Tomato blitz!

Tomato blitz!

I bought a packet with 5 varieties of tomato seeds about the end of March. I started them off in the propagator indoors then put them outside on the table in the corner of the balcony.

About the middle of May I took them down to the GH on Gerry’s allotment. They made little progress even there.

The season started off terribly for me this year as the seedlings suffered from the cold spring. In June I was convinced I wasn’t going to see any tomatoes this year! The plants I put out on my allotment were pathetic looking things! I was ashamed to plant them out! Nevertheless I thought “You never know with plants, I might get a few tomatoes if the season isn’t as cold & rainy as last year.” I’m now so glad I planted them out as I have had quite a reasonable crop to end the season.

I sowed 5 different varieties: ‘Marmande’, ‘Moneymaker’, ‘Gardener’s Delight’, ‘Garden Pearl’ & ‘Sunbaby’. The first four gave me more than sufficient plants in the end but for some reason not a single plant of ‘Sunbaby’ survived!

Tomato ‘Garden Pearl’ & ‘Gardener’s Delight’ seeds:

‘Marmande’ seedlings just transplanted:

Tomato seedlings in kitchen:

I brought 3 plants of ‘Marmande’ back home from the GH to grow on my balcony:

I grew one in the greenhouse (8th July) on the allotment … :

… & nine at the top of my allotment:

I’d never grown beefsteak type before so didn’t really know what to expect.

‘Marmande‘ at top of plot ripening:

I harvested many tomatoes from the different plants & it has been interesting to see just how much difference there has been between the 3 environments they were grown in!

Plot 12A: Tomatoes Marmande just picked:

Greenhouse: Tomatoes Marmande just picked:

Balcony: Tomatoes Marmande just picked:

As you might expect for uniformity of size & shape & appearance the GH ones come out on top. The ones grown on my balcony had the best attention with the most feeding but even so I was rather disappointed with them. The shape & size & appearance were halfway between those grown outdoors on the allotment & the one plant in the GH.

‘Garden Pearl’:

The ‘Garden Pearl’ plants, that I had intended to put in the 5 hanging baskets I have on the balcony, did really, really well!

Unfortunately they were grown in the soil on the allotment &, as it turns out, were planted too close together as the stems became interwoven & that made picking the fruit rather difficult. Nonetheless they gave me tons of little roundish fruits that mostly were a little pinkish rather than tomato red, though some of the most mature fruit was red.

I’ll be growing these again next year but in the hanging baskets on the balcony & not in the allotment soil. They had quite a nice tomatoey flavour.

‘Gardener’s Delight’:

The few plants of ‘Gardener’s Delight’ that survived made very, very tall plants that were very vigorous but didn’t produce nearly as many trusses as I would have expected.

Again maybe it was due to the very poor start, even though the 3 very hot weeks we had in July spurred all my plants along. I was able to harvest a few trusses. I’d hoped they would ripen before the first frosts that we generally get from the 3rd week of October onwards but I picked them all before ‘Late Blight’ ended up killing the plants.sharer

The taste is always good from this tomato, a little sharper than others but the fruit are just a nice bite size. I’ll be growing more of them next year.

Comparison of size between ‘Gardener’s Delight’, ‘Marmande’ from plot, ‘Garden Pearl’ & ‘Marmande’ from GH:

‘Moneymaker’:

As for ‘Moneymaker’, the only 4 surviving plants I put out in the allotment in July! They were once again poor things that I “hid” amongst the Pumpkins! Again, thanks to the very hot weather we had during July they really took off! I’ve never seen tomato plants grow so fast!

I’d manured the bed for the Pumpkins using well rotted horse manure only about 4 or 5 weeks earlier. The Pumpkins & the tomatoes went crazy, the tomatoes reached almost 2m in height! The Pumpkins threw out runners at least 4m long before I cut them back by half & they recovered that length a few weeks later! As for the tomato fruit, well, they set very late, well into August, so I didn’t got many trusses & none of the fruit had matured sufficiently to pick till October. Even so I’m very happy with the few trusses I did get, especially after having been such poor specimens to start with & considering the short time they had in which to grow & fruit.

