Alas, poor Mike!

  My bay tree has died.  I did all I could but the roots were too far gone.  I'm still determined to have a potted bay in my garden however, so my next Laurus project (next Spring) will be Stan.  Are you keeping up with the cinematic references here?  Stan will be a cluster of baby laurels in a large Dutch planter with a bunch of bamboo arranged in a cone.

Poor sod :(

  I love a functional garden, utility is a beautiful thing, but sometimes the beauty of a thing can extend beyond mere usefulness; a thing which has both aesthetic value and practical value is truly a joy in so small a garden.  I set out to use part of my garden to help feed my family while still providing recreational space - so far so good - but the more I look at it the more I think it'd be even better if I worked a few flourishes in.  So I'll add a frame of jasmine here, a dash of gravel or bark there.  Maybe work in some bright ground cover plants between the fruit, maybe plants that nourish the soil, some borage, some marigolds.

  So as part of the works on the house and grounds the housing association plan to change the front fence and rip out the buddleia stump and remaining brambles.  Grand, grand, but I grow Rosemary by the front gate, so I've dug it out and potted it for now.  That's Rosmarinus officinalis.  You gotta get the officinal stuff, made by kids in the officinal Indonesian sweatshop, else you could end up with any old crap that falls apart.  You might even be sold a baby Tarragon!  Never buy herbs in a poke.  Or I might possibly be thinking of trainers...

Lastly then, I'm starting work on the North border.  It'll take up the last foot of the lawn, but grass doesn't grow there anyway.  I'll be growing things like Tarragon, Bergamot and Jasmine, but also Ericas to encourage pollinators.  Maybe some Rosemary at the edges to shrub it out and gently discourage pets from legging it across the bed.  Ah well.  Here are the first nineteen plants to go in:

Yes, that's half a dozen Coleus in there.  They don't do anything but look pretty and cover ground, but this Summer I have a lot of time for things which look pretty and cover ground.  But for now, we dig!

Repotting, reseeding and Georgeproofing

Mike got sick again.  Mature leaves turned red, new leaves turned black.  Bit of a disaster really, and fearing fungus I decided that a windowsill was no place for a tree.  I moved him to an outdoor pot and as I took him out of the existing pot I was met with an almighty reek.  The compost in his pot was rotting around the roots!  Aaaargh!  So I scraped as much away as I dared and binned it.  I took off some diseased roots, patted the rootball dry with a towel and applied mycorrhizal fungus.  He's been potted in fresh compost in a bigger pot with a bed of stones and a topdressing of further stones.  I've pruned all affected leaves and moved Mike out front, where he looks thoroughly forlorn.

I've mentioned previously that George is in the habit of climbing into the Strawbrary while he barks into the dark.  Well, I think I've got him foiled:

If he gets through a trellis with a bush behind it then he's some kind of Houdini dog!

Lastly then, the lawn has been reseeded.  This is it now, and fingers crossed it'll be thicker than thick in a month's time.  

Feels like for the past few days I've done little but grafting, eating and sleeping.  With emphasis on the eating and sleeping.  I've even set Skyrim aside!  Tonight then I'm going to get squared away and make some time for me.  I'll knock together a Baileys hot chocolate, colonise the couch and put a game on.  I haven't played Dragon Age in a while...

Beds and sheds

I built the shed yesterday.  It took two of us all bloody day; mega thanks to Tauren who I now owe a pint.

I'm gonna offer a review of the shed: it's not a well-made thing at all.  One of the windows didn't fit the frame, such that I had to carve the frame to size with a wrecking knife.  It has too many bits and they don't fit together very well.  You need to buy a silicon sealant separately lest it leak, yet it doesn't say that anywhere until after you've bought it.  The roof felt supplied is too small to adequately cover the roof, so I'll need to buy a bucket of pitch to cover the roof.

I bought this from a major DIY chain, one of the big three.  I'll go down there tomorrow and ask them for a bucket of pitch and a tube of sealant; if I don't get them then I'll publish the name.

Pics:

Glad I'm not claustrophobic...

Now that the shed's no longer an immense strew of timber, I have the opportunity to get stuck into building the beds.  I've spent this morning dividing the pallets and stacking the wood ready for reassembly, though it'll be a couple days yet as I've just ran out of nails.  

In cuter news: 

Bill has investigated the roof of the shed, the climbability of the new trellis, and found them both to his liking.  

George and I like to sit together and watch Gardeners World, me for the tips and George for Monty Don's old retriever.  "George, you wanna watch the dog show?"  So today our Sam says to me "this isn't about George liking the dog at all, is it?  You're watching this because you like gardening!"  Well no shit, Sherlock.  

Mike has celebrated the new Spring with some new growth: 

It's my day off from caring today, so I shall be spending the evening in Skyrim.

Until next time xx

Mike got sick :(

Mike - my Laurus nobilis - has come down with a case of powdery mildew; a common disease of bay trees.  The treatment was severe.  Mike has two parts to him, a long one and a short one.  I don't know if the shorter part is a second trunk or if it's a branch of the main trunk which budded below the soil.  Whatever it is, the affected leaves were all on that part, that branch, so I took the entire branch.  Effectively I took a third of him.  By isolating the infected part from the healthy plant I should've prevented further deterioration; fingers crossed.  Mike looks sad now.

