This is an old photo of GH2 as pictures speak louder than words. GH2 has been there for 40+ years.
Its on a concrete base - no soil. There are beds on 3 sides.
Initially, the beds were lined with clear plastic to hold water, and topped with a layer of gravel. I grow tomatoes and cucumbers in open bottomed, "ring culture" pots that sit on the gravel beds, sending their roots into the gravel for water. You add feed to the pots but water to the gravel.
At the end of the season, I've been emptying the soil in the pots onto the gravel. At some point, I cleared out all the gravel and soil and started again, just using a plastic liner and a layer of compost (no gravel). After many years or emptying the old compost into the beds, they are about 6" deep, enough to grow beetroot, lettuce etc in.
This year, for whatever reason, the tomatoes in GH2 have been very poor and there have been lots of ants in the soil. I've decided to empty the soil out of the bed on the right (the sunny side) and line it with the wool insulation that I'm collecting. This will hold the water. I'll put some coir & compost on top of the insulation then move the supermarket crates (with their seedling salads) into the GH over winter. In spring I'll start again with ring culture pots and hope for a better season next year.
This area behind the post box. Is getting fenced, because the sheep & deer haven’t read the RHS website saying they don’t eat daffodils . I’ve got quite a few foxgloves in there as well. I’m going to add more . I now need to grow lots of other things in there so there’s some all year round interest. But because it’s already planted with a huge number of daffodils I need things I can grow from seed so I can plant small things without disturbing or damaging the bulbs. I need it to look after its self , fight off weeds because it won’t be that easy to get into once it’s fenced.
I’m thinking shorter plants so they don’t fall over in the wind, but open to any suggestions.
This year all I did was strim it once. Because the only thing in there was grass and rushes and the foxglove seed heads.
I’ve added a thick layer of wood chip. To hopefully help suppress some of the weeds. I’ll add more once fence is up because it is a favourite spot for dogs to stand and say hi to our 2 hooligans. So a lot of the wood chip has been moved.
Would planting annuals every year after the daffodils work ? Would you go with perennials?
It’s kinda the first thing people see. So needs to be loud and impressive. Now I’ll settle for more impressive than wood chip & weeds.
Had an odd start to the day yesterday. Short version. A trip to the bright lights of Oban with a deliberate 20 mile ride in the wrong direction to start. Don’t ask, long, not very interesting story .
Anyway while sat in a bus shelter in the middle of nowhere
I had some visitors.
Road signs are excellent scratching posts.
The rest of the herd was a bit further up the road causing chaos with the traffic as they do every day.
Actually it’s not the cows that cause the problem it’s all the tourists that stop their cars in the middle of the road to photograph them that cause the problems.
I'm already thinking about some radical changes for next year. I think this is an annual event, which gets thoroughly forgotten in the first flush of excitement of sowing in the spring.
I hope to reduce the work involved in the garden. P isn’t as able as he once was and I'm past my sell by date I'm planning to drastically reduce the number of tomatoes I grow. Reduce the toms in both the gh and outside. Although i love growing them the freezer isn’t big enough, plus the amount of 'from scratch' cooking I do is getting less and less. I also don't think that I need 6+ cucumber plants, that's just ridiculous for two of us. Same goes for 10+ courgettes/squash. The 4 or 5 courgettes sown in July after my faux pas with the sprayer, are producing more than enough fruit for two of us.
This year I grew mainly DFB with just one row (instead of 3 or 4 rows) of CFB, which weren't that successful as it turned out. I put up a 15ft long 'A' frame with MT one side and CFB the other. The principle worked reasonably well, the baking weather at the wrong time did not. The DFB were fine early on but then succumbedto drought or summat so weren't keen on producing a second flush.
I say it every year but next season I'm going to try and concentrate on successional growing and sow courgettes and beans in two batches. If I reduce the gh plants I may be able to keep a potting station active all year in the gh. Usually I fill up the gh's then haven't got a flat space to sow, prick out etc.
The upshot is, fewer cucs, toms, beans and courgettes. I wonder how much of this I will achieve.