In short, thanks no doubt to the 3 very hot weeks in July this year, I’ve ended up with many more tomatoes than I know what to do with! So I’m “over the Moon” with my tomatoes this year! (Last year I lost ALL my plants, bar 1, to blight!)

Cambridge Botanical Gardens (Compost Corner) 4

Cambridge Botanical Gardens (Compost Corner) 4

This is the last part of this series of blogs on composting – but I wonder now if it shouldn’t have been the first!

Why is it a good idea to compost?

Composting is a form of recycling that benefits your garden & the environment.

– Up to 30% of our waste can be composted.

– It reduces landfill & pollution.

– Without much effort, it can save you money.

Reasons to compost

Good soil is the key to successful gardening. Digging in compost helps your garden grow. It:

– Improves soil structure which helps drainage & aeration, encouraging healthy root growth.

– Encourages good populations of worms & other soil organisms.

– Improves soil fertility.

– Helps the soil retain moisture.

Composting saves you money as it reduces the need to buy:

– Chemical fertilizers.

– Soil improver.

– Mulches.

By home composting, gardeners can contribute to protecting the environment by:

– Reducing the amount of organic waste that goes into landfill sites.

– Reducing the need for chemical fertilizers.

– Eliminating the need to use peat as a soil improver, as compost is an excellent alternative. Peat bogs are among the UK’s rarest habitats & 94% have been lost. Reducing the demand for peat helps conserve these areas.

Reasons to recycle

– 75% of all rubbish gets buried in the ground.

– Our household waste is rising at an average of 3% a year.

– 80% of our rubbish could be recycled.

We need to break the trend of sending 3% more rubbish to landfill each year, although 80% of it could be recycled. This is bad for the environment & wastes money. Soon, there will be no land left where we can bury waste.

Sustainable living

You can help our environment by reducing waste through considering what we can re-use, what we can recycle & which materials can be composted.

I hope you will have found these blogs of help if you have been considering what to do about the mounting bins of rubbish we seem to produce every year. Have felt concern for the environment but had little, practical idea of how you, yourself, could do anything to contribute to its improvement.

These blogs may also be of help to gardeners who have practised composting their vegetable waste for years to see other ways of making their composting even more environmentally friendly.

Or who perhaps haven’t been too satisfied with the quality of their compost to see where they may be going wrong or to consider other ways of improving the quality of what they produce. Thereby increasing the fertility of their soil & the quality/quantity of the produce, be it in the flower garden or veg plot.

This is a repost of the blog I wrote 3 years ago!

June Plots

June Plots

There wasn’t all that much going on during May on the allotments so I didn’t have much material to work with, besides having spent 10 days in Cuenca, Spain, at the beginning of the month also put me even more behind. Then came the half-term holidays for our granddaughter which got me even further behind again!

Now during June I’ve been going down in the evenings & I’m able to spend an average of about 2 hours per evening! 🙂 Now I’ve been able to spend more time down there on a more regular basis things are – slowly – getting a little more under control!

Early Potatoes ‘Rocket’ at the end of May on my plot:

Early Potatoes ‘Rocket’ a month later:

Carrots & Parsnips at the end of May:

Carrots & Parsnips a month later:

Onion sets Sturon & Leeks at the end of May:

Onions from sets, ‘Sturon’, a fortnight later:

Onions from sets ‘Sturon’ after a further two weeks of growth at the end of June:

What a difference a month makes at this time of the year!

=======================================================================

Gerry’s plots during the middle of May:

Gerry brought some plants down to the allotment from his own greenhouse at home & he, himself, planted them out!

Sweetcorn planted out middle of May:

Sweetcorn middle of June:

Sweetcorn now at the end of June:

Broadbeans planted out middle of May:

Broadbeans 3rd week of June:

Lettuce ‘Ballon’ middle of May:

Lettuce ‘Ballon’ 3rd week of June:

Lettuce ‘Ballon’ end of June:

I’ve picked about half of them by now! But there is still about half the bed left, though they will need to be harvested pretty soon or they will bolt! They have turned out very well.

