Garden Centre

Friday, May 1, 2009

Six months of greenhouse ownership

I can’t believe it’s six months since I left himself in the garden with 275 bits of labelled aluminium and polycarbonate and hid indoors, typing madly and pretending that I had a deadline to meet. I did make lots of tea, of course, but that was almost my entire contribution to the process of setting up a greenhouse.

And now I can’t imagine how I could live without it. We’ve only had one failure to date – the passion fruit seeds have simply not germinated, despite people telling me that as long as the seeds were super fresh they would zoom, vine-like, out of their pots and loop around the greenhouse. They haven’t.

But apart from that, everything has germinated, everything has bloomed, nothing has curled up and died. And the most amazing thing of all is that our garden season has been brought forward by about a month, just by having this clement, frost-free place in which to raise or overwinter my plants.

The downside: well I am getting quite fed up with carrying trays of plants in and out of the greenhouse twice a day – it’s a shame that the only flat space in the garden on which said trays can be set to harden off is the entire length of the garden away from said greenhouse. Bad planning on my part, but there’s nothing to be done about it now, unless I move the shed and fill in the pond and … well, you get the point. And also, it’s a time vortex. I go out just to check how many borlotti beans or lupins have germinated and it’s a whole hour before I realise that I said I’d only be a minute …

Labels: borlotti beans, greenhouse, lupins, passionfruit

The All Seasons Gardener at 4:02 AM 0 Comments

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Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Wildlife Gardening

This is the month when the garden really comes into its own in wildlife terms. The fish are frisking in the pond; the frogs have stopped being frisky and are ignoring the growing frogspawn; the first cabbage whites are fluttering around and I saw three bumble bees this morning.

We garden for wildlife by providing a range of resources that suit insects, mammals, birds and amphibians. For insects we have a log pile that we hope might one day be inhabited by stag beetles, although at present it probably only hosts earwigs and woodlice. Did you know that stag beetles can spend as much as seven years as larvae and as little as two weeks as beetles? Amazing.

We also have bee logs: short lengths of tree-trunk with holes drilled into them at downward angles – solitary bees love to nest in them and it seems to be working as our bumble bee population is definitely growing. The downward angle is to stop the hole filling up with rainwater and drowning the bee larvae that is developing in it.

We have a pond, which has goldfish, frogs and lots of mayflies and we grow plants that should provide food throughout the year, so native daisy type flowers in summer and autumn, berrying plants like rose bushes, cotoneaster, pyracantha, berberis and viburnum in winter and mahonia in early spring. In summer the beans and sweet peas attract lots of bees and other pollinators. We no longer put out bird food: instead we leave the dead heads on roses to provide rose-hips, ditto sunflowers, and use the berrying plants and the log pile to provide seeds, berries and overwintering insect life to feed birds.

Am I a gardening April Fool?

This is a picture of my greenhouse, taken from the outside. The top polycarbonate panel has been painted with one of those products that is supposed to cut out the sun. It does seem to work, if you compare it to the lower panel.

Here’s the question though: the product is supposed to be transparent when it rains, so that it allows what little light there is to get through – which is a great idea. But it’s also supposed to be ‘easily removable with water and a cloth’ to quote the instructions. But how do you know? If it’s transparent while wet, how do you know if you’ve managed to wash it off? Or am I being too complicated …

Labels: garden ponds, garden wildlife, greenhouse, Wildlife Gardening

The All Seasons Gardener at 5:49 AM 0 Comments

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Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Sweet peas and beans for the small garden

The way I grow sweet peas is to mix them with runner beans and (this year at least) climbing French beans. I do this because (a) I’m greedy and like to have food to eat as well as flowers to admire and (b) sweet peas are a lovely cut flower but not, to be honest, the most beautiful climber. Essentially, if you want to keep your sweet peas in flower for as long as possible, you have to cut flowers every day, so they don’t become very floriferous (to use the proper word) simply because if you have a sweet pea covered in flowers, within three or four days you will have a sweet pea covered in seed pods and then it won’t flower any more!

