Changing Fruit Bushes and the Wildflower Hedge

Like so many other gardens mine is constantly changing and evolving - sometimes I have regretted putting in a particular planting scheme, or choosing a certain plant, or I have just felt like having something completely different.

In the fruit cage I have become very disheartened with my two honeyberry bushes.  Ever since I planted them (about five years ago) they have never produced much fruit and yet have put on a lot of growth.  I have pruned them, fed them and given them everything they could possibly need but to no avail - they have remained virtually fruitless.  So the other week I decided to replace them with two different types of fruit bushes.  After some online research I chose Gojiberry synthia and the Chilean guava Ka Pow (both purchased on line) - I thought these were an unusual addition in the fruit cage.

The honeyberry shrubs looked very boring so up they came.

After digging up each bush,

I dug out roughly half the soil from the planting hole and replaced it with a mixture of my home made garden compost, pelleted chicken manure and fish blood and bone, and mixed thoroughly with a spade.

I then planted the two Gojiberries close together in the middle of the bed. 

Then in the second bed, the Chilean guava.

Lastly I gave them a jolly good watering.  I am hoping that these will romp away and be more productive than their predecessors.

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The wildflower hedge is putting on a colourful display –

the cerise pink flowers of red campion,

the dainty forget me not,

the ox eye daisy,

I am not sure what this is I think comfrey, it is pretty but if it is comfrey I will have to keep it in check otherwise it will take over the whole area,

and this beautifully frothy cow parsley.

Also in flower is the hawthorne, I am lucky enough to have the pink variety.  I think this goes very well with the red campion.

In early spring I sowed yellow rattle and am now waiting to see if anything comes up.  I shall write about this wildflower hedge in a future entry.

Till next time.

 

 

 

 

 

May Catch Up

I haven’t written anything for this journal for a while as I have completely lost track of time and my To Do List keeps getting longer with little chance of getting smaller.  But just the other day I noticed that the sun had come out and then I realised that it was May.

Since my last report in March, the weather here in Northumberland has been absolutely pants.  We have had gales, rain, sleet, hail and snow – not very conducive to working in the garden.  However, I have been able to get out into the glasshouse and take the bubble wrap down from the ceiling, I gave all the plants in there a sprinkling of pelleted chicken manure and a thorough watering - now everything in there is romping away.

We have also been able to mow the lawns several times.  T wanted a new lawn mower as he found that the ride-on had a habit of turning over when he rode it down the slope to get to the front lawn.  After a lot of research he swapped the MTD ride-on for a 20 inch Hyundai petrol mower, it has four speeds, an electronic start and two cup holders on the handle bar.  Lawn mowing is really his department so I don’t know much about mowers other than here is a picture of it.

In the fruit cage, I picked some rhubarb and made crumble – sorry but no expensive rhubarb forcers in my garden just a large terra cotta pot once broken now glued together with Araldite.  The crumble was delicious.

Still in the fruit cage, I am experimenting with companion planting under the fruit bushes.  Under the blueberries, I have planted Fragaria vesca or wild strawberries, under the currants are chives and under the raspberries Achillea Desert Eve Red.  I shall be interested to see whether there is any difference in pests and diseases.

The bluebells in the wood are, as ever, beautiful. It gives me so much pleasure to sit in the wood on a sunny day with a cup of coffee.  I think it’s lovely to see the sun glinting through the fresh green leaves and to listen to the birds song – its somewhere where I can forget about the stressful things in life.  A beautifully tranquil scene to end this entry.

 

Sometimes wildlife does things we didn’t think it would do

Sometimes wildlife does things we didn’t think it would do.

Take birds and nest boxes for example.  The conventional bird box is one that is square or rectangular, made of wood and secured somewhere where predators cannot get.  But would a bird be prepared to nest in something not so conventional.

You see I discovered something last summer year which surprised me and which prompted me to ask this question and then to carry out an experiment.

In our mixed hedge, a small bird had made a nest and successfully reared some young in a small hamster house I had left in there earlier in the year.  This made me wonder what strange and quirky things would birds be prepared to make their home in.

This hedge runs between our orchard and the field next door.

I'd better start at the beginning ...............

My daughter was sorting out all the bits and pieces she had accumulated over the years for her pet guinea pigs. In amongst all the spare water bottles, food bowls and hay dispensers she found a two-storey wooden hamster house.  She was going to throw it out but I stopped her and asked whether I could have it for a bird box.

After scrubbing it with disinfectant and letting it fully dry out. I used some spare wood to enclose two sides of the upper storey and which made it a two compartment nest box.  I then wired it into our hedge (the one between us and the field next door), but as it was May I was only expecting it to be used a roosting box. 

 

Then one day in about July I was walking past the same part of hedge and was quite surprised to see some beaks and fluffy heads sticking out of the hamster box.  I am not quite sure what birds they were but eventually they fledged.  This gave me the idea to experiment on what type of containers birds would be prepared to nest in.

I put together a variety of nest boxes to see which one would be favoured most. 

Here are the four nest boxes.

 

On the far right is the original hamster house which my daughter nearly threw out.  In the picture below you can still the remnants of last year’s nesting material.

 

Second from the right is a hamster house bought online for a few pounds.  You can see that I gave it a new floor using off-cuts of wood.

