Wednesday 31 December 2014

End of month/year view: December 2014

Short video of the garden each month during the year (c. 48s)
NOTE: this is best viewed by clicking on the YouTube icon*

2014 saw the first full year of my new garden in growth after the landscaping was undertaken in December 2013. As the garden is currently covered under several inches of snow, there isn't much to photograph, so I thought I would take the opportunity to review how the garden has grown during it's first year. The aim I had for the garden when designing it had been:
...to have a small kitchen garden, along with borders for perennials and herbs and a couple of fruit trees, within the aspect constraints. So my observation and thinking was around how I could achieve this, maximising what I can grow in a small urban garden.
Something I was thinking but forgot to include in the aim was also that it should be as attractive to view, and to sit in and enjoy as possible. And, that garden had to work around the constraint of my health issues, I have ME, which could effect energy levels and limited my my ability to always be able to garden.

The key dimensions of the garden are: 12m long and 4m - 5.5 m wide; with the aspect East-facing, the garage wall being in effect South-facing, and the fence border on the right effectively North-facing.

So, how did the garden grow in 2014?

Kitchen Garden
This encompasses the raised vegetable beds, some veg grown in pots, plus the Herb Border and the fruit trees: greengage, Morello cherry, damson and grape vine.

     
Some successes: broad beans and dwarf french beans

It's not a large space, but since June we have been eating some veg from the garden on a weekly basis. This started with an amazing Broad Bean crop 2.5kg of (shelled weight) beans from a 1m square bed. The small strawberry patch gave us several desserts, plus a few for the blackbirds (!) and I also had a fantastic crop of dwarf french beans. On and off from June to December I was harvesting everything from carrots and potatoes to kohl rabi, fennel bulbs and kale. In just the last couple of weeks I've also been harvesting the sweetest and most delicious parsnips too.

It wasn't all great harvests, there were some difficulties as well. I got a reasonable crop of courgettes, though not as many as I would have liked, no gluts for me! The pumpkins/squash however, did no good at all. I did get some starting off ok, but then they got blossom end rot. I'm going to add a lot more manure/nutrients to the area they will be growing in during 2015, in the hope that this will resolve the problem.

My tomatoes got hit by blight very badly and we only got to pick a few.

And when my climbing french beans were ready to be picked, I wasn't ready to pick them. I was going through a bad ME period and something had to give, I had to leave them and just pick the dried pods and use the beans in stews, which is what I did. So I did get to eat some of them, just not how I planned.

Reflecting on the good and bad, I've made some decisions that will be implemented next year. I've decided to only grow a couple of tomatoes and aubergines in pots, rather than in a whole bed. In their place I'm going to grow more brassicas, which I find much more reliable than tomatoes and aubergines. Another decision is that I've also realised that from a taste bud point of view, that I prefer curly kale or the nero di toscana type, compared to perennial kale. The perennial kale also ended up getting messy and took too much time cleaning off the white fly when preparing it to eat. So I'll be taking the perennial kale out, but now need to decide what to grow in it's place. I am keeping the non-flowering sorrel which was also in this bed, as it's a lovely lemony tasting perennial that is a great alternative to spinach. Pondering what else to add...

Perennial garden
The Herb and Strawberry borders have been very successful. In particular, I use the herbs all the time in cooking and I always have plenty on offer depending on the food I'm cooking. Next year I hope to have the time and energy to take cuttings of herbs like oregano, in order to dry them.


I don't eat chives, but I love them for the flowers, as do the bees. The sage has got a bit unruly and I don't use it as often as other herbs like oregano, thyme, rosemary and French tarragon, so I'm reflecting on whether to keep it in the border or put it in a pot to control it's size a bit.


I have mixed feelings about the Cornus Border. It's quite young in its development and I need to be patient to let it mature. To increase lower growing/ground cover plants, I've added cyclamen cilicium and Cyclamen coum to the earlier planted Cornus-canadensisSedum 'Mr Goodbud' is looking good, and I assume that the Hellebores, Pulmonaria and Veronica gentianoides will fill out more next year.

