I try not to do gluts. With the new, tiny garden area sequencing has become even more important – 60cm trellised row of snow peas each month, no more or I will run out of room to plant before the end of the season.
Tall climbers planted around the south side of a bed will never shade anything to the north of them, and with roots in newly cleared and fertilised and mulched ground and all that vertical space for sun capture, this is the most highly productive space in my whole garden.
Fruiting planting days through until Monday, and it is such perfect garden weather – such a contrast to last weekend – that you would think the garden gods are conspiring to get me planting peas instead of spinach!
I’m a sucker for a baby plant! It’s a mistake I make over and over – resisting wasting a cute little seedling, planting too much in the early rounds and not leaving enough space for the later rounds.
Onions are strongly day-length sensitive, so you need to choose your onion variety not by your climate but by your latitude.
If I were at home today I would be planting potatoes. In my frost free garden, I would be planting them straight out – making…
A couple of months ago I wrote a post about time, thinking forward, and how much gardening involves being aware of the seasons in advance. I still get trapped by the turning of the wheel of the year. Stop, I’m not ready for you yet!
For twenty years I’ve been trying to decide whether the lunar calendar is a bit of superstition – an old wives tale that seems to work only because you see what you are looking for – or whether it is folk wisdom accumulated by generations of gardeners with a lot more to lose by getting it wrong than we spoiled Westerners with a supermarket in reserve.
I went out intending just to plant out the seedlings of the staple root crops – beetroot, carrot, onions, and parsnips – and get another round of them in. (Have a look at last month’s post for my method of starting them off in the shadehouse). And then I just kept going. And now as I sit at the computer I can hear it all being beautifully watered in.