Bookertoo

Garden Achievement

indeed Saltski, fresh produce from your own efforts beats just abut anything doesn't it.  We have a new baby cherry tree in the fruit cage, it looks very good with healthy buds - just one cherry this year would be a wonderful achievement.

late start,more advice please!!

Raised beds on the tarmac area seems a good idea, and alot less work than pickaxing it out!

Raised beds and pots will do well, they will have extra drainage and you can make them as deep as you like, with varying kinds of compost/soil to grow whatever it is that you want - blueberries for example. 

Slugs

I do hate slugs too, especially as I grow arge numbers of hostas, but I could no more chop them in half than fly!  I have found copper collars on pots helpful, some of the dry granular things help a bit, but grease on pots just doesn't do it - there is a wild life friendly slug pellet that works and doesn't seem to harm anything else.

Nematodea do work, are very expensive and such hard work to use, besides which, once your patch is clear, all the neighbours slugs move in so it doesn't last long as nature abhors a vaccuum!   I have been known to use them on a small area of ground I wanted clear for a while for a special reason, not tried them in my many pots yet, might consider that as the work in dilution and washing in may be slightly less - not at all sure about it though. 

Garden Achievement

' even though a lot of gardening is not so different to housework.', 

artjak,  I don't do housework outside in the fresh air, with the birds singng in my ears, the robin poking abut where I am working, the sun on my back or the rain on my head, so I personally think there is no comparison.  Actually, I don't do housework, or at least do as little as I can possibly get away with, and that is remarkably little! 

I didn't hit the bold button, so don't know why it has come out like this, and I have not been able to get it normal from the edit area either - apologies I am nt trying to shout at anyone!

How tidy is your garden?

What on earth has 'should' got to do with anything ing ardening?  I don't do tidy, inside or out, lawn edges long ago disappeared under falling and 'leaking ' growth - lovely to see dark leafed celendine flowing out, ditto geraniums, pansies and whatever else decides to ooze out of the area I once thought they shoud occupy, to the areas they wish to occupy.  There are some things that can get a bit too energetci with it even for me, but bugle is easy enough to remove if I want to - and some of the places I have had snowdrops this year are incredible - I could not have planted them there.  Untidy? Yes. Delightful to my eyes and those of my famioly and friends -Yes - OK then, that will do for me too. 

DOG WOODS

I do tend to do mine slightly later than now, becausemof the chance of very cold weather yet.  Much dpends on where you live of course, as some areas will be milder than others.  April is usally my month for that kind of pruning, frosts after then tend not to be as hard or as long - so far anyway!

out of season plants

Just recently I have been poring over summer clatalogues, as I guess many of us have - and am faintly horrified, and very puzzled as to why anyone would want to buy summer flowering narcissi?  We all love narcissi in the Spring, such a lovely flower to end winter and get on with Spring, yellow, white, cream - perfumed.  Why then summer flowering?  Am I the only one who finds this wierd beyong anything?  There are other things grown out of season I know, but the daffodil advertisment just caught my eye and my mind today.

What you haveeaten today?

Wwe will also have yesterdays left overs, or at least, I will - for lunch, will need to cook again for evening meal.  It was mushroom and pea risotto with white fish flakes, tasted very good  -  sad that we could not quite finish it all, but good for me as I get a lunch with no work attached. 

March in your Garden

Must say that here in the East Midlands I am not even thinking about seed sowing yet - that is quite a fib actually, I am thinking about it, but not doing it!! Learned in the first few years here that it was very different from gardening in the south and west where I had lived before.  Now rarely sow anything before April, maybe a few hardy things in late March in the greenhouse, but mostly April or even May for annuals, or I'd just have to do them again later.  

Beware of Parkers Bulbs. .

Have warned against this company to many people many times, I really don't know how they get awa with what they do,  One of their most annoying things is that they photograph plants together which cannot flower together, and unknowing people who are just starting gardening get disappointed and think they are no good at gardening.   They send out plants that  are often not the ones they say they are, and indeed their plugs are dissgraceful in size and quality.  Their catalogue appears everywhere, and for newbie gardeners looks good - indeed, beware them, they are con artists in my humble opinion. 

For whom do we garden .............

frosted lilies

out of season plants

bird feeders

Hazel nut queries

Flippin' pigeons