More eccentric gardening .....

I've just spent a happy hour outside in the garden, planting Borlotti bean and sweetcorn seeds for the allotment as well as putting the tumbling toms into their hanging baskets in the garden.

I've used Craftygeek's suggestion from my previous post 'Water Problem' of planting bean seeds in toilet roll tubes. Once the seeds have sprouted, I'll plant them complete with the tube in the hope it will encourage nice deep roots and also help the rather dry, clay soil absorb moisture a bit more effectively.

Here at the Kitchen we are very fond of our tumbling toms. Xanthe has always loved toddling around outside plucking fresh, sun warmed tomatoes off the vine and will scoff them til her chin gets sore from the dribbly juice. The main problem I've found is the amount of watering needed, tomatoes are a thirsty crop at the best of times, let alone when planted in minimal soil and subjected to drying wind from all sides.

Last year I had a problem in that the frequent watering led to the top of the soil in the hanging baskets developing a hard, dry 'crust', I presume it's a kind of lime scale from the minerals etc in our hard water. This meant that when I watered the baskets the water had a tendency to run off over the edges rather than sink into the soil.

This year I've attempted to solve the problem by sinking bottles with the bottoms cut off into the soil so that the water can get down under the surface, plus I'm going to make a mulch of some sort to try and prevent the crust building up. I got the idea from our immaculately groomed neighbour who made a 'mulch' of carefully arranged miniature slate pieces over the top of her tumbling tom hanging baskets which look quite beautiful.

However, I'm not sure that I want the expense of buying a sack full of slate chippings only to use a handful. Plus, the idea of growing your own is to save money isn't it? I was thinking of the rather cheaper option of spreading grass clippings over the top of the baskets. I mean, that won't look eccentric will it? Old Diet Coke bottles poking out through the mouldering clippings? No, thought not. Not that I particularly care, you know my mantra by now, I'm not a keen gardener, I'm a keen eater. Now I just need to persuade Adam to mow the lawn. I fear this mulch may take some time .....

Winter Preparations for the Garden.

Ugh, it's definitely winter. Poor old chooks are feeling very disgruntled. Digby is pictured listing her demands for winter which, judging by her expression, I'm guessing include a wood burner in the coop and some cosy slippers. Feathers has responded in a slightly more despondent fashion and has commenced moulting once more. I don't think this is the smartest move at the onset of winter but I'm not sure there's much I can do about it. I do feel sorry for her though, with her little baldy head getting all wet.

I have taken pity of them to a certain extent and bought 2m of clear polythene from the garden centre and pinned it over the run to shelter them from the worst of the weather. Sadly, the hemcore on the floor of the run has been well and truely soaked with today's persistent rain so that will need to be cleared out for maximum avian comfort (woodburners aside).

The borlotti beans are more than ready to harvest so once the rain stops I'll get that done which just leaves the Jerusalem artichokes in the ground. My plan is to chop the artichoke stems down as they seem to be dieing back but I'll leave the chokes in the ground and just dig them up as needed. Last year I seem to remember scraping snow of the ground in my efforts to get at them.

I'm enjoying my mizuna crop which tastes something akin to rocket. I've planted the mini greenhouse with winter salad, pak choi and tatsoi, all of which seem to be flourishing for the time being. I've also replanted the Grand Radish Project of 2009. Older readers may remember my initial radish crop was decimated by caterpillars while we were on holiday in August. The winter radishes have sprouted and need thinning, I'm not sure how long they'll survive, they were sown in a fit of optimism when we were having a warm September so fingers crossed.

Next on the list is getting to grips with the bokashi compost system and rejuvenating the soil over winter.

Run it up the Beanpole and see who salutes it.

My two little projects are coming on well. The front garden project is mainly flourishing, as you can see the Borlotti beans have finally got the bit between their teeth and raced up the beanpole. In fact 2 delicate shoots are wobbling precariously several inches above the beanframe, clinging to each other like acrophobic maidens. The Butternut squash is thundering along too in a heavy weight kind of way, however, the petit pois seem have given up the ghost and fainted clean away.

The Grand Radish Project goes from strength to strength, not only are the plants loving it, I am too. Thinning out, watering and generally keeping an eye on what's going on with them is so much easier at a higher level.

My Aunty Carol is a fan of Starbucks and has been collecting their 'grounds for your garden' for me. These are the used coffee grounds which they bag up and give away for free. I've done a little research and, apparently, coffee grounds are best used as a 'side dressing' (for the plants, not your salad) which means they are heaped on the ground about 2" away from the plants. So that's what I've spent this afternoon doing, carefully piling the coffee grounds around the base of any veggies with a reasonable amount of space around them. I'll report back on how effective it is.

I've also got my eye on the local Rowan berries as I'm going to try my hand at Rowan jelly for the first time this year. The berries look ripe although it's a bit early, in fact Richard Mabey's book recommends harvesting in October! I would prefer to wait a little longer til the apples are ripe as I need those for the jelly too, although I wonder how many berries will be left in a month's time given how greedy my arch nemesis, those pesky local sparrows, are.

I won the battle, bring on the war!

Since I beefed up the anti-sparrow measures in the front garden the sparrow family seem to have disappeared (fingers crossed) I'm still a bit concerned though as the Borlotti beans have gone crazy and are now towering above the netting stretched around the bottom of the bean frame. The largest bean whose main growth shoot was broken off has surprised me by sending up another shoot which has taken over where the other one left off. All this means that there are now lots of tender, tasty shoots looking all naked and vulnerable around the bean frame. I'm just hoping the sparrows don't make an opportunistic raid and spot them, I'm sure they'd move back in like a shot if the food supply resumed.

The butternut squash is also doing well. I've done a little research on how I can expect the plant to grow and I'm reasonably confident that it can trail across the lawn where it will plenty of room. My plan is to feed it diligently as I'm a tad concerned about the small amount of ground it's growing in.

I've spent this morning thinning out my radish and coriander seedlings. I feel horribly guilty about ripping these tiny lives out of the ground and condemning them to a premature death (not sure I'm emotionally robust enough for this gardening lark) so I do my best to make use of them. The radish seedlings were donated to the chickens who wolfed them down in seconds (no tussling with finer feelings there) and the coriander seedlings have been saved to be used in the same way as grown up coriander.