Sunday I did manage to put in a few hours in the garden, I'm so glad I did because look at the weather now!
Every year the vegetable patch is redeveloped and enlarged (don't tell the husband). Before winter I began digging up the grass strip between the patch and the fence. The main reason being that I'd given up mowing it but also I'm trying to eliminate pests and diseases which I think the wet grass harbours.
That's one less job to do in spring. I shall be laying weed suppressing material with bark chippings on top, but hat will have to wait until the ground is less moist and the sun is higher in the sky!
My next job was to attack the raspberry canes with my secateurs. They are Autumn fruiting raspberries which mean they fruit on the current years growth, as apposed to summer raspberries which fruit on old stems. I noticed that some of the canes were already starting to bud on last years stems so I've pruned them all right back to the ground, which seems harsh but If you have ever grown raspberries you will know how rampant they are. Another reason was so I could dig up the gooseberry bush which has been completely swamped by them, in the picture above the gooseberry is the silvery stick like structure on the right.
Strawberries are another crop that would quite happily take over your garden. This picture shows just what I mean, they propagate themselves by sending out runners from the parent plant. The strawberries on the right have crept into the raspberry bed and vice versa!
Here is the gooseberry transplanted to its new position, which I realised is under a cherry tree, this may be a bad idea due to moisture dripping from the tree, which could cause fungal problems. We shall wait and see. The gooseberry fruits on old stems, so the only pruning necessary is to take out any dead wood or congested areas. The idea is to create a bowl shaped bush I think its to stop an attack of the sawfly who do not like open aspects.
I'm not sure if I mentioned that I am mainly organic, so I rely on wildlife such as toads and birds to keep the balance of pests stable. So no nasty chemicals go into my soil.
The last of the carrots which should have been dug up months ago as most of these have been eaten and not by me!
1 comment:
Didn’t you do well; I must do some more bits in my garden.
With working in everybody else’s garden mine always comes last!
Lou xxx
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