Tag: Compost

Growing vegetables, fruit and flowers8 Comments

There will be peas

Reclaiming Paradise

Today has been the big pea planting day. Following last week’s runaway success with following the #SixOnSaturday gang I’ve had another go. So there will be six peas, or six pea related stories. Here goes. You’ll remember that a few weeks ago I experimented with sowing peas in egg boxes (of course you do, but if not you can find out more here). Well, that seems to have worked really well, as lots of different peas have germinated beautifully this way. Here are the ‘Salmon Pink’ peas, growing happily in their egg box 2. And here is how they look … Continue reading There will be peas

Growing vegetables, fruit and flowers4 Comments

Seedlings and potatoes

Reclaiming Paradise

This weekend the vegetable growing really got going. First of all, though, please admire this amaryllis which has been sitting on the bathroom windowsill for about ten years, doing absolutely nothing. Well that’s not entirely true. It has produced green leaves every year but no flowers for a very long time. This was the year it chose to flower. We may have to wait another ten years for the next flower but I am patient. Back to the vegetables. The seedlings on my windowsill have been romping away Cucumbers, tomatoes and huge mass of out of date basil seeds which … Continue reading Seedlings and potatoes

Recycling and reusing, Wildlife2 Comments

First frog

Reclaiming Paradise

Today I spotted my first frog of the season, not in the pond, but deep in a compost bin. I had been doing some spring tidying: weeding, hacking things back, looking for signs of new growth. I went to deposit some woody prunings in my very long-term woody pruning compost bin – made from an old leaking water barrel. It’s been sitting there for four or five years, not doing very much but today I noticed that it had produced some quite useable compost. I emptied some out and sieved it, producing three bucketfuls of beautiful crumbly stuff. I’m not … Continue reading First frog

Why I garden2 Comments

Autumn tidying

Reclaiming Paradise

Today was a garden day, it seemed like the first in months. The garden has been doing its best producing wonderful fruit and vegetables, especially plums, apples and tomatoes but, what with the allotment, and the musicians, various other family and work things, a wee trip to Norway and the small matter of the cracked bone in my arm, it is beginning to look seriously neglected.  So today I dug over one of the tomato beds, filled it with garden compost and sowed some broad beans. That sounds like it should have taken, maybe half an hour? But it took much … Continue reading Autumn tidying

Why I garden3 Comments

Sky paintings

Reclaiming Paradise

I’ve been away for a week or so – family and work in equal measure and mostly pleasurable and productive too.  But that means not gardening and not blogging.  Now I’m home and have been doing a little bit of catching up.  The assistants have been battling the leaves in the front garden and informed me that the compost bin was overflowing.  Well the leaves don’t usually go in the compost bin but it was well meant and provided me with the joy of a big compost bin turnover this afternoon.  It was a nice crisp day, perfect for this … Continue reading Sky paintings

Why I garden4 Comments

A little autumnal

Reclaiming Paradise

It’s been distinctly autumnal here this weekend. Yesterday’s rain was impressive but today it’s just been depressing. It stopped for a while this afternoon. I had a discussion with my assistant about who should go and buy milk and who should use this break in the weather to potter in the garden. He reckoned I would be better at pottering so offered to go and do the shopping. This was a call to achieve something serious so I did my roughly twice yearly rotation of the compost bins. I have three compost bins: two plastic cone shaped ones and one … Continue reading A little autumnal

Why I garden3 Comments

Sparrowhawk

Reclaiming Paradise

Christmas festivities over, Scotland’s New Year hype yet to start. Not too wet, not too cold. It was a day to get into the garden and do some stuff. So I’ve turned the compost bin – that was fun – cut back the runner beans and taken down their poles Here’s what they looked like in May. Then I put some cardboard down on the raised beds to help stuff grow in the spring and to keep the cat off.  As I was out in the garden, doing  these exciting tasks, I heard seagulls screeching above me.  I looked up … Continue reading Sparrowhawk

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Pottering in the rain

Reclaiming Paradise

Today is the first day of spring apparently.  So I had to get out in the garden and do some pottering in between the sleet showers. Tasks achieved today include dealing with some very sad strawberries which are planted in a fancy strawberry tower thing.  They have been very waterlogged and covered in moss so obviously need more drainage holes.  I get quite cross when people design these things without thinking about whether they’ll actually work or not. Anyway out with the hand drill and they are now full of holes. Let’s hope the strawberries like it now. I also moved the dead … Continue reading Pottering in the rain

Recycling and reusing4 Comments

Compost and a late winter harvest

Reclaiming Paradise

So the festive season is almost past and we are nearly back to porridge and old clothes*, bar the ritual dismantling of the Christmas tree and the eating of the chocolates on it.  These few days, after New Year and before school and other commitments kick in next week, have allowed me to do some clearing up in the garden, including the turning of the compost bins.  This is a foul but surprisingly satisfying task.  My compost bins are rather miscellaneous, consisting of two ‘proper’ plastic conical bins and one made from an old water barrel which was destroyed by … Continue reading Compost and a late winter harvest