6 down: 219 to go

I cleared the weeds from about 6 square metres of ground today; only 219 to go. About 5 of the 6 are already planted with a few wildlife friendly shrubs and herbs. I managed to clear the weeds leaving behind most of the self seeded fennel for the hoverflies and birds. The other square metre is just in open ground. The rain has definitely softened the land and it is getting easier to get to the roots.

Harvested some more blackberries and ate them on the job. I try not to think of what may be inside them and one in particular tasted a little rich in protein! My Grandma would be turning in her grave if she knew. When I was about ten years old she gave me a graphic lesson in the grubs that sometimes live inside the fruit. She filled a sink with salt water and tipped in some blackberries and we watched and waited. Little white grubs started to crawl out from the middle. After about half an hour she rinsed the fruit and we ate it. I was under strict instructions never to eat blackberries straight from the plant again! I never did do as I was told though, they taste too good not to just eat.

Also harvested a few hazelnuts, last time I was there they were very much still on the bush, unripe, and out of reach. Today they were mostly on the ground and mostly already eaten by the wildlife. I suspect squirrels and mice. The Hazel overhangs from the corner of the garden by 7 metres, the lowest branches curve over about 6 or 7 feet off the ground, it’s massive. Once the leaves fall it will be coppiced so that it is more manageable and doesn’t take up so much room.

Brought back more hawthorn berries too.

I must remember to take the camera with me next time!

Motivation boost

Last night made some Damson Gin from the tree at home. A reminder of what will be possible when the plot is growing and productive. Great for the motivation!

Slow Going

Last Friday I took another car load of rubbish to the tip. This time it was mainly rubble and broken concrete blocks.  I also tried digging at various places around the plot. The rain we have had seems to have softened the ground a little. There are places that it will be relatively easy to clear but places that the ground is still very hard and tangled with roots. I really want to get on with the job and see more creative progress, as opposed to cutting things down. 

Original 9 year old scribble on scrap paper

I designed a layout (if it could be called a design) for the garden 9 years ago but apart from laying a few slabs near to the house, levelling a small circle for a bit of grass (can’t really call it a lawn) and putting down some gravel, that was it.





The plot was then left to someone else to maintain. I took over again two years ago.




Eighteen months ago I separated the plot from the house with a fence, leaving a small area of gravelled garden for the house. For the next seven months, other priorities took over and it was left to its own devices.  Extreme bad weather followed; then last spring I started on the job with a vengeance.  Such a warm dry summer has slowed progress and impatience is starting to set in.

The slowing down has had some advantages. I have accumulated lots of plants, most of them sown as seeds but some divisions and cuttings of plants from the garden at home and a couple of bought in plants. I’m getting good at reviving plants from the ‘dead and dying’ counter at the local DIY shed and garden centres. There they only cost from a few pence to about £4 or £5, sometimes for large plants that would’ve cost £££s earlier in the season and plenty of times they contain more than one plant squashed into a pot. I once got a dying alpine strawberry plant for £1 it turned out when prised apart to have 45 plants in one small pot, no wonder it looked like it was dying! They have been multiplying ever since; needless to say alpine strawberries are on the list of plants just ready to plant out when the ground is cleared. I am hoping they make good ground cover.

Another advantage of the slow down is that I have gained a real sense of the contours of the plot. I wouldn’t have said it sloped much, but it is on the side of a hill and looks as if sometime in the past there has been an attempt to terrace the ground. Walking about the plot has shown natural paths, the obvious lines that walking around has revealed. The plan will now be modified to take this into account, something I couldn’t have done on a faster time scale.  

It’s early in the year to have collected hawthorn berries today, but they are falling from the trees naturally. I will scarify them and hope that enough of them germinate to plant a hedge along the plot edge. The hope is that a hedge can begin to establish before the rickety fence finally falls down. The plan is to plant the seeds but also to put in some hardwood cuttings too.

The bottom end of the plot can’t yet be planted. As soon as the leaves have fallen from the trees they need radical surgery and need space for the branches to come down. Just one hazel plant has branches that overhand by seven metres. The rest are bigger. A mix of coppicing and pollarding the trees should revive them and provide plenty of wood for use in the garden and a fire at home.

P.S. This post originally started with the word Today. It has taken me three days to work out how to post a picture with a label! Must do it a bit more often until I remember how.