However, as much as I love the Cornus I've chosen per se (Cornus alba 'Elegantissima' and Cornus alba 'Kesselringii'), I'm not sure they are the right ones in this position. This is because the main feature of the Cornus is it's beautiful stems, and I chose them when seeing grass, not thinking about the black raised beds that would be behind them. So the beautiful red/dark red stems aren't all that easy to see... I quite like the colour of their leaves and think they help break up the space between the lawn and kitchen garden, but for stems, something like the orange-yellow stems of Cornus sanguinea 'Midwinter Fire' may have been a better choice. So I'll need to make a decision soon-ish, before the current plants get to established, making them harder to dig out.

The other main perennial border is the Long Shady Border. This has some wonderful plants in it, for example: Amsonia tabernaemontana, Geranium pratense Midnight Reiter, Lychnis flos-cuculi (Ragged robin), Osmunda regalis 'Purpurascens', Epimedium x perralchicum 'Frohnleiten' (and several other epimediums - I've developed a 'thing' for epimediums) and the two Acers, Acer palmatum 'Bloodgood' and Acer palmatum 'Sango-kaku'. It has the Morello Cherry being trained along the fence, as well as Solanum crispum 'Glasnevin'. And it is scattered with bulbs and corms like bluebells, anemones and fritillaries.

The problem is, well, I'm not sure, but it's just not right. Or maybe it is still quite young and I need to give it time to mature (again). I've realised that I haven't focused on this border enough and need to really look at it properly. So for 2015, this border will be the focus of my End of Month View. Let's see if giving it more attention, and hopefully getting feedback from readers of my blog, I might be able to pull it together.

This focus may also help me what to to with the boggier part of this border, which easily gets waterlogged, as I've mentioned in the past. Despite all the observation I did over 2013, it wasn't until after the landscaping was complete and the heavy Spring 2014 rains came, that this became a problem. Some plants seem to accept being waterlogged, such as the Persicaria affinis 'Superba'Astrantia major 'Hapsden Blood' and Primula 'Guinevere'. I had to move the Acer palmatum 'Sango-kaku' to another part of the border as it doesn't like water logging at all. And I've added Ligularia 'The Rocket', primarily for it's foliage and the fact that it's happy in a boggier situation. You can see the large serrated purple-green leaves below.


I'm just not sure if I want a 'bog garden'. So again, this will be something I'll be reflecting upon during 2015.

So the main question: has the permaculture design worked? Well, mostly. Clearly their are some problems, but I have, on the whole, maximised what I grow and where, within the constraints I have, meaning both physical health and the fact it's a small urban garden. There is of course, room for development, the Long Shady Border, etc.

That garage wall is a glaring omission. Well, even that, not quite. I deliberately created individual beds with paths to the wall because my plan is to eventually build some kind of bespoke 'greenhouse' on the wall, and I wanted to make sure access was built into the design. So whilst the garage wall is a large empty space, and a bit of an eyesore if I'm honest, the plan is that eventually it will be a vertical growing space in which I can get seedlings off to an early start each year, and a place for growing winter salads and other delights.

Ignore the garage wall. Doesn't my arch look pretty in the snow & blue sky :)

I'm am aware that my garden isn't the most aesthetically pleasing. Having a functional space for growing food is really important to me. But flowers/perennials have become just as important; I sometimes feel torn in two, but am determined to have both! So I am hoping to get better incorporating flowering plants & foliage, shrubs and climbers into the garden, to add form to the function, and make it more attractive to view through every season.

At the end of the day, the month, the year, despite sometimes having no energy to do anything other than look out the window, the garden has given me so much happiness this year. Whether it has been short bursts of micro-tasking, popping out to pick some flowers or harvest food, or sitting outside and reading or just looking at the plants, I really love and enjoy my garden. So that's another aim to add to the list. I think that should be number one.

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End of month view is hosted by Helen Johnstone, aka @patientgardener. Visit Helen's blog for her December/yearly 2014 EOMV and links to other bloggers EOMV posts.

Monday 29 December 2014

Photo essay: Snowy Peak

One of the many great advantages of living in Sheffield* is its proximity to the Peak District. In fact, one third of Sheffield IS in the Peak District. Blue skies and the sparkling of the recently fallen snow meant we just had to take advantage of such fine weather and conditions and go and explore the Peak District again, this time in the snow.