Peas middle of May:

Peas 3rd week of June:

About the beginning of June my daughter & granddaughter, Kirsty, sowed some Pumpkin seeds in the tiny greenhouse in their back garden. A day or two later we had some very strong winds which blew the greenhouse over. As they had been out for the day they didn’t discover what had happened till late evening. Kirsty was very upset so my daughter said she would get some more. I said I would grow some for her on the allotment. So next day I bought a packet of seeds & sowed them in the greenhouse on the allotment:

Pumpkin ‘Jack O’Lantern’ seeds just sown 3rd June:

They germinated within a few days:

Within a week the true leaves had developed!:

In less then 3 weeks I was planting them in the allotment!:

Ten days later:

This is the first time I’ve ever grown them from seed! I grew two plants last year that were given to me by a fellow allotmenteer but they were already bigger than the plants you see here in the ground.

These are astounding me with the speed of their growth! In just a fortnight they are already about 3x as big as when I put them in!!!

At the same time as I sowed the Pumpkin seeds I also sowed a couple of packets of squash seeds that my sister in Texas, USA, sent me way back in February. Owing to such a cold spring I hadn’t got around to sowing them but I decided I’d sow them now.

Green Squash seeds just sown 3rd June:

Yellow Squash seeds just sown 3rd June:

The Squash seeds were as quick to germinate as the Pumpkins. Their subsequent growth has been a little slower but I was also surprised that they grew so fast.

Squashes with true leaves 19th June:

I planted them out at the very top of Gerry’s allotment. He had dumped some well rotted horse manure there which I’d cleared away a week or so before putting in the Squash seedlings. As there was still some left I dug it in & levelled the ground a bit as there is a slope there. The seedlings are looking quite well & are growing almost as fast as the Pumpkins!

Green & Yellow Squashes just planted out 20th June:

Green & Yellow Squashes 9 days later:

As I have no views from the shed this year I’m going to finish this blog here. Over the coming months/blogs I’ll show you the progress of the Pumpkins & Squashes as well as the results of the harvesting that has already begun!

End of first season on Plot 12A

End of first season on Plot 12A

I’m now coming to the end of my first season on the new half plot I got from the Town Council on the 1st of September 2011.

Even if I dare say so myself, I’ve done quite a bit of work & transformed it completely! There’s little to see in the way of plantings as I’ve been concentrating on clearing away the very old overgrown Raspberry beds. Thanks to an exceptionally mild & dry November I’ve been able to do much more than I could have ever imagined when I took the plot on four months ago!

Ex-Raspberry plot 1st to be dug & manured:

All the Raspberry beds have been dug out & the roots removed. The couch grass (twitch) has been dug out as much as possible, but, as we all know, for as much as you try to remove every tiny trace of root, lots always remains & in the spring I expect it will be as green as a bowling green! The very first bed I dug up has sprouted a generous crop of grass!

First & second beds dug & manured:

It is hard work, very hard work clearing away the Raspberry canes & even worse digging out the Couch grass! As my back isn’t in very good condition I have to stop for a breath & a rest after practically every forkful!!! It’s a real fight trying to get the grass roots apart sufficiently so as to be able to lift the mass out of the soil. I have to rock the fork backwards & forwards several times on two sides before I can get down to getting the spit of soil & roots out! An exhausting task, even for a person half my age!

The First bed refers to the very first bed I dug up & manured. It wasn’t part of the Raspberry beds. The Second bed is the first of the Raspberry beds to be dug up & manured. Hope that clears up doubts as to the numbering of the beds!

The First bed was planted with a few Strawberry plants at its far end whereas none of the old Raspberry beds have anything planted in them. This bed is also at the furthest end of my half plot, there is a division put up by the council gardeners which is clearly visible in the photos.

Third bed dug & manured:

This is actually the Second bed of the old Raspberry beds. It’s the third bed from the end of the plot. There’s nothing planted in it at present.

