Last week I was chatting with a colleague about silly mistakes that are often made when using technology – the sort of things we do once and immediately
learn from. “Ah, a bit like me raking the lawn of petals last weekend and
finding a bed of freshly-sown weeds days later”, I chimed in.
Exactly that sort of thing, except I did it for the third
year running this spring and have just spent a day undoing my unintentional
weed-spreading. The garden is now a lot less weedy, but my limbs aren’t exactly
grateful. Maybe next year I’ll catch myself in time before I rake.
A day in the garden is always welcome, but I’m definitely
still learning some absolute gardening basics. On Saturday, I was fascinated by
a plant stall holder in Greenwich giving her thirsty plants a bath of water.
She held the leaves out the way while she dunked each lavender plant in turn
into a bucket of water and soaked its soil and roots. That reminded me that my
neighbour Ann, who has little trouble maintaining a colourful balcony display
of tomatoes, herbs and flowers at most times of the year, had previously
advised me to water some of my windowsill seedlings from the bottom. I took her
advice and used saucers of water for my herbs, but hadn’t extended the idea to
the garden. I’ve been watering away and doing it all wrong.
I’m learning though. I’ve managed to master the art of
sheltering plants from wind and other elements having had a potentially great
tomato harvest ruined by the howling winds. Windowsills, tops of cupboards and
cheap plastic-coated patio greenhouses are now my friends.
My potato-chitting skills are now second to none. I’m just
hoping that the second batch of chitted spuds that went into potato growbags
today are able to draw enough sustenance from the mix of compost and John Innes
potting soil I ended up planting them in. I definitely need to gen up on soil
types and which ones nurture which plant types.
I shan’t make last
year’s mistake of trying to get more use out of bags of nutrient-rich soil than
they have to give. If a pot uses up a whole 30-litre bag of compost, I’ll just
have to go and get another bag of compost rather than adding dried up old soil
and diluting the mix. The addition of roots and plant spores (always weeds)
makes it a false economy – and often means the new plant withers rather than
thrives.
Previous attempts to improve the soil in a particularly dry area
of the garden proved fruitless, but the conifer that was sucking up all the
moisture was taken out this winter. When I came to plant the nectarine tree I
got from the excellent J Parker’s website, I found a stone-, weed- and
rubble-free spot that apparently appreciated my previous attention. I was able
to dig down the requisite spade-height-and-a-half and plant the nectarine tree
in a pretty well-prepared spot. Thanks to a day of tree planting with The Woodland Trust, I knew exactly what to do.