Planning ahead and would like some suggestions please. 24 Small gifts to fill this advent calendar
Stocking and mittens are about 10cm x 5cm (4”x2.5” ) .
The gifts are for Bob. So boys toys . I found out last year. That Bob has never had an advent calendar. My tiny mind was blown!
So ideas I’ve had so far. Probably half of them will just be filled with chocolates. Was thinking marbles, a car , small antiques like ornaments , pill box, thimble. I’ve all ready got a very unusual tiny China frog. And a hand blown glass flamingo (on its way). Fishing lure, Was going to try to find a nice shell and stone off the beach. And probably nick some of his pz2’s (screw driver bits) out of his garage ( he’ll never notice a couple are missing) . Possibly a selection of screws as well .
What gifts would you put in an advent calendar for a man shaped kid
I’m going to the bright lights of Oban on Wednesday and hitting the charity shops.
I'm curious about winter cover crops, grown to protect bare soil over winter and to improve the soil in some way as a bonus.
I've been reading the info on https://www.sowseeds.co.uk/blogs/sow-see...een-manure and am still confused!
Does anyone here grow any of these seeds and can help me choose?
I don't fancy growing a grass seed like rye as I hate grass and have a fear of it taking over. Same with clover.
Don't want to grow anything that needs to be dug in/turned in/mown as I'm too lazy.
Ideally it would be something that dies in spring, or after a frost (assuming we have one).
As a bonus, it would be edible in some way while it was growing.
It's already too late for some crops like carrots, but there's plenty you can sow for harvesting over winter if you grow under cover. I don't grow everything on this chart e.g. minutina, cress or rocket.
The tiers separate crops by how reliable they are to grow during that part of the year, though I disagree with lettuce or chard being unreliable (yes, a lot of lettuce usually conks out from root rot some time in January/February, but chard is a trooper and carries on until April).
My ranking (from best to worst) would be: chard, spinach, parsley, kale, lettuce, claytonia, coriander, mizuna, mibuna, komatsuna, pak choi, tatsoi. Even the 'worst' crops still provide you with a decent harvest over winter, they just go to seed quickly if we have a warm February.
I've not yet managed to get spring onions to a reasonable size to harvest during winter, but varieties like Winter White Lisbon will stay outside happily through utterly rubbish weather and then provide you with excellent harvests in spring.
Parsley isn't on this chart, but I grow it and coriander in the greenhouse over winter very successfully.
Outdoors I only grow lamb's lettuce, spring cabbages, overwintering Japanese-type onions and spring onions.
Posted by: JJB - 12-08-2024, 09:32 AM
- Replies (6)
I have 2 veg patches with a say 1.5m (5ft) grass path between. Among other things (sweetcorn, onions & courgettes) there's a row of DFB. This morning about 9am I walked around to check on things and in the middle of the grass path was an uprooted DFB. It had come from about 3ft in from the end of the row and was deposited in line with the row of beans. I think it might have happened during the morning rather than overnight as it hadn't wilted much. It wasn't nibbled and beans were attached and untouched. I'm puzzled. I'm wondering whether pigeon, bunny or cat might have got entangled. There are no other sign of nibbling so I don't think I've got another rabbit.
. I’ve got quite a few foxgloves in there as well. I’m going to add more . I now need to grow lots of other things in there so there’s some all year round interest. But because it’s already planted with a huge number of daffodils I need things I can grow from seed so I can plant small things without disturbing or damaging the bulbs. I need it to look after its self , fight off weeds because it won’t be that easy to get into once it’s fenced. 
.
I'm planning to drastically reduce the number of tomatoes I grow. Reduce the toms in both the gh and outside. Although i love growing them the freezer isn’t big enough, plus the amount of 'from scratch' cooking I do is getting less and less. I also don't think that I need 6+ cucumber plants, that's just ridiculous for two of us. Same goes for 10+ courgettes/squash. The 4 or 5 courgettes sown in July after my faux pas with the sprayer, are producing more than enough fruit for two of us.
