starting a new 'Patch'
Peat B
Posts: 441
in Fruit & veg
Up t'lotty this afternoon, serenely chewin' the fat with She who must, she came out with the best advice I have ever heard, ( as is her wont ). She, who is most knowledgeable about common sense and has the skill and communication to pass on things in a simple boiled down terminology that even I can understand, left me open jawed and slobbering in undisguised admiration. Now, here, o best beloveds, is, in brief, the sermon she gave. When starting a garden patch, after tilling, weeding and the usual wotnot as per the books, Hessayon, Seymore, RHS, Monty Don ad infinitum, ultimately the best return for a garden, is obviously, FRUIT ! It is so simple, If you concentrate on soft fruits, like Blackcurrants, Raspberries, Goosegogs, Apples, Pears, Cherries, Loganberries, one has a perennial horticulture, that needs relatively low maintenance, produces all sorts of stuff that is preservable eatable right away, and is just ticking all the boxes !!! The other one is Rhubarb. Simple, hardy, versatile and easily obtained. There is ALWAYS someone who has a rhubarb crown to split, share and or throw away ! When things are getting established, then one can branch out (no pun intended ) to the other exotics, such as lettuces, leeks, spuds, (You Like ?) and whatever your soil approves of. In the fruit dept, I would stay clear of strawberries initially, as they can be temperamental, or just mental. It all depends on how much one is smitten by this DREADFUL Great British Allotment program. It has NOTHING to do with reality, is contrived and a sad and sorry plodding after the Bake off and oh my gawd, the GB Sewing Bee ! Pardon me while I nip off for a gag ! Yep. Fruit to start, and MUCH cheaper than wasting loads of money on packets of seed that one nearly always throws away 50% or more of the seeds, despite best intentions. I figure out that most of my lettuces are more expensive than the shop bought ones, tho' admittedly tastier ! Most expenses in the garden lotty are really for the recreation and serenity gardening gives. A plot, a glass of home made vino collapso,Chateau Lotty 2013, and thee. My world is complete.
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And Lo! for morning in the bowl of night has flung the stone that put the stars to flight.
Or, in my case, the pigeons.
Yes, Peat, I fully agree with you. Fruit growing is a lazy gardener's ideal. Except when your lovely blossom sets, is doing well and then............ gets frosted. But that's gardening for you. Always looking to next year.
The allotment programe is drivel. I think. I only watched the first one and couldn't watch another. Ditto sewing bee. All this competition. Everything is competition these days. Mine's better than yours. Oh, dear.
No gardening today for me. It's bucketing down.
If you live in Derbyshire, as I do.
Go on, get your waterproofs on and get out there! I've just walked around my estate (sadly, didn't take too long!) and did a bit of weeding and hoeing. Wanted to cut the grass but it's too wet to do that which is annoying. I will have to spend the day searching online for a smallish growing clematis for my 6ft obelisk that seemed to somehow end up in the boot of the car last Monday whilst at Wisley. No idea how it got there!
What - just the one Scott? you'll need to go back for more once you get started on those Clematis!
I've often wondered how much produce gets used on allotments - unless you have a huge family to feed. Do you grow flowers for cutting too Peat?
Very wet here too pansyface - as forecast
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Flowers are to some peeps, like the difference between freighters and passenger ships. I was a cargo/freighter man, and scorned the passy boats. Now, I have been seduced by the splashes of brilliant colour where She who must, happily throws down and in, wonderful surges of all sorts of circus crimsons and oilskin yellows ! But these days, I am a well married mannie, trained by she who must, and am delighted to scrabble around on me knees getting muddy, feeding da boidies wot are getting tamer, friendlier and more bloody dependent every day. We can practically hand feed the blackies, and the two pheasants march around as it they owned the lotty ! Spuggies are increasing in numbers, starlings come in to feed like fighters landing on a very short airstrip. Pigeons swaddle around fearlessly, chaffinches light up the feeders, and even the jackdaws land on the fat ball feeder frames, swinging like circus acrobats. By 'eck, it is a good life !
Today, as mentioned, the rain has turned the lotty into a salmon leap, and the rain butts are overflowing. We might go up and check out the greenhouse this afternoon. Doubt it tho !
By the way, has anyone tried this sowing broad beans into toilet roll thingummies ? I did it this season and the first attempt worked 99% right on. Then, I tried it again for a later sowing, and bugger all came out ! They sat and rotted in the roll. NOT amused ! But this is what gardening is all about. Optimism over rules experience once again. We really ARE the most incorrigible optimists, aren't we ? !
Had you used the rolls before you planted them up Peat?
If you live in Derbyshire, as I do.
Is he the one that sang Dancing Cheek to Cheek?
If you live in Derbyshire, as I do.
For good value , you can't beat a blackcurrant bush.
Fresh blackcurrants are nigh on impossible to buy.
One bush planted 20 years ago, gives about 7 pounds of fruit a year. A hardwood cutting taken off it and shoved in a patch of sandy soil gives another 7 Lb a year.
3 hours a year picking, one hour pruning and 10 minutes in spring for a sprinkling of fertiliser.
2 hours to make 14 jars of jam. Enough to keep us going all year and a few to give away.
I think it was spelt Rawls Peat - but nice try! ....
pansyface - that was worthy of Verdun
I do remember him - but have forgotten the big hit he had .. must be all this rain affecting my brain....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...