Thursday 18 August 2011
it has been just over five weeks since my last garden report ... i think i have been bewitched by these lazy hazy summer days as time has just flown past ... gardening duties have been mostly regular-maintenance type jobs, just keeping on top of things such as deadheading the pot marigolds every few days at the beginning and now near the end of their days almost every day
changes like this and watching the wildflower garden change into a completely different set of plants for the second half of the summer has me thinking about the change in seasons and the coming equinox ... that the summer garden is in its endgame phase now was confirmed by a friend of mine i had asked to pop over and have a look at my potatoes
for several weeks my potatoes have been growing really well and frightingly tall for potatoes almost chest high ... i began to think of them as mutants ... then the foliage started turning yellow and dying back completely as if the end of their cycle this season had just come ... last year i didn't dig my potatoes until september and they were the same variety so i was puzzled
i wanted to know from my friend whether they were just dying back normally or whether they were diseased ... fortunately my friend said they healthy, but that were ready to be dug ... the early yellowing could have been due to the summer-long drought-like conditions we have had this year or to a general deficiency in my soil of the usual vital nutrients ... it has been quite some time since the beds have had a good dose of fertilizer so that is the job for the autumn when i dig them over ... for both these reasons, low rainfall and a low level nutrients in the soil, my friend said to expect a lower yield than last year
so as a trial two days ago i dug up one plant just to see whether there any new potatoes to be found at all and to my great delight i found 15 small- to medium-sized king edward potatoes which looked really good ... they had a nice colour and the skins of almost all of them were completely unblemished
i was actually very pleased with their size because i like the smaller sized potatoes in preference to bigger ones because i intend to bake them and then the next day slice them and fry them in olive oil until both sides are crispy, the smaller sized potato slices don't break up in the frying pan as easily as the bigger slices
so from now until its done one of my tasks is to dig potatoes ... this morning before it started raining i dug up another 15 plants and that makes 16 so far or just under a quarter of the total ... i was getting about 15 spuds per plant so that makes over 200 potatoes now spread around the kitchen and dining room table just drying off a little ... yesterday i drove out into the country to find an agricultural supply shop in one of the villages nearby ... they stock the heavy paper potato sacks which i use for longer-term storage
the other source of pleasure from my gardening efforts in the last few weeks has been success in collecting seeds from my three of my wildflower plants, namely the
common poppy,
white campion and
viper's bugloss
last year i tried and failed with an attempt with my favourite in the wildflower garden the viper's bugloss, i thought i had spotted the seed in a plant as a big black thing, so i cut the plant and a couple of other stalks with leaves and flowers and, so i thought, more black seeds and put them all in a bucket to dry before i extracted the obvious big black seeds
well it was some time before i went back to the bucket to get the seed and when i looked inside the leaves there were no big black seeds whatsoever ... i then checked the bottom of the bucket and around on the floor and couldn't see anything black, so i just had to admit defeat and accept that i had no idea what had happpened to those big black seeds ... had they all blown off when i carried the bucket from the garage to the house ???
this year i looked at the viper's bugloss plants and saw the same big black seeds so i cut a few stalks and, carrying them straight so nothing could fall out, brought them into the house and laid them on their side on some sheets of big white printer paper to dry for a few days ... and when i went to extract the black seeds this time, once again there were no black seeds ... what ??? mystery again ???
but as i was turning the stalk around looking for the black seeds i finally noticed that several very small brown somethings were falling onto the paper ... i had a close look and was amazed to see something that could very well be a seed
i then set about turning each stalk round and round and bashing it quite gently into the sheet of paper ... with each gentle bash a bunch of little brown somethings fell from their place in the leaf onto the paper and suddenly i had dozens of the things ... and they were a very strange shape with a flat bottom and sides which bent in at the top into a pointy tip
what i had failed to realise is that the stage when the thing i took to be the seed when it was black had not yet matured into its proper brown form ... i also noticed that the stalks which were quite dry and dusty, ie the more mature plants, produced much more seed than the stalks which still had some flowers on them
my next step was to go back out into the garden and cut every dry and dusty-looking viper's bugloss stalk i could find and see just how much i could gather ... the bees love the plant and i want to expand my wildflower area next year so now i can use my own seed for the job ... i have also given some seed to another gardener friend who also likes the plant and wants to devote a small area in his garden to wildflowers and become more bee-friendly
at this point i started searching the www to see if i could find any confirmation of my discovery and finally found a website with a fantastic photograph of the seeds ... and yes they are a bit weird and well worth a look ... the link below takes you to a page which has a strip of magnified seeds at the top and a set of thumbnails in a column at the right of the page ... if you click on the thumbnail of the seeds, the fourth thumbnail down in the column, it will take you the page with the full-size photograph of the seeds ... nature just amazes me
http://wildseed.co.uk/species/view/48
i have been getting some produce from the vegetable beds - french beans from the dwarf plants, courgettes, lettuce, and now potatoes ... i don't think i am saving any money in growing my own vegetables, but the best part of the exercise is getting veg that is the freshest it can possibly be, straight from the garden
here is the list of jobs done in the garden over the last five weeks which i have extracted from my garden diary ...
