Friday 9 November 2012

V. faba, A. italicum and endless R. fruticosus

  Since last night I've had Zombie by The Cranberries stuck in my head.  I like the song but it makes a brutal earworm.  Been listening to a lot of Lyndsey Stirling of late as I do so love string music.

Today I brushed back the leaves off the beds and lo!  My Vicia faba are coming in.  They're titchy, bud-headed shoots just now but they'll grow.  I've included a tuppence for scale:

Seven more or less parallel rows, though some shoots are isolated within the row whilst others are quite clustered.  

The random Arum italicum from the beds I've dug out and potted with a little 4:2:6.  Ultimately it's going to the windowsill of the Biology lab at my old college.  They're lovely plants but I can't ask a vegetable bed to bear the cost in nitrogen and potassium of an ornamental species whilst still giving me a decent yield.  The exception of course is for useful species such as marigolds and borage, which I don't eat, but which make themselves useful.  Marigolds discourage pests whilst borage frees up potassium and calcium in the soil.

Here the A. italicum is keeping Pinky and Perky company while I watch it for any signs of transplant shock.



Those alpines have grown like stink since I got them, and their leaves look far less symptomatic than they did.  Symptomatic isn't really the right word, but there isn't really an equivalent word that has to do with signs.  They'll want to go outside soon, I reckon.  I'll need to get some more straw first so that they can be properly mulched.  


Lastly then, I've given up pruning my brambles (Rubus fruticosus).  If I cut them back they only grow into the same space again and faster than before.  Instead I've taken to tying them onto the buddleia.  The ladder is about 4'6" to the shelf.  


Give it a few years and those brambles will be twenty feet high, the way they've grown.  I pity the poor sod who parks their car under it when the upper reaches are bearing fruit, as it's already a bird magnet.  Bee magnet too, which when you consider that something like a third of edible crop species are bee pollinated, a bee magnet is a nice thing to have around.  Bees freak me out, but their biological utility is undeniable.  

I have a show to light now so I'd best get off the comp.  Until next time xx

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