sticks. With somewhere to overwinter and breed, the predators are as numerous as the prey. I suffer far less from aphids and catapillers than next doors more traditional open and well manicured gardens.
Log and stick piles are easy to create, against a fence on a boundary is the ideal place. If you have a wood fence that may rot, then start with a pallet or two, open side against the fence to prevent this happening.
East boundary wood and stick hedge Jan 19
This great wood and stick hedge is along the east boundary of the garden. This hedge started as a pallet fence to hide an ugly view. Now it’s home to a wren and robin family, and a hedgehog. It a great windbreak and keeps the cold east wind out of the garden. The other half is almost entirely grown through with ivy and a Montana clematis, making an attractive ever green hedge.
Ivy growing through the east boundary wood and stick hedge