So … what I do is I fill a trellis with runner beans, planting White Lady, which has white flowers and straight, large beans, and Scarlet Emperor, which has red flowers and curving, but very tasty beans, and which has previously been planted with a mixture of pastel sweet peas for colour and the old fashioned matacuna (the one with the purple and magenta flowers) sweet pea, which has the strongest fragrance of all.

I started my sweet peas in January in the greenhouse. No, I’m never going to get fed up with saying ‘greenhouse’ I promise you! But the beans are going out as seeds this weekend. This way the sweet peas ‘get away’ by being in the ground for a month or so before the beans are ready to join them. The sweet peas are hardening off by being placed outside in the garden every day but returned to the cold frame at night. A cold frame is better for hardening off than a greenhouse because I can leave the lid open a crack, to ensure that the plants don’t ‘soften’ again but also protecting them from any stray air frosts that might sneak up.

You then have the chance to pick flowers and harvest beans every day, giving you a lovely flower display to look at as you munch on your very fresh beans!

Labels: climbing french beans, greenhouse, runner beans, scarlet emperor, sweet pea, white lady

The All Seasons Gardener at 3:15 AM 0 Comments

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Friday, February 6, 2009

February - perennial plants

February is the time to get your perennials sorted! Where there isn’t a threat of snow or frost (which is absolutely nowhere in the UK, right now) you can be planting vegetables such as artichokes, asparagus and rhubarb, which live for several or many years in the same place. If, on the other hand, you’re expecting snow or heavy frost (like everywhere in the UK, right now) you can keep these plants in a light but frost free place for at least a further 3-4 weeks, if they are not bare-rooted. If they are bare-rooted, it’s probably better to get them into some compost in a tub now, so that the roots, which will want to start swelling as day-length increases, aren’t starved of nourishment.

If you have summer-flowering perennials that you have brought indoors for winter, and they start to grow now, find a cooler spot in which to store them or they won't flower well at the correct time.

If, like me, you’re fed up with the weather and want to be planting, then there are things you can do.

• You can buy a greenhouse. Mine is filling up worryingly fast, given that I can’t get anything into the ground.
• You can build raised beds – because they are better insulated and because you can control their soil content, filling them with warming compost, for example, and because you can cover them with horticultural fleece, you can plant in them earlier than in the cold bare ground.

But mainly this February seems to be about thawing the pond and preserving my patience – and I’m not good at either!

Labels: artichokes, asparagus, greenhouse, raised beds, rhubarb, tender perennials

The All Seasons Gardener at 9:40 AM 0 Comments

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Saturday, January 3, 2009

New Year, New Greenhouse News!

We couldn’t wait to try out the greenhouse, so we decided that even though December is the month when NOTHING germinates, we’d try and get something to grow for us from seed.

We started with peas, hardy peas. Now they aren’t going to grace the garden (because they are going to the allotment) and they aren’t even a variety that I particularly like (because they are early hardy peas and I like the later super-sweet petit pois) but my impatience knew no bounds and we’d been assured that if there was anything other than mustard and cress that would germinate in the dark of December, it was hardy peas.

And our advisers were right. As of this morning, with icicles forming on the inside of the greenhouse glass, the pond frozen over and even the dogs not very keen on going outside in the chill air, we have fourteen pea seedlings.

Suddenly all the money we spent on the greenhouse seems worthwhile …

Labels: greenhouse, peas, winter garden

The All Seasons Gardener at 9:34 AM 0 Comments

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Sunday, November 30, 2008

Well, it’s done. There’s nothing in it but gravel and a piece of staging donated by a friend, but there is a complete greenhouse at the bottom of my garden.



Established greenhouse users look away now, as I’m going to be a bit dense. When it was all done and I stepped inside and closed the door, I couldn’t get over how much warmer it was than outside. Yes, I know that’s what a greenhouse is FOR and I know that every other greenhouse is exactly the same, ie warmer than the outside temperature, but this is MY greenhouse and I never really believed it was going to work. But it does.








