Posts Tagged ‘gardening’

The Arctic is Coming – So the Papers Say!

October 17th, 2011 by David Murray | No Comments | Filed in Autumn, Vegetables, Vertical gardening, Winter

Well, gardeners have been warned, here in the North of England, that arctic weather is almost upon us. So that means I’ll need to get outside into the garden and do some physical work. I’ve been shrinking from that for the past few weeks since I bent over carelessly, picked up one of my potato growing bags, and wrenched my back. Now, however, I simply must get out out there.

Last year, before we moved from the East Midlands, I lost even some of my hardiest fuchsias in the coldest winter for decades. This year I don’t plan to repeat the experience. And then there are the less hardy varieties in pots. Having moved to a smaller house, being short of conservatory space, and so far not having re-erected the greenhouse that I so painstakingly dismantled and transported north, I’m having to think hard about the best way to overwinter them. When I’ve worked it out I’ll blog again about this.

Vertical Vegetable Gardening

As I explained in a previous post I now only have ground-level earth in the shade of a high wall so decided to experiment with something I never needed to do before. My experience of this first year of “vertical gardening” has been mixed, even against the south-facing wall. No doubt the lack of sunshine in the mid-summer months had a lot to do with it as even the runner beans were poor but I’m not sure that I’ll try it again, at least not to the same degree. We got a few decent tomatoes, some very miniature peppers, and a couple of courgettes, but overall the vertical kitchen garden experiment was not a success apart from the onions in pots which did very nicely. Down at ground level the potatoes in black plastic bags also produced well as usual but I don’t count them as part of the experiment.

Looking forward to Spring

Down in Nottinghamshire I worked out the best time to plant my tulip bulbs. There it was mid-November. I wonder what will be best here. I’m going to try a month earlier, put them in this week, some in pots, some in an area that does get just a little sun late in the day, and see what happens.

In a new environment what can one do but test and see how things go. Ah well, if anything is going to happen out there today I’d better tear myself away from this keyboard.

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