Tree Planting

A few days ago I succumbed to buying three fruit trees from a well known budget supermarket. I rarely buy plants, preferring to beg borrow or steal cuttings/seeds/seedlings from friends and acquaintances. However this time I was tempted. I've always had a dream of having my own garden and promised myself I'd plant lots of fruit trees. I wouldn't normally recommend anyone to buy these budget plants, they often aren't worth the money. Only time will tell if these ones prove to be worth buying. If you're going to buy budget plants you'll have to spend quite a bit of time nurturing them. These trees are cheap for 3 reasons that I can see (and possibly some others I can't see)
One, they aren't very straight which is not really a big deal.
Two it's a bit late in the planting season, they are about to leaf out and won't have a lot of time to get their new roots established before the leaves start needing lots of moisture
and Three, they have very little root. Now, this IS  a big deal. In general a plant can have seriously scruffy/damaged top growth and still do well. A plant with damaged or little root system will struggle.

So, I planted them really well and carefully and I will have to water them really well all summer because they will take that long to establish even a half decent root system.

First I dug a big, deep hole and loosened the soil in the bottom of the hole with a fork

I then put the chopped up turves back in the bottom and sides of the hole. Turf is rich in nutrients and organic matter and will help to retain moisture and provide nutrients, both essential on our poor, freely drained soil.

Here is the pathetic root system that will need constant watering during any dry spells this summer. I will also keep the area around the tree weed free to avoid any competition from other plants and probably mulch it with some organic matter as well.

Tree planted and staked. Short stakes are thought to be best these days. The stem is perfectly able to hold itself up, the stake is simply there to stop the roots from rocking. If the tree had been pot grown or had a well established root system and had been in a sheltered spot it wouldn't even need a stake really. I've also left the soil level a little below the lawn which will make it easier to keep weed free and make sure that when it's watered the water will all stay where it's needed.

You can see the bend in the tree in this shot. I've planted it with the bend towards the prevailing wind, hoping that this will help it to straighten up. One of the others is even more bent, I might give it a cane to encourage it to grow a bit straighter for the first summer.

I've also taken the label off and will write down in my 'book of the garden' what the varieties are, and if I get round to it I'll make a more permanent punched metal label for it. These plastic labels don't last long.

The woodland

It's January and the winter has been a constant stream of wet and windy weather so far. The garden is battered but surviving. Gardening has mostly consisted dashing out on the occasional dry days to clear bits of new border to plant up the stuff I've been bringing down here from Devon. A few spring bulbs are showing which is helping to keep my spirits up!
In the corner of our new garden is a cluster of trees that I rather grandly call our woodland. Within it is a small clearing for a bonfire and some other areas where I will be planting up drifts of woodland plants. Sitting by our little bonfire/firepit area is the spot in the garden where I feel most peaceful. It makes me realise that woodlands are my spiritual home. I will be planting lots more trees and shrubs in our little bit of woodland, both as a windbreak against the powerful SW winds that rage across our garden and also to make the little woodland even more secret and magical.




These photos were taken back in summer/early autumn, when we still knew what sunshine was.

First harvests

It's nearly two months on from my last post and things are growing better than I expected in the vegetable garden. It has been a lovely mild autumn down here and we have been harvesting kale and chard for several weeks now.

Chard plants a few weeks ago

 ..and this kale is called Red Russian kale and has grown much faster than some of the others I sowed. I let it flower every year and save my own seed, and if I don't get to it in time it happily self seeds everywhere. Its down side is that it's not as hardy as some of the other varieties of kale, and in the middle of winter it looks really sad and scruffy and stops growing, but has another flush of growth in the spring. Brassicas are supposed to be difficult plants to save your own seed from because they will cross breed readily with and other brassicas in the area, so I'm not sure why this one seems to come so true from seed.

Red Russian Kale

The vegetable garden area looks a bit like a proper vegetable garden already. About half of it is roughly dug over and the old turf has mostly been killed quite well by the thick grass mulch.

