Wednesday 22 August 2012

The Strawbrary!

HERE IT IS!

  I've finished putting those last touches on my strawbrary, gotten it nicely pet-proofed, and now it's painted and planted.  I've put in a couple hundred litres of organic, peat-free compost.  I can't stress enough the importance of peat-free compost.  Compost is dead organic matter which has rotted in a composter.  Peat is, for lack of a better term, "wild compost".  It's broadly similar, but has formed naturally in bogs over a very long time.  Peat makes cheap filler for compost because it's easier (and thus cheaper) to dig peat out of the ground than it is to make all your compost in a composter.  Unique habitats and species exist around the peat bogs and are being endangered by the gardening business.  Peat-free is definitely the greener option.  

Turns out Squires do their organic composts at £5.99 for 50L, peated or unpeated.  3 for 2 on the unpeated, £13 for 3 on the peated, so it was a quid cheaper for 150L of peat-free.  Result!  I can't count on that deal forever, however, so I'm gonna keep a close eye on Homebase as well, even though Homebase is almost three times as far from my house as Squires.  

  I've put in 11 plants so far: 4 Pegasus, 4 Cambridge Favourite, and 3 Rhapsody.  I've got room in there for another dozen strawberry plants, plus a niche in the front corner for planting marigolds (to keep pests away).  I may set some Clematis climbing the uprights, as the blue flowers might make this classic example of my antiaesthetic carpentry actually look pretty.  Who knows.  Any of my readership of five had any trouble with Clematis, please let me know.  

Here, have some more photos.




Next week I'll be building a corner arbour.  Until then xx :)



9 comments:

  1. Ok, you've mammal & bird proofed your strawberries but what about gastropod proofing them?
    The only real answer I've come up with is chemical warfare against the slimy bastards.

    Cheers

    John

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    1. The netting should keep out the larger molluscs, and I'm gonna sink a couple beer traps for those that get in anyway.

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  2. If slugs and snails prove a problem, start with copious quantities of straw and then you could consider nematodes, widely available for around £7.50 to treat 40 square meters. That said, I imagine you already know this :-)

    Paige

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    Replies
    1. I'm gonna try a plant-based solution first before I consider introducing a new animal species into the garden.

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    2. I've used nematodes for a while - they appear to only predate on slugs and snails, and mostly die off in the winter, so hopefully won't be like that Simpsons episode with the pigeons and the lizards. It's really tedious making up watering can after watering can of nematode soup though - I did my parents' garden over the summer.

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    3. So long as they don't suck the cat underground it's all good. I've seen Tremors...

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  3. Copper tape seems to do some good against snails, and would look fairly subtle around the edge of the wood. Otherwise, if there's a family member addicted to ground coffee rather than instant, then the used grounds can be spread around, as the slugs and snails "don't like it up 'em". Sometimes Starbucks give away big bags of grounds. There's also a slug-stopper gel, but it looks a little too much like semen for my liking.

    I've never grown clematis. I have a honeysuckle, which is rather pathetic, and a jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides), which is really vigorous, but doesn't flower much for me.

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    1. I thought a T. jasminoides was "a plant that's not a jasmine but looks like a jasmine only it's better at British Winter" kinda thing? Ah well. Coffee grounds seems like a plan.

      If it ain't flowering have you tried giving it some K+?

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    2. I'm rubbish at feeding my plants. They're all in pots and I apply the selective pressure of highly irregular watering and rare feeding. I think it's fair to say I have a Darwinian gardening style...

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