WELCOME TO MY POTTING SHED

You can't beat a dollop of mud a day to keep the Doctor at bay.

Why not follow me about as I garden for money and just for fun in beautiful Nailsworth and its' environs.

What's it all about?

My gardens, that's all and any gardening related stuff I guess you might be interested in.

Where do I garden?

My house is in the centre of Nailsworth. With the wind in the right direction, we get a strong whiff of curry as it floats out of the Passage to India and into our front garden. We never get this smell anywhere else on our premises, which is either a good thing, or a bad one, depending on your point of view. As you now know we have a garden, a small rectangle, at the front of the house, and a triangular courtyard garden at the back. Then there's the Garden Plot, right down in the heart of Nailsworth, which I rent from a local business. This is new as from Autumn 2009 and will take a lot of work to help it become productive. I try to garden for veges at my friend Debbis house and for fun with my next door neighbour.

It adds up to a lot of work. For a relaxing hobby, it's proving stressful at times, but, mostly it's heaven.

There are customers who like me to work for them right through the year, and others who I see during the summer months. This working more days a week in the summer than in the winter, of course. The way to keep the finances stable for me has been to teach on the days I don't garden. Works really well for me. The bills get paid, we haven't starved to death yet and we get to have fun ... sometimes!

Thursday, 31 March 2011

This Week's Garden Tasks - Wednesday 30.3.11



Euonymus, those sometimes boring, evergreen, variously variegated shrubs, need to be kept in shape.




This one, at a customers', is a good ball shape, but has a rash of stragglers shooting out.


Nice fleece Missy, goes with the gloves.
A QUICK  snip with secateurs, catching the cuttings in your spare hand, will do.



In less than FIVE MINUTES it has become a smart PUNCTUATION PLANT once again. If left another couple of weeks, it would become a total mess, and I would be busy with the one hundred and one other jobs that will need doing then. Not to mention having to put down a sheet to catch the MUCH BIGGER CLIPPINGS and having to use sheers, which weigh way more (see what I did there?). Do it now, you know it makes sense. Euonymus not ball shaped? Don't worry, start now, begin to take off the parts that are way off shape, letting the rest grow to meet the newly cut stuff. By the end of the summer you'll probably have a great plant. Euonymus is hard to kill - THOUGHT I'D MENTION THAT!




CELANDINES - bloody things, if you've got lots, you may want to give in to them. If you've got a gardener, you may want to make her dig em, hoe em and curse em .... every spring.


THAT'LL BE ME THEN!




Anyway, a word to the wise. You can dig them up when you can see the leaves. Each of the tiny underground nodules in this cluster will form a new plant, but at this time of year they cling together quite well, as you can see, which gives us a chance of getting rid of them. Once the leaves have died back, the nodules 'let go' meaning that if you attempt to dig them up, they drop everywhere and you lose the run of them; until next Spring. The quick option is to hoe them, this weakens the plant considerably, and stops them from seeding all over the place. Which ever option you go for, you'll have to repeat over a number of years




Lastly, if like me you put your BROADIES - BROAD BEANS  and PEAS in last autumn, you'll have none left now, so severe was the frost in OCTOBER just as the little shoots appeared. These went in in January, as soon as the frost cleared the ground. They have only emerged in the last 2 or 3 weeks; some are just emerging today. This is the biggest one. I'll be sowing mine (these are a customers') in the next few days - AGAIN. Why not join me  in about 2 months, when we'll be eating FAVA BEANS with CHIANTI : /



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