From Surprise View, off the road to Hathersage





View towards Hathersage

Stonewall and snowy fields

Monsal Head Viaduct and Dale




*Sheffield recently won the best city for countryside lovers. Justly deserved!

Sunday 14 December 2014

Gardening with ME: sowing broad beans via micro-tasking

"I'm going to sow some broad beans". It sounds like a simple enough task. Like you can just pop outside for a few minutes and quickly sow the beans. But of course it isn't so straight-forward. Before you sow you have to make sure the bed is ready. And for the bed to be ready requires preparation. And of course you have to work out where in fact you want to sow the broad beans, before you even start all of this.

Hoping for a crop like this next summer

I had the most amazing crop of broad beans ever in 2014, from an autumn-sowing in 2013. I don't know whether it was because of the mild winter of 2013-14, or the fact I wasn't sowing them on an allotment where a majority of the beans would get eaten by mice. Possibly a bit of both. Anyway, I'm hoping to repeat the performance in 2015 and in early October I was thinking, it's time to sow the broad beans. So here is the Gardening with ME way to sow broad beans. It takes several weeks and you only sow about 30 beans. But if I get a crop like this summer past, I'll be getting several kilos of beans in return.

My physical energy levels are very low, so I recognised straight away that I needed to work out how to break down the task of 'sowing broad beans' into a series of micro-tasks which could be undertaken over a period of time.

Crop rotation plan: You have to know where you are going to plant the beans. I did a crop rotation plan back in early 2014. So that work was already done. Tick!

Removing previous plants: During 2014 I had tomato plants growing where I wanted to plant my broad beans, so they had to be removed. I did this early October, so this was the first job in this process this year.

Pulling out the canes and strings: these were supporting the tomatoes and needed taking out. I left the canes behind the garage, where autumn-winter-spring rains should wash them out. I don't particularly bother with cleaning canes usually, but as the tomatoes had a bad case of blight, I wanted them left outside to let the elements clean away and kill off any blight spores left.

Picking up compost/leafmold: Usually I would use compost (either my own, or some bought at a garden centre), however I was lucky enough to pick up some bags of amazing leafmold from Heeley City Farm. I did this between the last task and the next.

Weeding: I try to practise no-dig gardening and it means that I don't get a lot of weeds. I still get a few though, and I cleared those next, a couple of weeks later.

Preparing soil with leafmold: for this job I needed the help of Kevin, as I couldn't lift the leafmold bags. With his help, it got spread out evenly.

After placing the canes and strings, spacing out the broad bean seeds

Placing the canes and string: I think it was early November by the time I got to this point. I wanted to grow three varieties of broad beans in a 1m x .75m space. These were: The Sutton (a dwarf broad bean, sown in the bottom triangle so the taller ones will be behind it - from a sun perspective), Aquadulce Claudia and Bunyards Exhibition. Based on past experience I've learnt that different beans will perform differently year to year, so growing a couple of varieties is a sure way of getting a good crop, even in this small space. So I placed the canes out to divide the space by thirds, then used string to separate out where the different varieties would be growing.

Sowing the broad beans: finally - the "I'm going to sow broad beans" bit! Placing the canes and string took up more time and energy than you would think, about 1 hour. Maybe I'm a perfectionist... But it meant that the actual sowing of the broad beans didn't happen until the day after the placing of the canes and string. Sowing the beans took all of 10 minutes. Possibly less.

Putting down the sticks: the final task was to put down some sticks to stop cats and foxes from digging in the bed whilst the beans germinate. I find this trick works pretty well, and I found the next day my beans were fine, but in a fallow section of the vegetable beds, there was evidence of footprints and digging. Again, this was a simple task, but I still took a short break between sowing the beans and placing the sticks. That's because bending over to sow the beans takes up a surprising amount of energy when you have ME, and I needed to rest for 10 minutes before doing this last task.

Seeds sown, and sticks added to keep off cats and foxes

So as you can see, sowing the beans themselves is indeed a simple task and did, in fact, only take 10 minutes. It was everything else around it that required most of my time and energy. It's done, and I'm a happy bunyip. There you go, sowing broad beans via micro-tasking.