A few of the old seeds didn't germinate, but most did. We've eaten most of the radish, there are tiny thyme plants, parsley just about ready to harvest and one lonely rocket plant! I have transplanted sweet williams, pansies, hollyhocks and evening primroses into the flower beds and there are lots of different kinds of kale plants coming on to keep us in kale through the winter. There are also some broad bean plants, a few hardy peas (the seed was a bit old and only 3 germinated) and some winter onion sets. I Because I only have a small area cultivated but want lots of variety I have mostly only sown 12 inch rows of each plant, and if lots come up I thin them or transplant into spaces elsewhere. It's so easy to be swamped by 60 hollyhocks or 20 kale plants, and really, I only need 5 or 6 of each.

A lovely purple kale I haven't grown before
(can't remember its name!)

And finally here's a general view of the veg garden looking lovely and green in the sunshine a few days ago.

Seedlings germinating

Even though I have been sowing seeds all my life I still get excited when little green shoots start popping out of the ground. There is something very magical about burying tiny little seeds in the ground and seeing them transform into plants. Many of these seeds have been sitting in a tin in a drawer at home for months if not years, some I was given and many are past their 'sow by' date.

The first radish, about 3 days after sowing!

One rule of seed sowing is to try and sow them thinly. This avoids having to thin them later and is more economical on seed. I know it’s easy to say, and, even after all these years I still sow stuff too thickly, I’m as guilty as everyone. So this is a ‘Don’t do as I do. Do what I tell you to do’ rule! 

My excuse on this occasion is that most of these are old seeds. Some have even been salvaged from chewed packets in peoples sheds, and some are seeds I’ve saved myself and which I therefore haven’t had to pay for. So I sowed most of them a little too thickly, and now have to thin them.

Radish a few days later

I wouldn’t normally thin radish, but because I have too little garden and too much time at the moment I have thinned them a little. The are also likely to be the first thing that I will be able to harvest so if I thin them a little they are more likely to reach maturity quickly. (we don't even like radish much, but it will be our first crop so we will eat them anyway!!)

kale before thinning

kale after thinning

chard before thinning

chard after thinning

Even now, after thinning, they are still far too close together and will need to be thinned again. In fact I did transplant a few which I wouldn't normally bother to do but I have lots of space and not a huge variety of crops because winter is on the way. I made a point of watering them really well before and after transplanting and also transplanted them the day before lots of rain was due so nature watered them in for me, and she does a much better job than I do….particularly here in Cornwall it seems?

It is always a good idea to water seedlings well both before and after thinning. Plants will take at least 3 or 4 hours to soak up water so give them a good soaking well in advance, even the day before. 

When I had an allotment that was 3 miles away and which I only got to about twice a week I would sow a lot of stuff in trays at home where I could keep an eye on it and give my seedlings a good start in life. Starting stuff in seed trays, in my opinion, is a lot of work. Now that my veg garden is outside the door I will be sowing as much as possible directly into the ground where plants can search out water and nutrients with their own wide-spreading roots and  nature will look after them, with help from me during dry spells.

The vegetable garden

As we have a huge amount of grass and therefore grass clippings I decided to put them to good use to kill off/mulch the new vegetable garden.
I marked out the area and we piled the first lot of grass clipping on to it about a month ago. It seems to have worked well because not only do they block out the light but they heat up too. Last week covered the next section by laying out all our many empty cardboard boxes, with all the plastic tape stripped off, and piled the clippings on top of those. It will be interesting to see if there is much difference.

Nearest half just grass clippings,
furthest half cardboard and grass clippings

I try to avoid digging as much as possible but the edges were rather untidy so I tidied them up by turning the turf over.

Vince then got very enthusiastic and started clearing back the original clippings and turning the almost dead turf over.

Then I rummaged through my seed tin and sowed some seeds. Very exciting!