View of bed alongside Compost heap:

Here is where my plot (12A) actually starts. The main path for cars & dividing the allotments field in two down the centre is on the far side of my compost heap. I will have to do something about it in a few months’ time as it is far too big at present. Dividing it into two/three parts seems to me to be the most sensible thing to do. First I will have to empty it! Unfortunately it is totally infested with Bindweed!

Horse manure being dug in:

This is the very first bed from the beginning of the plot. It was really choked up with Bindweed & Couch grass. I dug it all over trying to remove as much of the roots as possible. Later I dug it over a 2nd time adding the horse manure.

Bed finished digging in manure:

It took me two days work but now it’s finished! That was just digging in the manure!

View of manured section:

A couple of weeks later the 2 beds here are finished & the manuring has been finished. The 2nd bed was full of several rows of Onion sets. After weeding them & getting out as much as was possible of the Bindweed roots I pulled the loosened soil up around the necks of the plants to stabilize them. Since then I’ve mulched them with soil improver & they look 100% better!

Strawberry plants just planted out:

These Strawberry plants come mostly from the plants that Gerry had in pots in his GH at home. He brought them down to the GH on the allotment where they spent about 6 months. I put them outside when they started to flower but brought them inside again when the runners started to root into the grass around the GH! I put the runners into pots & pegged down other that hadn’t rooted yet. That way I got a whole load of new plants to put in this bed.

Strawberries mulched with soil improver:

A couple of weeks later Gerry brought a load of sacks of Soil Improver down to the allotment & I used a couple of sacks to mulch around the Strawberries & the Calendulas.

Calendulas & Strawberry plants on Christmas Eve:

Here is the most up to date photo I have of this bed which was taken on Christmas Eve.

To end this blog I’m including a series of photos of the bed that contained Leeks, Beetroot, Carrot & Onion seedlings when I took over the tenancy in September.

Leeks, Beetroot, Carrot & Onion seedlings 16th September:

Leeks, Beetroot, Carrot & Onion seedlings 5th October:

Leeks, Beetroot, Carrot & Onion seedlings 23rd November:

Leeks, Beetroot, Carrot & Onion seedlings 3rd December:

Leeks, Beetroot, Carrot & Onion seedlings Christmas Eve:

Sometime in the New Year I will continue to make updates but almost certainly the next Episode in this saga won’t be until Spring is officially here!

Lotties in winter

Lotties in winter

At long last I found time to do the promised blog of our allotments at the end of the year. Today is Boxing Day & it’s a very quiet day, in spite of the strong winds forecast! We began the day with a fair amount of sunshine though this only lasted a few hours before the clouds came over. No rain though. In the late afternoon we had a little sunshine once again before the night time pulled its veil over the evening sky.

Beetroot Bolthardy harvested:

This first photo is of the last of the Beetroots that I had been growing at the top of the plot. They’re in the bag because I forgot I wanted a photo with them just taken out of the ground.

All in all I’m pretty pleased with the way they have gone this year & will again sow them at intervals in coming years.

Broccoli Purple sprouting:

The Broccoli was given to me by a guy on the conjoining plot. I happened to read about their anti-cancerous properties just before going down to the plot. This guy was planting something, I didn’t know what, when I asked him if he knew about the anti-cancerous properties of Broccoli. He said he did & that he was planting his Broccoli at that very moment! He offered me the last half a dozen he had left over & so I planted them here. Mine have done better than his!

Godetias flowering:

The Godetias I sowed originally in the greenhouse to later take home & put on the balcony but which I put in the plot have been flowering for some time. I must say this has surprised me as I expected them to die at the first whiff of frost! They have survived at least 3 frosts – one of which was forecast to be 3 degrees C below freezing!

Lettuce Tom Thumb:

These miniature Lettuce, Tom Thumb, are still going strong after several frosts.

Lentils & Calendulas at top of plot:

This is the top of the plot where I sowed Lentils & Pinto beans. I had potatoes growing here a few months earlier. After lifting them & raking out the soil level I sowed some rows of Legumes. The Pinto beans didn’t survive more than one very, very light frost but the Lentils are not fazed by a few degrees of frost! The Calendulas have been there all year! They came up with the spuds & I left them after lifting the spuds.