 

The two rectangular boxes are not very expertly or carefully made; my carpentry skills were learnt doing CSE woodwork at school in the late 1970s

The nest box with the light yellow roof is crudely made out of old skirting board and held together with large panel pins, T very kindly cut the access hole and the landing stick is a section of used firework rocket stick.

The largest box is made out of off-cuts of tall skirting board (you can see the profile of the skirting board in the second picture) and some spare bits of wood which I found in the garage.  Again the landing perch is made of used firework rocket stick and T cut the access hole.

 

I secured each box with garden wire deep into the hedge in a stretch which is in full view of the lounge and kitchen windows.

Now I am waiting to see what happens.  As it is only February it will take a while for the smell of humans to disperse and for the birds to get used to the boxes being there.

I’ll keep you informed of developments.

 

 

Jam Making in Winter!!!!!

With the weather being so miserable outside, I often take the opportunity to do what I call “Inside jobs”.  You know the sort of thing, anything indoors which needs mending, rooms redecorated, cupboards cleared out.  The contents of the deep freeze is a good example, I have one shelf stacked with frozen soft fruit picked from the garden.  This frozen produce is used throughout the year in pies, crumbles and summer fruit puddings but just occasionally we have too much and by the beginning of the following year there is too much frozen fruit and not enough space.

 As you can see from the two photographs some frozen produce had been in the freezer for longer than I planned.  Once defrosted the fruit is safe to eat and to cook with. 

Not only did I have raspberries and tayberries which were grown and frozen in 2019 but I had frozen some blackberries in a plastic bag and failed to write a date on the bag. 

In our household, one of the food stuffs which I can guarantee will definitely get eaten is homemade jam and these three fruits will make a beautiful mixed berry jam.

Once defrosted I simply weigh the fruit including the liquid, make a note of the weight then tip it into the preserving pan; by the way I find it always defrosts to a semi solid/semi liquid state.

 

Then using a low heat the fruit and liquid is heated up and cooked through until the fruit is soft.

 Whatever the fruit and liquid weighed I then measure out an equal amount of preserving sugar.

I then add the preserving sugar to the cooked fruit and heat it over a gentle heat; I stir the jam mixture occasionally until all the sugar crystals have dissolved.  Once I am sure that no sugar crystals remain I turn up the heat and bring the mixture to a boil and boil it rapidly for about 5 – 7 minutes or until setting point is reached.

Lastly, I leave the jam to cool slightly, this gives me enough time to sterilise some preserving jars. I bottle the jam in the usual way and, of course, put wax discs on the surface to create a seal.

Delicious mixed berry jam to enjoy during the coming months – and a slightly emptier deep freeze.

Dreadful Weather but not in the Glasshouse

Here in Northumberland for the last three weeks we have had continuous torrential rain, gales and heavy snow fall.  The garden is sodden everywhere, it squelches when I walk to the guinea pig shed, even in the fruit cage where the ground is covered in a thick mulch of composted woody shreddings I can feel the ground is saturated.  I feel I really should be doing something horticulturally related in order to lift my spirits. Obviously doing anything outside is out of the question so I decided to sort out my glasshouse.  I do this annually generally in about April but this year I might as well to do it a bit earlier and I thought you might be interested to see what I do in order to maintain the plants in this artificial environment.

This gloomy picture taken from the bathroom window looking east doesn't inspire me to do anything except stay indoors.

  

Yes, I know, it looks quite a mess.  Dead leaves and fern fronds litter the floor; everything needs to be checked for signs of decay, dead leaves cut away and checking which plants need to go into bigger pots.

On the left near the door there is a fern, I’m not sure of its name but it’s been in that spot for a few years and it seems very happy, the dead and half dead foliage just needs to be trimmed off to make room for new growth.

Next I have two Vietnamese coriander plants which are still in the plastic pots they were in when I bought them from the garden centre.  Apparently they are very vigorous, so they just need to go into bigger pots with fresh compost. I bought these because of their tropical appearance but I should really try using them in cooking.

Next is Zantedeschia, only a few straggly leaves need attention. 

This is one of many small Musella lasiocarpas I have (hardy Golden Lotus banana).  Again dead leaves are removed and they are checked to see if any roots are bursting out of the bottom, if so into a bigger pot they go.

As you can see from this picture Hedychium aurantiacum has outgrown its pot – so needs repotting.

This Eletaria cardamomum, bought from Edinburgh Botanic Garden a few years ago, needs a trim and it’s good enough to go back in the border.

Not so for the Monstera deliciosa, as you can see its roots are badly congested, a few minutes later and a happy plant.

This corner is jam packed - in the front there is a potted Geranium maderense, which I brought in for the winter as in previous years I’ve lost them. 

Behind is a Bougainvillea in winter dormancy, also in this group of pots is an avocado which I grew from seed and at the back on the far right is a Cestrum elegans and an abulilton.

This rabbits foot fern (Davallia canariensis) is growing quite happily in a large plastic aquatic basket, I find these pots are ideal for aerial plants. 

Underneath there is another fern growing through a painted bamboo seat.

Both ferns look a whole lot better after a haircut.

After I had finished the glasshouse was tidy and every plant looked a whole lot better.  All that was left to do was to cover all exposed compost with Strulch.  I find Strulch deters slugs and snails from damaging the plants; it also helps the soil retain moisture.