Now I am going to fill it up. What with, I’m not sure, although I already know it won’t be big enough, because everybody tells me that greenhouses never are.

My greenhouse courtesy of me, real greenhouse courtesy of jmurawski

Labels: greenhouse, greenhouse installation

The All Seasons Gardener at 7:15 AM 0 Comments

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Thursday, November 27, 2008

More Greenhouse Advice

First and foremost – if you want to buy a greenhouse and install it yourself, don’t pick November as the month to do it. There are three reasons for this:

You will have to dodge rain, hail, sleet and snow to get out there to do it, and once out there you will slip and slide around on mud and frost, causing potential damage to the greenhouse and actual damage to bits of yourself.

You will find that whatever form of greenhouse you’ve gone for, it is impossible to tighten nuts, fit tiny fiddly fixings and install large fragile panes of glass or large flyaway panes of plastic, in November winds.

Your marriage will be begin to crack under the strain, even if the greenhouse glazing doesn’t.

I think July is probably a good time to put up a greenhouse – that way, even if it is fiddly, time-consuming and frustrating work, you’re out in the fresh air in the lovely weather and you have long hours of daylight to work in.

Putting in sliding doors by torchlight in a force nine gale is not fun. Trust me. I know. The only thing that’s keeping me going is the idea that one day next year my greenhouse will be filled with the aromas of heirloom tomatoes and orchid blossoms – if we ever get it finished, that is!

Labels: assembling a greenhouse, greenhouse, greenhouse installation

The All Seasons Gardener at 4:21 AM 0 Comments

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Thursday, November 6, 2008

Greenhouse update (not)

I wish I’d bought my greenhouse from somebody else- because then I might be able to show you a picture of the finished building, not a picture I've borrowed from somebody luckier than me – but I was seduced by the fact that I’d been given a nice big gift voucher and ended up buying from a major chain of DIY stores that shall be nameless. And what a mistake that was!

I have now had three different greenhouses delivered – and three different bases and three different sets of glazing. But never has this major chain managed to the right base and the right glazing to arrive with the right frame – and not until this week have they mastered the fairly basic skill of only collecting the wrong items and leaving the right items to be matched up to the next delivery. Oh no! Their idea of customer service is to take everything away each time so that it turned into a kind of lucky dip conducted by delivery van: take three random huge cardboard boxes from the back of the vehicle, unpack them, and call the store to complain that once again, the wrong things have turned up.

Sigh. So finally, this week, I have the right three elements to create a greenhouse. But now I don’t have the free time to put the dratted thing together.

Take my advice – buy your greenhouse from a company that has good customer service: it doesn’t matter if it costs a bit more, it will be worth it in the end!

Peaceful greenhouse courtesy of orin optiglot

Labels: greenhouse

The All Seasons Gardener at 7:37 AM 1 Comments

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Sunday, October 19, 2008

Major works in the garden

Why is it that just when you get things to a perfect condition in the garden, you decide to go in for some major, disruptive project? I suppose it’s the constant striving after an even more perfect perfection than you already have …

So this weekend has been a busy one: we’ve dug up three currant bushes, a tayberry and some very prickly raspberry canes, a thornless blackberry (hurrah for thornless, so much easier to uproot without donating a fair amount of your life blood to the soil) and my prized and lovely Katsura tree. Now we have a patch of bare earth which looks miserable, and a whole collection of fruit bushes making a miniature pot-jungle on the path.

And next weekend … we shall begin the insanely complicated process of putting together the greenhouse! Yes, over 300 components of aluminium and polycarbonate glazing, bags of sand and bags of gravel, cement, steel posts and all the rest of the paraphernalia are waiting in the garage to become a small Eden (except it’s a standard greenhouse, not a biome) in which I shall grow tender crops and exotic plants.