French Marigolds in flower:

I sowed these French Marigolds in a seedtray with the intention of pricking them out into bigger flowerpots hoping, with the protection of the greenhouse, to get some flowers from them during the winter. I was so occupied with the digging of the allotments that I never got around to doing it! So, here they are flowering, still in the seedtray!

Annual Chrysanthemums:

A guy from Spain sent me some seeds of these Annual Chrysanthemums last year. I grew them on the allotment & some seeds fell into the ground & survived the winter/spring/summer to come up amongst the Carrots I sowed there. As they still hadn’t flowered when I lifted the Carrots I decided to try & save the plants. I put them in the greenhouse, in the growbag where Tomato Mallorquin had been growing all summer. They are flowering at the time of writing this blog!

Garlic sprouting:

During November I put in a few Garlic cloves from a head of Garlic one of our sons brought over from Spain when he came to spent a couple of weeks holiday with us. He said they were probably the best Garlic you could buy in Spain! I told him at the time it was far too early to plant them but I would do it when the time was right. So here they are just poking through the ground right in front of the greenhouse.

Peanuts at an end:

Many of you following my allotment blogs during the year will remember my experiment with growing Peanuts on the allotment, well I can report that the experiment has been unsuccessful! Not surprising to anyone I suppose, but I did get at least ONE (1) peanut!!!

You must realize that I also started them very, very late. I’m determined to have another go next year & will start the seeds off much earlier, I may even give them some protection from the elements as well.

Pinto beans harvested:

Here are some of my Pinto beans as I was removing them from their seed pods in the greenhouse. I left them to dry for a couple of months before I removed them from their seed pods. Really I was too busy, & lazy!, to do it earlier! They had been picked more than a month before.

Pinto beans bagged:

Here is a bag with some of the beans once I took them home & put them in a bag. We have had a meal with some & there are still some waiting for me to remove the beans from their seed pods!

Tomatoes Mallorquin in Greenhouse:

This is the last photo of the tomatoes Mallorquin. I sowed them in January 2011 in the greenhouse. They were from the packet of seeds my wife brought me back from Spain in September 2010.

Tomatoes Mallorquin harvested in Greenhouse:

A few days later I decided it was no use keeping them on the plant any longer so I picked them & here they are laid out on the bench in the greenhouse.

Runner beans

These were the last of the runner beans for this year. I collected the last few seedpods to save for next year & I’ve now cleared the ground of them. We had a huge crop from them!

Fig trees with frost protection:

These “wigwams” are the winter protection for the two Fig trees we have. After two year of losing the fruit in the very late spring frosts I thought I would protect them this year & see if we can get something to eat from them. I shan’t take the fleeces off them until the middle of May next year. The two previous years we have had frost as late as the first week of May!

Tomatoes Mallorquin in greenhouse just harvested:

These are the very, very last of the tomatoes Mallorquin. I harvested them on 5th December. I then removed the plant from the growbag & threw it away.

Godetias at top of plot:

I showed you a photo of these Godetias at the top of the plot further up but this photo was taken several weeks, & several frosts later! Even on Christmas Eve they were still flowering!

French Marigolds & Cosmos on Christmas Eve:

The French Marigolds I showed you a few photos earlier were still flowering on Christmas Eve & there were a few Cosmos amongst them! They had been affected a little by the frosts lately but, as you can see, continued to flower!

Sweetpeas Royal Family just sown:

I finally sowed my Sweetpeas. I had tubes & compost all waiting in the greenhouse but I had no seeds till the 15th December! On the 20th I sowed about a 1/3rd of the seeds. The tubes are placed in a standard seedtray in which over 20 tubes fit.

Onion Alisa Craig sown on Christmas Eve:

When I spent an hour or so on the plots on Christmas Eve I sowed a few of my Onion Alisa Craig seeds in a seedtray. This is a little later than last year I think when I believe I sowed them a week or two earlier. I was quite pleased with the results of the sowing when I lifted the bulbs in July. I want to sow more this year as our stock ran out about a month ago!