First attempt with the lawn mower

It makes me sad to think how easy it is to kill bramble. Even the most vigorous plants seem to have succumbed. The amazing thing is it has only taken four sessions of lopping and strimming to decimate massive plants with tip rooting one inch diameter canes. I learnt a long time ago to try not to be too sentimental about killing weeds. (Weed: plant in the wrong place.) The pacifist in me really would like them to be able to just get on with their lives and carry on growing where they are. What have they done to hurt me? The contradiction is that I want to plant the garden with what I want to grow, and past experience tells me that wild bramble really is hard to keep under control. There are plenty of thickets in the wild where I can forage for the fruit, so it all had to go.

Today I went to the plot with the lawn mower. It was a trial run that worked well on most of the area. The mower cut down even further the weeds that had been strimmed 10 days ago. It also picked up some of the debris left behind last visit. The mix of green and brown should compost well and I have started on the composting. I reckon that the clippings will be more use under a fruit tree than feeding the weeds they came from.

Mostly when I garden I try not to do too much digging to protect the soil structure. In this case I would like to get on with clearing some of the roots but can’t get a spade or fork into the ground to make this achievable. The dry summer has made it easy to keep on top of the growth but baked the ground very hard. Once it really rains I will be able to dig, but the growth will be back with a vengeance.

I have lists for everything else in my life so I may as well do one for this too. Number one on the list: Start a list of things to do in the garden. There since last time is: Learn how to prune and train the thornless bramble! I chopped off about twelve feet of growth today. I can’t really call it pruning but I do have to be able to get in there, one branch had arched over the gate. It did feed me another handful of fruit.

I also got a handful of nettle stings. New growth on stinging nettles is really ferocious!

To keep costs down, the plants for this plot will have to come mostly from divisions and cuttings from the garden at home, and seeds sown. I will have to buy some plants if I am to realise my ambitions for the plot but aim to keep this to a minimum. I expect that any cost will be more than covered by any crop value. (Not that I expect to sell crops – just reduced costs in money and food miles; and increase food quality.) First plants to make the move are house leeks. They are to cover a low block wall that has been there since I first imagined the overgrown plot as a garden. That was several years ago.

Experimenting is in my genes. I would be bored without. The houseleeks are experiment two (experiment one was the mower on uneven ground). They have begun to grow like weeds at home so I have planted some in old used potting compost in the side of a T-shirt. I put knots in the four corners of the back of an old cotton t-shirt to hold up the sides. This ‘planter’ has been sitting on a table top for three or four weeks now and the plants have so far survived. The t-shirt is fading and I expect it to hold together just long enough for the plants to take hold of the soil and be stable enough to grip the concrete blocks underneath. As with all experiments I will have to wait for the results.

P.S. I’m getting the hang of this blogging now and I think it will work as a record of the plot, now to the list making.   

Clearing the plot



Plot Entrance 12.8.2011

Before a Strim 12.8.2011

After years of neglect 2011 is the year to tame the plot. In the spring and early summer several car loads of rubbish went to the tip. It's amazing what overgrown weeds can hide. Bags of builders’ rubble, the remains of an old mattress, and bits of metal, indistinguishable plastic and broken glass were all duly dispatched. None of the waste was mine and it was hard to understand why anyone would just dump theirs as they had.
The first attempt at strimming and lopping took about two weeks work. The focus has been to keep the weeds down enough to prevent seed setting. With each visit the strimming got easier. A month ago the job took 4 ½ hours and used 2 ½ litres of fuel.
Two days ago the job took 2 ½ hours and one litre of fuel. I take this as a sign that it’s working. I don’t know if I’ve managed to avoid all the seeds but the growth is significantly weaker. It was a satisfying visit that produced some potatoes; they were from two plants, strays left over from last years attempt to clear some of the ground (by planting spuds). 

After a Strim 12.8.2011

The plants I put in 14 months ago to screen the garden from a neighbour are thriving. Last time I was there I ate a handful of blackberries from the thornless bramble I planted. Now I need to find out how to train/prune it before that needs the strimmer too! A friend donated a few plants; they too are thriving despite a dry summer. I hope this means that the soil is good.
It might just be a garden one day.

P.S. Working out how to use this blog is harder than using the strimmer!