Garden Projects Picture Frame Planter and Tin Can Plant Pot

We have had some brilliant weather through March, the summer feeling has definitely come a little early this year. everyone one has been out in the gardens making the most of the dry sunny weather and even a BBQ or too. We had a high of 18 Celsius..... to some that might seem pretty cold but to us Brits at this time of year that's down right tropical! Especially after the winter we have had! So everyone has been getting ready for the summer ahead, myself included. But there is only so much you can do this time of year and for me this is when I start playing around and try to make things. And yesterday I made two picture frame planters, as an experiment really but I was quiet happy with the way they turned out.

I was pottering around the garden and cleaning up when I went to drop some rubbish in the bin and low and behold my partner had been cleaning out the house and these two small picture frames were on the top. I have seen a few posts on Pinterest and other sites where people had made these and I always thought they looked great. They were always on a bigger scale compared to my modest attempt however I think they could create a good effect, my neighbour was amazed though I don't know how much of that was politeness!

To make these I used some pallet wood to make the sides and some old plastic fascia board that was sitting idle in the shed. Finally some chicken wire that was left over. I knocked up a U-shape for the bottom and sides with the wood and nailed the fascia board on to the back. The chicken wire I used to sit in between the frame and the base to help hold plants in. FinallyI just nailed the frame on to the box base. This actually only took 10 minutes to make.

So far I have filled one with compost and seeded it with plain old grass. Really I just want to see what it will look like and weather it will work..... The other I would like to try some sort of flower, alpine type maybe.

I also made a planter out of an old tin can, I loved the paper label that was on it, the blue and orange so I really wanted to keep it. To do this I used a clear Lacquer spray, normally used for car metal work. And sprayed it A LOT! It seems water tight, and hopefully I get to keep the label on it!

Well time to go and plant up my early potatoes, the sun seems to be coming back out.

Garden Vlog February 2014

I finally worked up the courage to do my own Garden Vlog, after many years of enjoying other peoples. I have always found them interesting, especially those that are full of tips and how to do something. Unfortunately my one is not like this but really just a quick look around my small veg plot. It will give you an idea of what my set up is and what I have planned. Please do excuse my verbalised pauses........Errrrrrrrrr! I was a nervous first timer and hope that any future ones I do will be much better!! Oh and finally it has rather an abrupt ending as my neighbour came up the garden and It was abit weird filming this with him stood there!

Potato Choices 2014

Last year I grew only 2 varieties of Potato, King Edward and Rocket. I was especially happy with the taste and abundance of Rocket, made the best new potatoes I have ever had. The King Edwards however grew plentifully but were scabby and disintegrated far to easily when boiled (See post Potato Harvest 2013). So in all likelihood I wont be growing them again any time soon. For 2014 I thought I would try three new varieties after all half the fun is trying something new. I have two earlies, a first and a second and one main crop variety.

The first early is called Winston, its has white skin and flesh and looks like a naked potato when cleaned up!

Winston First Early

My second early is Salad Blue, which I have seen advertised as a Main Crop but when I bought these advertised as a second early, so maybe I have an option with these to leave them in longer if I like. The are as the name suggests blue skinned but also blue fleshed which stays when cooked.

Salad Blue, Second Early/Main Crop

Finally the Main crop spud is Mayan Gold, a good roaster with a nutty yet creamy flavour, I am most excited by this one!

Mayan Gold Main Crop

I am happy with my choices, yet there is always going to be those other ones you wanted!! For me I had my heart set on Purple Majesty as my Main Crop but it had sold out already! And I saw another one called Yukon Gold but was but could not seem to find any in the UK.

Little or nothing going on.

The way the weather has been over the last few months has kept me well and truely out of the garden, if its not freezing its raining or worst of all blowing a gale. A few weeks back we had very high winds with gusts up to 80mph which caused abit of damage. The greenhouse lost several panes of glass as well as some of the roofing sheets. Which made me a bit depressed. I have since replaced most of the broken panes and re attached the roof sheets but one has disappeared completely! So I will have to buy another. But as I sit here writing this another 'storm' is heading our way and I sit and hope that more hard work is not undone! The garden sits in a bit of a wind tunnel and has little shelter from any high winds but there is not a great deal that I can do about it at the moment. Its just a matter of sitting it out and hoping everything will stay intact. Roll on spring and can not wait!

Soil Improvement, the Plan!

Having the best soil is something that every gardener wants and strives for. We all do something to improve it every year whether it be applying manure, compost, compost tea, fertiliser or even growing green manure. If we want good results we NEED good soil. And like all gardeners with the internet I have spent many an hour reading blogs and watching YouTube video's on how to do this. I think I must have seen every way you can, to improve your soil by now! But strangely enough I was watching a documentary about the Amazon many months back that set me off on Terra Preta. The Documentary was from the BBC and was challenging our perceptions of the Amazon as a 'pristine wilderness' and one fact they used to do this was the existence of Terra Preta. Terra Preta is Portuguese for 'black earth' and is the most fertile soil in the world found only in the Amazon. This soil was man made and has been found to be located around sites that homed settle communities.Needless to say our modern view of the Amazon as a pristine wilderness may well be unfounded. Certainly the techniques employed by many of the tribes living there now (slash and burn) did not and are unable to produce Terra Preta. I highly recommend taking an hour of your time to watch the documentary below. 

             The BBC Documentary on the Amazon and the Pre Columbian Cultures.

After watching the documentary I started reading up online about Terra Preta, what it was, how it was made and what was in it. It seems it is a mixture of manure, organic matter and charcoal on the most basic level. So it seemed to me quite an easy thing to reproduce on my own plot of land. And other people are doing the same....See next video.

Although the above video was helpful I will be approaching it with a different recipe, with a few more added ingredients which I think will improve my soil more. The basic list is this.

1. Charcoal/Ash
2. Well rotted Leaf Mulch
3. Garden compost
4. Manure
5. Bokashi
6. Blood, Fish and Bone

Over the last couple of months I have been collecting these ingredients, wood, dried garden vegetation and sawdust from the chicken coop to make ash and charcoal with. I have a good stock of well rotted shredded leaf mulch as well as chicken manure on tap. The added ingredient for my improvement plan is Bokashi, which I have been adding to my mulch as well as some of the manure I have been collecting. What the Bokashi gives is good microbes needed for a healthy soil, breaking up the nutrients in all the other ingredients that I am adding. Come spring I will layer across my beds and dig in well and hey presto Terra Preta! Well probably not as easy as that but it should surely improve the soil no end.

My Eggs are Free

So I have had my Hens for about 6 months now and after a slow start egg wise they all began laying an egg a day. This as it turns out is more eggs than I and the Mrs are willing to eat. Four eggs a day, 7 days a week is a lot of eggs to eat, but we do try. Amanda has had to do much more baking this year. Yum!

Beaky, Duchess, Matron and Speckle enjoying their warm treat on a frosty morning

No matter how much baking and eating of eggs we do there is to much for us, so we have been selling the eggs to friends and colleagues for a very cheap £1 a half dozen. That £1 then gets put in to the chicken tin which is used to buy their feed. Yesterday I looked in the tin and found I had about £10 and decided to stock up on some feed. I bought some pellets, corn and some rice and spaghetti which are treats. They absolutely go crazy for some warm boiled rice or spaghetti, I'm sure they think they are maggots or worms, but what ever they think I feel happy that they have had a warm meal to keep them going as the weather gets colder. So it turns out I am getting my eggs for free, by selling them cheap to friends who appreciate a bargain, from looked after hens, that will not end up as cat food when they stop laying.

Best of the Blossoms 2013