Well that’s the last from the plots I share with Gerry for this year. I have to make up one last one with what I’ve been doing on my very own plot (12A) which I got from the Town Council on 1st September.

Wishing you all a happy end to the year 2011 & a fantastic New Year 2012.

It’s all change on the balcony!

It’s all change on the balcony! Time for the seasonal change over! Out with the old & in with the new!

Today I got rid of the Petunias & the China Pinks as well as the Morning Glory. I’ve emptied the pots of Petunias & put Pansies, with species Crocuses planted underneath them, in the vacant pots then I put them in the aluminium rings & hung them on the balcony railings.

Pansies & Crocuses:

The Pansies will give some flowers through out the winter whenever we have mild spells before their main flowering period starts in April. The Crocuses will flower before the Pansies start & the Pansies will hide the dying Crocuses’ leaves. I’ve done this for many years now with great success – though I must admit some years have been better than others! One year I changed the Pansies for Violas & had the most stunning display! The local council here has planted Violas & Pansies “en masse” for several years & the effect is always stunning!

The Petunias did very well & I shall repeat this planting in future years. I’ve grown a few other years but never in the amount I did this year.

Petunias:

I also pulled up the China Pinks I grew from seed. They took rather longer to start flowering than I anticipated – maybe I should start them earlier. The wind had shredded the poor plants & for weeks they have looked terrible. Nevertheless I liked them very much while they were in flower – if it hadn’t been for the weeks of strong winds I’m sure I would still have had a few flowers on all the plants as I had with the Petunias. I intend to grow more another year as well.

China Pinks:

The Morning Glory have done very poorly on my balcony this year. I grow them most years as I always save some seed & they add a vertical element to the balcony. This year I bought a packet of seeds when my wife & I went to Spain in May. I planted some on the balcony but I planted lots down on the allotment. I think they must be a new variety as there were many colours but the best part was that they stayed open almost all day – even on the hottest days they were still open in the afternoon! This was a surprise for me because I’ve grown them for 20 years or more & I’ve never known the flowers to remain open in the afternoon except towards the end of their growing season when the days are a lot cooler.

Morning Glory:

I am very, very happy with how they grew & flowered down on the allotment! :-)) They started to flower just at the time the Sweetpeas were coming to an end! They took over seamlessly! So I have had colour on the division created between two half allotments for about six months! The wind has damaged the plants no end & most leaves are almost in tatters, yet still they continue to flower!

The most curious thing about them was that the plants on the Balcony & on the allotment started to flower the very same day! They were also planted on the same day in May.

End of another growing season (well, almost!)

End of another growing season (well, almost!)

An old Australian group called The (New) Seekers has a song called Circles in it there are a couple of lines that say “the seasons go ’round & around, lets go round one more time”. Well that’s how I feel about the growing seasons, one is coming to an end & now we look forward (or back, as the case may be) to another season!

I’m going to take you on a look-back on what has been happening on Gerry’s allotment which, as you all know I help him, with:

Lentils & Pinto beans at the top of the plot:

Beetroot Bolthardy at the top of the plot:

Beetroot Bolthardy in another part of the plot but sown a couple of weeks earlier:

Pink Carnation seedlings at the top of the plot:

These are from seeds my wife brought back from Spain. Having nowhere to sow there on my balcony I sowed them in the GH & now I’ve planted them out to make bigger plants that I will lift & pot up in the spring & take home so she can see them flower during the summer on our balcony.

Godetia Azalea flowered:

Another of my wife’s favourite plants. These are annuals & will die with the first frosts – just as the flowers are beginning to open, I sowed them too late!

Carrots Autumn King

These have really grown a lot during August & now in September they are looking great!

Dwarf Apple tree:

A couple of photos of Gerry’s dwarf dessert apple tree. Last year there were two apples …

… this year we have had a 100% increase – we now have 4!  In this photo all 4 can be seen at the same time, if you look closely!