Oh, I forgot one last task: watch for emerging shoots and creatures that want to eat them...   ;)


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I welcome your comments and thoughts. And if you blog about gardening with ME/a chronic illness, link to this post in your blog, and leave a comment below with a link to your post, so we can all find each other.

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Other posts...
  Gardening with ME: weather and energy
  Gardening with ME: French beans

Tuesday 2 December 2014

Sheffield Botanical Gardens: Autumn-Winter structure, form and colour

Since moving to Sheffield, Kevin and I have often visited Sheffield Botanical Gardens. It's free to visit, but I've joined the Friends of the Botanical Gardens, Sheffield in order to support it. Plus, they have some great talks on, that a free to members.   :)

We awoke to a sunny and crisp day on Sunday, one just calling to you to get outside. Kevin and I decided that brunch and a walk in the Gardens would be just the thing. After a yummy brunch of pancakes with bacon and dripping with maple syrup at the Curators House cafe in the gardens (yes, they have a vegetarian version, with blueberries), we then took a stroll. What follows is just a few images which I hope capture some of the Autumn-Winter structure, form and colour that could be found throughout the gardens.

View of the glasshouse from the cafe terrace

I loved the form and colour of the miscanthus and the contrast with the structure of the winter trees behind

Oak structure

How wonderfully the yellow contrasts with the sky

More yellow, shining, but not dimming the beauty of the structure of the tree behind

Peeling bark, dripping like treacle, from Prunus Serrula

Handsome cones on a pine

Overview from the edge of the Rose Garden

Magnolia buds reaching for the sky

It was all so beautiful and a gorgeous way to spend a Sunday. We will be returning again in a few weeks time, when I suspect the Garden's national collection of Sarcococca should be in full bloom. I'm not sure how I will photograph the fragrance though!

Sunday 30 November 2014

End of month view: November 2014


November appeared a quieter time in the garden. Although the mild weather has meant that some things are still flowering that really shouldn't be (I'm looking at you nasturtiums), much of the garden has moved into shadow, and the main changes can be found in the kitchen garden.

Early in the month I took down the bean poles and prepared some parts of the veg beds for broad bean and garlic planting. I also threw on some phacelia tanacetifolia seeds to the area in the bottom left of the photo below. They have germinated and have survived two frosts but not sure if it will survive a really cold snap. But I had the seed spare and I figured why not sow and see what I reap


At the top left of the photo above you can see part of my new Brassica cage that Kevin build to spec to suit my long but only .75cms wide vegetable beds. The long sides, where the paths lay, lift up for easy access and the whole thing is light enough to me to lift off entirely if I need.

Throughout November I've been harvesting kale, fennel, chard and spinach, carrots and kohl rabi. And now that we have had some frosts, I'll be able to start cropping the parsnip in December.


I do have some winter potatoes under fleece (the pointy white thing in the top photo, to the right of the mini greenhouse) but I'm not sure they will get enough sun to do much. I have seen some foliage at the top of the pot, so you never know.

As I mentioned, much of the garden moved into shadow during November. By now the only borders that get direct sun are along the left side, the Strawberry and Herb borders, plus the vegetable borders alongside the garage. The top half of the pergola gets quite a bit of light, which might explain why the tall sunflowers continued to flower until the last couple of days.


I still have sweet peas flowering, though they finally seem to have slowed down in the last few days. Oddly, the plants looked like they were going to end in September, but had a sudden renewed desire to see the world and really took off in the mild October. Not that I'm complaining...


The Shady Border (part of it above) gets no direct sunlight at this time of year. It's not in dark shade, but it is shady, hence it's name. As it is getting stripped back to it's bare bones, I'm contemplating how I can improve on the structure and give it more all-year-round interest. In fact, this border is going to be my focus for next years EOMV, as I feel it needs work and the focus EMOV gives I hope, will help me develop this border.

There were a few plants of note in this and other parts of the garden though. A little dirt splashed, but Primula 'Guinevere' has re-flowered. This hasn't minded being in the boggy part of the border, so seems to be ok having it's feet wet.


You have to get up close, which is of course half the fun, to see the red berries on the Sarcococca confusa. And coming up at the same time are the flowers for this winter, which I think may open in December. I'm looking forward to that wonderful fragrance to lift my spirits on a grey short winters day.


