Weekly Round Up
27th February - 12th March 2023
Planning out what is going where in the raised beds we built last year
Actually, this is a summary of the stuff that we have done in the walled garden since returning from South America two weeks ago. From now on, I intend to publish a weekly summary of progress both of nature doing its thing and my attempts to coerce mud, bricks and mortar into something that represents a designed and considered garden space.
It is a great time of year to rip into the garden mostly because once you’ve pruned back or dug out or cleared up, things stay pretty much as they are. At least for a few weeks. Still, its a shock to the system to arrive back home after being so long away and after the first hour or so of shovelling dirt I rue the muscle wastage that has occurred within my body. It seems that lifting glasses of wine from table to mouth just doesn’t cut it as a workout!
Areas requiring attention are:
The raised beds that Alex and I constructed in April last year (zone 3)
Finishing and filling the raised beds that Alex and I built through the course of last summer and into autumn
The first job on the zone 3 beds is to weed, tidy and feed the soft fruit sections. Here is raised bed number 2b holding Blackcurrants
Next is pruning out the oldest spurs and any that are overlapping with each other.
The progress is repeated with the Blueberries in bed 1a, the Raspberries in bed 1b, the Strawberries which are spread across bed 2a and in 3a where I planted last year’s runners and finally the Blackberries in bed 4b.
Sorting through the seed tin and hoping that the old packets are still viable
Then it’s onto preparing areas for seeding this years crop of veg. I am surprised at how much the level of the soil has dropped since we filled them last year and I hope that now the soil is properly settled, similar shrinkage will not occur again this year.
Short of compost material, I pick up some bags at the garden centre and mither once more about the cost of decomposed plant material.
Marian comes over to help and we get the beds topped up and seeded. Now we just do the occasional bit of weeding and feeding whilst waiting for the lovely produce to appear!
Meanwhile, in zone 1 there is some more timber to use up to build beds 12 and 13. Apart from anything else, we need to clear the decks on the greenhouse slab in order to make space to commence the frame construction.
Its all a bit more hard work than last year when we had a digger but at least the clay subsoil that we need to shift is a little bit more workable than in the baking heat of last summer.
The simple technique that we have developed seems to work well and quickly the pile of spare timber is transformed
Filling beds up with growing material is an arduous task that costs a lot of money and takes a lot of labour. To keep the costs down, I am using a mixture of bought in soil and compost together with the beautifully rich compost that resides at the bottom end of our plot. This compost was built up with hedge cuttings, grass and leaves during the 25 years that Farthings stood empty and I thank the overseas owner from whom we bought the place for his disregard to money in employing a gardener for the entire period. As I slog up and down the lawn dragging the wheely cart, I count the saved money in my head and strengthen my legs in free work out. It really helps me to keep on going.
The weird thing about buying in soil and compost is quite how difficult it is to persuade people to sell it to you. Clearly, it is a busy time of year with would be veg growers around the country looking for spots in their gardens to grow tomatoes so that they don’t have to scratch around the empty shelves at Asda, so I get that a compost company is going to struggle to keep up with demand. However, it is pretty crap when the Brighton Community Compost Company can’t answer the phone, can’t except visitors and take four days to respond to an e-mail which asks ‘ do you deliver to Buxted?’. They do apparently but at a super high charge and, it seems, that they can only answer one question at a time so I am still awaiting a response to my second e-mail that asks again when a delivery could be made…
In the meantime I have gone back to those Churchy folk at Stavertons Nursery and bought six tonne bags to tide me over. Let’s see how many beds I can get filled with that.
The weather during the last week has been cold and wet so indoor jobs like tidying my office while away the days.
Seven days in and the seedlings in the propagator are already on the way with Tomatoes, Globe Artichoke and Squash all making an appearance