It's not the best time of year to be sowing stuff but there are quite a few things that can go in now. I've sowed some kale. It's a bit late really, but if we get a mild autumn ...this is Cornwall after all... they might get going. I also sowed chard which may not get big enough to eat this autumn but will be ready to get going early next year. If we do get some cold weather (below -4/5) I'll give them some protection with some glass or fleece.
I sowed some thyme, just because I had some seeds, and today I'm planning to sow a few Sweet Williams for flowers next year and some parsley, although I think the seed's a bit old so it may not grow. Some seed, notably brassicas (the cabbage family) will keep for years, some, like parsnips ands parsley won't germinate very well at all after a year or tow. I'll do a separate post about seeds/saving and viability sometime.
I'm a great believer in using what you have so when I took on my first Devon allotment I had a access to some mouldy hay and used that to mulch the areas I wasn't cultivating to start with. Another allotment I started was mainly covered with old carpet to start with. I'm a great believer in starting with a small area and not trying to get the whole area under cultivation at once. Ultimately the veg garden will probably be about twice the size of the currently mulched bit, but it will be two or three years until it's all properly under cultivation. Gardening isn't something that should be rushed.
The long term plan is to have no dig (or minimal dig) beds. Here is my current allotment in Devon, and this is what the veg beds will look like eventually.

New Garden in Cornwall

We have moved down to Cornwall, and with the house comes an almost blank canvas of garden. There is a large area of grass, a few shrubs dotted around the edges and a small area of what could loosely be called woodland. It's the first time in my life I've moved into a property that's actually mine and where I'm planning to stay for a long time. The nearest I've come to this in the past is having an allotment for about 10 years (which I still have.... in Devon) and owning a property in France for about 5 years, where I started creating a garden but then had to give up and leave all my plants behind.
I decided I'd like to start a blog documenting the development of the garden from scratch, partly as a record for myself, and partly to share my experiences and successes and failures with others. Hopefully, having been a professional gardener and also a keen hobby gardener for over 25 years, there will be more success's than failures!
I am planning to spend as little money as possible on the garden, mostly growing plants from cuttings and seeds and scrounging bits of plants from family and friends. I have some gift vouchers from friends to buy a couple of choice plants that aren't easy to propagate. On my wish list so far are a parrotia persica, a  red japanese maple, some hedging plants and a butyl pond liner (I know, that's not a plant).
The garden is about 1/2 acre altogether, with another 1/4 acre taken up with house, shed and parking space. It's quite a windy spot so hedges and windbreaks will be high priority.
Here are some images of the garden as it is at the moment. This is a panorama, which distorts the perspective a little but gives an idea of how the lawn/woodland is laid out

 This is a view from the back of the house looking to the right. The greenery on the right is a stone wall and a few shrubs that marks the boundary with the neighbours. The little building is my bookbinding studio where I plan to run workshops. We are planning to rent our house out for holidays in the summer  so the area to the right of the studio will be fenced/hedged off to provide a garden for the cottage visitors. The trees behind my studio are along the far boundary.

 This is the view looking left. If you look closely you will just see the faint outline of part of a circle over to the right. This is where the circular formal lawn will be. I'm not a big fan of formal (i.e. short) lawns but Vince wants one so this will be his domain. Also as we have a small house and like having party's from time to time this will be the place for a marquee for our party's. I don't currently have a marquee but I'm creatively visualising that someone will give me a scruffy old one that will be good enough for our party's!
The area between the gravel on the left and the large trees  in the centre of the photo will be the vegetable garden with fruit and a wildlife pond beyond. The bit of grass jutting toward you will be a herb garden and other areas will be a mix of shrubs and herbaceous plants, with an emphasis on easy care and wildlife friendly.

Along the edge of the gravel will be a hedge. We initially thought of a beech hedge, but as it's windy and possibly a bit salt laden (tho we are 3 miles from the sea) beech might not do very well. Next on our list are escallonia, griselina and eleagnus, or possibly a mix of all three.

We've had the property for 2 1/2 months and I've already planted a dogwood

a monteray pine

and a hydrangea, all in the woodland.
Last but not least, the MOST important thing in the garden..

The compost heap.

Lots more to say, don't want to cram it into one post.

Introduction to this blog

This blog was started with the intention of both documenting my new garden in Cornwall and also sharing some of my gardening knowledge, which I am hoping to be sharing by teaching  gardening classes in the future.