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Gardening
Article Week Ending March 5th Hello Folks
Seed sowing is underway now and the Parsley
seed I If you don’t want to bother replanting your borders each year with Bedding Plants you might want to plant a few Perennials as they come up each year but die down in the winter. Some you might consider are;- Delphiniums, blue – Hellebores (Christmas roses) purple or white - Lupins – Kniphophia (Red Hot Pokers, red and yellow) – Michaelmass Daisies or Margeurites, White – Coreopsis, yellow about 10 inches high – Achillea, Red or Yellow 24 inches high– Agastache, scented but slightly prickly 20 inches high– Aquilegia, 2-3 feet high– Montbrieter, Orange or Red 18 inches high.
Tomatoes I usually reckon take about 6 weeks from sowing seed to make nice sturdy plants of about 5 or 6 inches high that are then ready to go into a cold greenhouse in either 9 or 10 inch pots, Grow Bags, or Ring Culture (that is done by standing bottom less pots onto a bed of compost or fresh soil, but don’t use soil that has Tomatoes grown in it before.) Cucumbers are fairly easy and can be grown in the same greenhouse, but they do like more humidity. So, if you can put Cucumbers in one corner and then drop a piece of polythene in front of them, from the floor to the roof, that should do fine. The all Female varieties are the best, otherwise the Male flowers have to be picked off daily to prevent the cucumbers from going bitter. Well, that’s all for now.
Gardening
Tips Week Ending 7thMarch 2009 Hello Folks The garden centres are filling up
with lots of young bedding plants for baskets and tubs already pricked
out for you in modules. It is still very early and they will soon get
leggy if you keep them in the house as they need the light. They are
best kept in a greenhouse, but it must be well heated for such delicate
little plants. The only plugs I have bought so far are small Geraniums
as they are a little bit slower to grow. Perennials such as Lupins, Fox
Gloves, Aquilegias and Penstemmons, etc can be planted out now. If you
have Penstemmons and Sedums already in the garden, the old stems from
last year can be cut down to reveal the new growth that will grow to
produce the coming seasons flowers. It will soon be time to start
general seed sowing, but with many of the bedding plants such as
Lobelia, the germinating seedlings are so tiny, it is a lot easier to
buy a few plugs. On the other hand there are hundreds of dust like seeds
in a packet and one packet would last you for years if the seeds keep
germinating each year. I usually think of sowing Tomato seeds 6 weeks
before putting the young plants out in a cold greenhouse, (normally in
the last week of April,) and Runner Beans, Courgettes and Peppers should
be alright by then as well.
If you are sowing Marrows,
Courgettes, Squashes, Cucumbers or any other flat seeds, it is better to
put the seeds on edge in the compost as they may rot if they are lying
flat. Begonia corms can be started into growth now and they should be
placed on damp compost, but do not cover the corm with compost. They
shouldn’t be watered as such, but should be sprayed lightly and
occasionally with water to start the buds swelling. Well that’s all for now, good
sowing Frances Hartley Hello Folks
Just a few words about Orchids. They are Epiphytes which
naturally cling to the trees in the wild, so if you have had one as a
present, or bought one, do not pot it as an ordinary bulb. They virtually
sit on the compost and only dip their roots into it. The compost, which
should be very open and only watered when dry, can be bought in
reasonably small bags in Garden Centres. You can mix your own if you
want by using one third ordinary compost, one third grit, one third
shredded bark and a little charcoal. Garden
Centres are getting their plug plants in now and they do vary a bit in
price, but they are ideal for potting on to use later in tubs and
baskets, etc.
Amaryllis
Bulbs that were bought in the Winter will have probably flowered by now
and be coming to an end. The one I was given for Christmas had ten very
large beautiful pink and white flowers on it. Don’t stop watering or
feeding the bulbs just yet though, because they will develop healthy
leaves that feed the bulb for next year. Wait until the leaves start to
loose their colour and then gradually dry the pots off until the
leaves are dead all the while keeping the pots in full sun to ripen the
bulbs. They won’t flower at the same time next year as they did this
year, because those for sale this winter were forced, but they should
produce a new bud next year. If Amaryllis Bulbs are properly rested
after flowering and then coaxed back into life they usually flower again
every year as normal garden bulbs do, but sometimes they miss the first
year after they were first bought when they had been forced. I have
several that I kept from previous years that are now starting to produce
new flower buds. Good Gardening
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put
into very hot soil came up quickly. I think every seed must have come
up, a lot better than I expected. In spite of the weather the Geraniums
seem quite good so far in the cold greenhouse and the bulbs in the
garden are coming up well, even the dwarf Tulips are coming up to say
hello. By the way, if you fancy growing Ranunculus, the bulbs look like
dry claws and you must give them a short soak in tepid water before
planting claw side pointing downwards. If you only want a few for a tub,
they will be on sale, towards May, already growing as plants and usually
in flower.
Shrubs
such as Buddleia should have been cut back hard by now and all pruning
of other shrubs finished. I usually do Roses about the third week in
March and Hybrid Teas should be cut very low as more new stems means
more flowers because they flower on the new wood. Floribundas have lots
of smaller flowers on each stem and need a lighter trim, but with any
really old wood cut out.
coming on
fast now. A small Hazel tree, which I grew from a nut some years ago,
had a few catkins last year, but looks lovely this year with lots of
bright pale yellow catkins hanging all over it.
I will try a few less popular and
unusual vegetables in large tubs again this year. I put 3 Baby Sweet
Corn plants to a tub last year and they did quite well, because with the
plants being so close to each other it meant they pollinated well to set
the corn. 
Begonia
Corms are now about and best started into growth by standing a few on
some compost in a half seed tray. They should be sprayed with water each
day to encourage them to shoot. Summer flowering bulbs, Dahlia Tubers,
Potatoes, Onion Sets and Shallots can also be bought. It is a bit late
for Shallots now though, but they should still have plenty of growing
time. Tomato seeds should be sown in the first week of March so that
they will be ready to go into a cold greenhouse in April.
Hello Folks
It
is time to check all your tools after the winter when you probably did
not use them much in the garden. To make sure I can find my tools easily,
when I put them down while I am using them, I have bound the handles
with yellow and green striped sticky tape which shows up quite well.
This is especially a good idea with small tools like secateurs and
trowels.