strim all edges and the grass and weeds under the apple trees
weed the courgette bed
build small earth dykes around each courgette station to conserve water
tidy-up clippings from strimming
plant the remaining six courgettes in the newly-weeded bed
plant nine dwarf french beans
plant a pair of climbing french beans at the base of each of the 4 bamboo canes of the "tepee"
deadhead the pot marigolds
water the potatoes
heavy rain - potatoes not beaten down
pick up the windfall apples
continue picking up the windfall apples
mow the grass in the front, by the kitchen and as an access strip to all the beds
start shaving the grass and weeds under the apple trees with a spade
rake/tidy-up the shavings under the apple trees
pull up the poppies growing in the front beds
lay out poppies to dry for later composting
deadhead the pot marigolds
water the pot marigolds
water the strawberries
water the pumpkins
water the courgettes
water the newly-planted french marigolds
deadhead the pot marigolds
continue pulling up the poppies in the front beds
lay out poppies to dry for later composting
continue pulling up the poppies in the front beds
lay out poppies to dry for later composting
strim the nettles
strim the grass and weeds in the front beds
stop strimming due to strimmer making strange noises
take strimmer to shop for service and check for damage
rake the strimmings in the front beds
cut back my old neighbour's overgrown blackberry vines along the fence
mow everywhere before the rain is due to come
continue cutting back the blackberry vines
clear overgrown salad bed
start clearing weeds from planned new vegetable bed
deadhead the pot marigolds
continue deadheading the pot marigolds
chop some of the dry poppy stalks and compost
weed the climbing french bean bed
work out that the slugs are still hitting the bean plants
plan a butterfly-friendly wildflower bed for next year
trim the old buddleja as preparation for digging it out and replacing
chop more of the dry poppy stalks and compost
cut and chop comfrey stalks and compost
deadhead the pot marigolds
weed the courgette bed
water the courgettes
water the beans
water the french marigolds
dig up one potato plant
dig up 15 potato plants
i have been spending a lot of time in the garden this year and taking a lot more notice of what has been going on, what was starting to bud, what insects were around etc ... basically i was studying the natural history of my own garden in detail and with a growing appreciation of the changing seasons
in trying to take photographs throughout i have looking at my garden through the macro setting on my camera and getting a magnified view of the world around me ... and sometimes that has led to surprises, even shocks at what i have been seeing
recently i was looking at some unknown wildflower in flower and thought i should photograph it right there and then in case i could identify it later from a book ... as i was looking around at the plant through the macro close-up setting and trying to find the best flower to snap, i came up one flower that had a lot of reddish unknown insects on it and as i looked closer to find a good view i noticed that six of the insects had paired off and were all having mad sex ... well i say !!! ... it was like i was hosting an orgy on my wildflower !!!
i was drawn to two opposite points of view ... the first was daring and involved getting the best photo of the action and second was much shyer and involved choosing another flower without any action whatsover ... i was torn between being a voyeur and a prude !!!
it was this moment that made me realise that the insects in my garden are doing two things during their day ... they are either feeding or having sex ... if they are flying around, it is only to go from one to the other
the two photos for this report illustrate these two activities ... in the first a bee is feeding on a wildflower that only appeared in the latter part of the summer when the other wildflowers had died down ... what is interesting to note here is that while the bee is feeding it is in fact performing the sex act on behalf of the flower in transferring the pollen to the seed-producing part of the flower
the second photo shows just one pair in action ... i choose the middle path and took just a couple of photos for scientific interest and then left the whole lot to it
first the one
and then a bit of the other
a closing thought ... maybe the next time you are out in your garden you could think about finding a small corner somewhere to neglect and plant a couple of wildflowers for the benefit of your local bees, birds and butterflies ... even just a square metre/yard would do and for maintenance you would only have to cut it down to the ground once a year after things have seeded ... be bee-friendly this year
happy gardening ...