 

Ipomea or Morning Glory

When we were in Spain, in May 2011, I bought a packet of seeds that my daughter-in-law brought to my attention – these  Ipomea or Morning Glory:

They would seem to be a newer variety as the flowers stay open most of the day, even when it is pretty warm. I grew these in Spain for many years but only a couple of colours & they invariably died by midday – unless the temperature was low, like it is now in the autumn.

Cucumbers Marketmore Harvested:

The smooth skinned one grew in the greenhouse but the other one grew outside. The tomatoes that can be seen alongside are some I harvested the same day:

Peanuts:

I’m afraid after the first flowers, I showed you in a previous blog, no more have appeared! The plants continue alive, as can be seen in this photo, but they aren’t growing any more:

Tomatoes Mallorquin:

The tomatoes are now beginning to ripen & I’ve now started to harvest them:

Here is a view of them growing on the plot. As I’ve stripped off some of the lower leaves the French Marigolds & the Tagetes really jump out at you!

Three Sisters’ bed:

The Three Sisters’ bed, although long since reduced to Two Sisters after the last of the water melons died, is still going strong:

Here is a photo of the runner/green beans I picked from the few runner bean plants that grew up & produced beans:

Lettuce Webbs Wonderful:

My Lettuce Webbs Wonderful are doing quite well. Gerry will be able to start cutting them for his rabbit & birds while I’m away for a couple of weeks.

 

Potatoes Maincrop Maris Piper:

Here are the my maincrop potatoes in a wheelbarrow. Almost the last to be lifted:

 

A view of Gerry’s Runner/Green beans. These plants were absolutely loaded down with beans! I picked a lot to take to the Harvest Thanksgiving service we had at our church on Sunday 18th September:

 

Lentils & Garbanzo beans:

These are doing very well. They are growing on the ridges left behind after harvesting the potatoes:

Sunflowers Tall:

In spite of the strong winds we had this month the great majority managed to stay upright:

I have no photo from the shed this month – not even from the outside. I’ll see if I can include one in next month’s blog.

Cambridge Botanical Gardens (Compost Corner) 4

Cambridge Botanical Gardens (Compost Corner) 4

This is the last part of this series of blogs on composting – but I wonder now if it shouldn’t have been the first!

Why is it a good idea to compost?

Composting is a form of recycling that benefits your garden & the environment.

– Up to 30% of our waste can be composted.

– It reduces landfill & pollution.

– Without much effort, it can save you money.

Reasons to compost:

Good soil is the key to successful gardening. Digging in compost helps your garden grow. It:

– Improves soil structure which helps drainage & aeration, encouraging healthy root growth.

– Encourages good populations of worms & other soil organisms.

– Improves soil fertility.

– Helps the soil retain moisture.

Composting saves you money as it reduces the need to buy:

– Chemical fertilizers.

– Soil improver.

– Mulches.

By home composting, gardeners can contribute to protecting the environment by:

– Reducing the amount of organic waste that goes into landfill sites.

– Reducing the need for chemical fertilizers.

– Eliminating the need to use peat as a soil improver, as compost is an excellent alternative. Peat bogs are among the UK’s rarest habitats & 94% have been lost. Reducing the demand for peat helps conserve these areas.

Reasons to recycle:

– 75% of all rubbish gets buried in the ground.

– Our household waste is rising at an average of 3% a year.

– 80% of our rubbish could be recycled.

We need to break the trend of sending 3% more rubbish to landfill each year, although 80% of it could be recycled. This is bad for the environment & wastes money. Soon, there will be no land left where we can bury waste.

Sustainable living:

You can help our environment by reducing waste through considering what we can re-use, what we can recycle & which materials can be composted.
I hope you will have found these blogs of help if you have been considering what to do about the mounting bins of rubbish we seem to produce every year. Have felt concern for the environment but had little, practical idea of how you, yourself, could do anything to contribute to its improvement.

These blogs may also be of help to gardeners who have practised composting their vegetable waste for years to see other ways of making their composting even more environmentally friendly.

Or who perhaps haven’t been too satisfied with the quality of their compost to see where they may be going wrong or to consider other ways of improving the quality of what they produce. Thereby increasing the fertility of their soil & the quality/quantity of the produce, be it in the flower garden or veg plot.