I've gotten photos, of course.  The classic grey patches of powdery mildew are visible, as are the brown leaf margins which suggest the mildew has damaged the leaves internally.

Hopefully this'll put a stop to it. Poor Mike :(

They're good for your heart...

Today begins the process of conditioning the soil on the East half ready for a six bed rotation.  I've dug seven neat rows, each two inches deep, and planted field beans.

At the time of planting they were scarcely distinguishable from pebbles, which was a mite disconcerting.  £3 of beans has covered the entire arable patch.  I don't know how edible field beans are as they are primarily sold as a green manure for Winter, like grazing rye.  But like all beans, field beans are legumes, which means they fix nitrogen, and we like nitrogen!  They'll grow over Winter and I'll dig them in in the Spring, thus making way for whatever veggies I end up planting.  

I'll rotate by family, so solanaceae, legumes, alliums, brassicae, apiaceae, and the 6th bed will be fallowed with either wheat or a couple of chickens.  I'm still arguing for the chickens but it'll probably end up being wheat.  

While I was at the garden centre I spotted these two alpine strawberry plants.  They were in a bit of a sorry way, with their lower leaves deprived of sunlight, the upper leaves waterburned, the roots too dense for the pot, and obvious deficiencies in nitrogen and potassium.  My heart went out to them, so I bought them at a discount.  They've been repotted in larger pots, given some 4:2:6, and they're now keeping Mike company on the landing windowsill.  

The one in the red pot is Pinky, the one in the purple pot is Perky.  

Lastly, my jasmine is growing well, although it's slowing down for the Winter.  I anticipate a growth spurt in the Spring, and I've noticed there was nothing about the arbour which would serve to encourage vines to grow across the front at the top; they'd just grow straight upwards.  I've put in a beam to correct this.  It's a kludge, but give it a couple of years and it'll be greened over anyways,  

That'll be lovely when it's all grown over.  I'll take some cuttings in the Spring and sow them in my propagator.  With any luck I'll end up with a pair of small jasmines I can plant out in April 2014.  

Until next time :)

Time off in Looe

A break was needed, so me and the lads spent a few days in a caravan in Looe.  Good times were had, mead and scrumpy were drank, scones were eaten, the usual Cornwall kinda stuff.  I know my audience, however, so when I went wandering I was sure to take in plenty of fauna and interesting stones.  In many of the photos I've included my inhaler for scale.  It's about 4 inches in length by an inch and a half in diameter (metric to follow, when I can find my ruler).

This is Polperro harbour, where the first lot of snaps were taken.  The local beer and cider were well worth the trip.  If you're ever in that part of Cornwall, try the Rattler.

Caloplaca marina, an orange lichen.

Patella depressa - the Black-Footed Limpet.

The next set of snaps are from a natural bay, roughly two miles west of Looe Harbour.  Here's the bay, with some oddly balanced stones, such that I can't quite tell if they were stacked by natural forces or drunken students.

The rocks here were clearly stratified, as though they'd been a loose sediment of mud once, but the strata are stuck together tightly, so that they don't come off in sheets like slate does.  Many of them were streaked with veins of what appeared to be quartz.  In most, the veins of quartz ran parallel to the main stone strata.  Some defied this trend, and were more interesting for it.

And these two were gnarled up by forces I have not the wit to begin measuring, but they look cool.

We also found an awesome waterfall.

This unidentified arthropod had missing feet and claws, it's shell had turned entirely to firm jelly whilst (presumably) retaining most of it's shape and colour, and the thing had a stone stuck fast enough to it's bum that I didn't dare prise it off for fear of tearing the entire corpse in half.  

Dorsal view:

Ventral view:

Lastly, I realise that I've been off the topic of gardening these past couple posts, so here's Mike.  I've given Mike a taller pot - taller, but not wider - to encourage downward root growth, pruned him and given him a bamboo stake to grow against.  

I've also finally given the arbour a much needed functional upgrade - discreetly placed, of course - which should make it equal to the needs of a working garden...

Until next time :)

Mike

I'd like to introduce you to Mike, my new Laurus nobilis.  He's a very young tree, only 10" tall when I got him a fortnight ago and already he's grown 5".  Admittedly, putting him in a larger pot with half a cup of bonemeal and some decent compost may have helped, as his roots weren't in a great state when I got him.

He's staying on the windowsill for now, until he moves up to a garden-sized pot.  I'm not gonna plant him in the ground because Mediterranean species don't do well in the Winters at this latitude, but he can enjoy the other three seasons outdoors when he's old enough.  Meanwhile, he sits amidst the herb nursery that is the landing windowsill and occasionally makes me think of stews or spag bol.  

In other news: the site of the new lawn has had yet more stones raked out and now some bonemeal raked in, then been heavily watered with a high-nitrogen fertiliser.  When I put down seed in September it should hopefully shoot up like many little green rockets.