There’s only one problem. Well, two, really. Problem number one is trying to guess how long it will take us to do the assembly – a weekend, a week, a month? It looks worryingly difficult.

Problem number two is that the list of things I want to grow is already too big for the greenhouse, and I’m adding to it at least three times a day ….

Labels: fruit bushes, greenhouse

The All Seasons Gardener at 4:18 AM 0 Comments

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Friday, September 5, 2008

Favourite garden places

For the past few days there has been something missing from my pond – the dog! Until the rainy weather came, Falco spent nearly every hour of nearly every day sitting on the ‘bridge’ which is actually more of a platform that crosses the pond: it’s meant to provide shade for the fish, rather than a route from one side to the other, but Falco thinks it’s the nearest thing to heaven a dog can have.

The reason I’m so aware he’s missing from his favourite spot is that I’ve spent quite a lot of time under an umbrella, by the pond, looking at a patch of garden that currently is a bit of hard-standing for a barbecue, a home to two compost bins and the nesting place of our currant and blackcurrant bushes. And the reason I’m lurking in my own garden in the rain is that I’m going to be given a greenhouse for my birthday!

There are still some issues of course, like what kind of greenhouse, because they can be constructed from so many different materials. Polyethylene ones are just sheets of plastic over a frame – they are cheap to purchase, but need re-covering every two years and in winter are prone to wind or snow damage: wind damage rules these out for us. Corrugated acrylic sheets are said to be not much better because they crack and discolour - polycarbonate materials are more durable (and much more expensive) but I think that’s the route we’re going to take. Glass is the best option but costs a fortune – I’m sure we can’t afford it.

Then there is the frame: cedar and teak last forever, especially if you oil them, ideal, but are very expensive, while ordinary softwood looks just as good but has a very limited life. Aluminium does not rust, but isn’t exactly attractive and one issue with cheaper greenhouses is that the bolts and screws holding the structure together steel which does rust, so we need to pick carefully and if we can’t inspect the interior, ask questions of the retailer to be sure what we’re getting.

The only thing that has already been decided is the siting – a greenhouse needs an open area in full sun because while it’s easy to shade a small greenhouse if the sun is too strong, it’s almost impossible to improve the light entering a greenhouse in shade.

And of course, I have to decide what I’m going to grow in it! Heirloom tomatoes, aubergines and cucumbers for sure, but I also fancy some Hedychiums for their scent and a lime tree … and I’m sure that as the weeks pass I’ll think of more and more I can do ‘under glass’ and the greenhouse will become my favourite place just as the pond is for Falco.

Labels: all year gardening, garden fruit, garden ponds, greenhouse, hedychium, tomatoes

The All Seasons Gardener at 6:47 AM 0 Comments

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Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Another dangerous garden!

Well, the garden wasn’t dangerous in itself, no man-or-woman-eating plants or concealed pits, but dangerous for me, because it’s given me ‘ideas’ – himself has gone into hiding already, knowing that garden tours always result in my coming home with a madly grandiose plan.

This time it’s a greenhouse. Not any ordinary ‘just for growing things’ greenhouse, but a proper conservatory, with a space for me to do yoga, a desk for my laptop so I can write about gardening matters in an inspiring environment (your screen will fog up, says himself, in a doom-laden voice) and a wooden trellis up one wall so I can grow hibiscus.

I mean look at it! Who could resist a wall of hibiscus? (It will hide insects, the wood will rot, you’ll want something else within a year or two, says himself.) And our garden is not equipped to grow it, so we need to do something that allows us to grow it, right?

Himself points to the pot of hibiscus I have bought during my visit. How much did that cost, he asks. £2.99 I answer (it’s a bargain, you’ve got to admit.) And you want me to build a £3,000 conservatory for it, he says.

I couldn’t think of an answer for that one …

Labels: garden tours, garden visits, greenhouse, hibiscus, open gardens

The All Seasons Gardener at 9:35 AM 2 Comments

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