And there are also the black berries of evergreen Lonicera similis var. delavayi basking in the sun on the pergola. I wonder if the birds will eat these?


I only planted the corms in October, but clearly this Cyclamen hederifolium was keen to get going.


I'm however, confused about the next plant that is about to re-flower, Rehmannia elata, Chinese foxglove. It's not meant to be hardy and it's getting very little direct sun, but it's clearly determined to have a second show. I suspect the predicted cold whether in the next week will do it in before it does flower again. Such a shame really.


And lastly, those nasturtiums. Those damn nasturtiums are still going strong. Despite 2 frosts now.


I think I'm going to have to bite the bullet and pull them out if the frosts predicted this week don't do them in. I have some bulbs to put in their place, and as pretty as they are, I think it's time they gotta go.

I'm pleased to see that as the garden puts on it's first full winter coat (the first full year of the garden existing), it still has food to harvest and flowers, berries and foliage to enjoy.

Overview from the study

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End of month view is hosted by Helen Johnstone, aka @patientgardener. Visit Helen's blog for her November 2014 EOMV and links to other bloggers EOMV posts.

Tuesday 25 November 2014

Heucheras, Heucherellas & Tiarellas: a few notes

Attending a Friends of the Botanical Gardens, Sheffield talk today, I picked up some useful tips on growing Heucheras, Heucherellas & Tiarellas from Vicky Fox of Plantagogo. I'm sharing my notes here because, a) it will help me remember, and b) in case they are of use to others.

How to tell the difference between these three hardy perennials
Heuchera: the leaves have veins and a wider range of colours; the flowers are bell-shaped

Tiarella: the leaves have 5 or 7 lobes and less variation of colour compared to Heucheras. The flowers are frothy-looking, individual flowers star-like.

Heucherella: yes, these are a cross between Heucheras and Tiarellas. The leaves have the shape and markings of a Tiarella and the colours of a Heuchera.

 Tiarella 'Morning Star' with 5/7 star lobed leaves

Growing and maintenance information
  • They are evergreen hardy perennials, grown more for their wonderful foliage than their flowers. Though the flowers are pretty too.
  • The darker/brighter the leaves of Heucheras etc are, the more likely they can take full sun. Conversely lighter/greener more shade. So...
    • Tiarellas do not like full sun
    • Heucherellas not so keen either
    • Golden/lime colour leaves great for full shade
  • The 'city series' (i.e. Paris, Milan) have a longer flowering period
  • They love growing in leafmold and bark - mimicking their natural habitat
  • They can take some dry weather, i.e. say a couple of weeks, but will need regular watering in hot summers (because we get those a lot...)
  • They don't like being waterlogged and will die quickly in these condition. So for heavy Sheffield clay soil you need add compost/drainage material. 
  • They aren't just for borders. They make great hanging basket plants, and there are some trailing varieties. And because they are evergreen and can take shade, you can have a all-year-round hanging basket.
  • They are great for containers (make sure they have good drainage), including shady mixed containers with say Heurcheras and Ferns.
  • They can be grown in pallets to make a vertical/living evergreen wall
  • They are fairly low maintenance. You just need to pick off any dead leaves, otherwise they can start to get woody/leggy. If they get woody/leggy, mound up some compost/leafmold around them in autumn and next spring you should get lots of new shoots.
  • Easy to propagate - snap off a section and pot up.
  • Don't bury the crown of the plant, as this can kill it off.
  • They can get 'Heuchera rust'. A sign is dimples on the leaves. If you turn the leaf over, you will see rust underneath. Remove any leaves and either burn them or put in general waste bins. Don't put them in home compost bins as it won't kill the rust off.
  • Even though the flowers are tiny, bees love these plants and will be all over them. So biodiversity - tick!

An enjoyable talk with lots of useful information - thanks Vicky.

Oh, and did I buy any plants? Silly question... I picked up Heuchera 'Paris' for a container I'm planting up, and Tiarella 'Morning Star' to go in the darker end of my Long Shady Border.

These are just my notes from the talk. You can pick up more growing information on the Plantagogo website, and you can follow them on Twitter @plantagogo and Facebook Plantagogo heucheras.

Heuchera 'Paris' with darker green veins on the leaves