My first garden!

Hi Rad, do sorry you asked about the chickens & I didn't reply .
My original girls (Hilda & Marion) are in their coop & free range in the garden....they have a lovely life! The new girls have their own coop too & a makeshift run, there's too much fighting for me to leave them out whilst I'm at work, I hope in a few weeks they will settle themselves down. Marion is such an old battle axe, she's so spiteful (she's even had a go at my cat) She's already had a go at two of the new girls, luckily I wasn't far away so managed to stop it quite quickly! . Integration is the worst part of being a hen mummy!

 

@Anthony Rogers she was just scooping the top over to check out the colour underneath the new grass clippings Apparently it's my garden (her words not mine) and I can do whatever I want with it hehe

I've just been working pretty much all hours. Done barely anything with this garden lately. Things are starting to pick up though! I've got the cloche up, another one needs to go over the L shaped bed to protect the kale and herbs (when they get planted).

I've also got a disptach email saying my blackberry plant and daffodils have been sent. They will hopefully be here tomorrow ready for me to plant!! A nice Friday evening job me thinks! I'll also be opening up the cloche tunnel to see if water is getting through. It says that it's water permeable but I poured water on it and it rolled off. I'll need to check whether I need to water it.

@Beckie76 The chicken fiasco sounds like fun Keeps you on your toes eh? I'll be checking for pics

@Anthony Rogers I've just unwrapped the plants you sent to me. They are very pretty! They are still very droopy and pale but they have been watered and will get medium light for the next few days until they unwilt Thanks for sending them! I'll keep you posted.

I've also found some plants at work. Some have got some long seed pods (like vanilla) and I'm going to investigate. I might have to do some seed pinching

 

To give this post some impact, go back to the 12 Sept and check out the photo of the raised bed and how bare it looks. I got such a great surprise when I opened it up today!

One issue is that the broccoli has taken a beating from some kind of pest. When I rolled back the fleece, there were lots of flies buzzing out. And there were some "balls" of stuff on the leaves. I'm guessing caterpillar poo or something?

Anyway.... check out these beauties!



The largest broccoli has a leaf the length of my arm. So much growth to say it's only been a week since I last saw it!


I also got some parcels recently. One was from @Anthony Rogers who sent me some lovely looking plants (which have now unwilted and looking much more colourful). I also got the blackberry plant, which is in the ground making my frame look rather OTT. I also got 75 red onion starter bulbs and they have been scattered around the Kale. When the kale starts being harvested, it will leave plenty of room for the onion foliage to grow. I've also planted some garlic. 12 cloves. They are soooo big though! Each clove is about the size of a ping pong ball! The bulbs are about the size of a tennis ball so I can't wait to harvest those!

The alliums, more alliums, double colour daffodils, 100 more normal daffodils, more crocuses, hardy lillies, some tall thingies and lots of winter aconites have also been planted. It's been a fun day! I've also planted the cutting I borrowed from the park. It's roots formed a nice root ball in the plant pot already so its done really well so far!

The worms are getting through loads of stuff now that I've upped their food allowance. They're hunting around for it and seem to love strawberries! Also, I've thrown 10kg of food scraps into the compost / worms since I got the wormery. That's a lot of nutrients that I've been throwing away! The compost is looking lovely (but twiggy) and I've got plans to put some rhubarb in the front garden because I'll have 8 coming through the post soon and I only have space (sensibly) for 5 in the back garden. I don't want the front to look too nice though because the thieving blighters that live around here will knick anything that looks easy.

So... all is good! A nice day in the garden today to relax and I'm all chilled ready for tomorrow. I just can't wait to get these trees in the garden :D

 

Hi Rad,

It's all looking fantastic, well done.

Can't believe it's less than three months since you were just starting out and your garden was just another suburban wilderness.

If they gave prizes out for novice gardener of the year you'd win it hands down.

I can't wait for next year to see how it's maturing.

Well done again

 

I had 28 fence panels to put with associated posts, best £29 I ever bought was a draper post hole borer made mince meat out of holes and still find uses for it.
Posts
Planting trees / shrubs
Drainage
Wife ( oops )

 

Novice gardener champion haha we'll see how things pan out yet. I'm already fighting off loads of slugs and snails. Got caterpillars living inside my doors and eating my plants. And there's more birds around here than sense. My berries are going to need loads of netting haha! Oh and a cat SAT in my potatoes the other day and snapped off half the stems. Those taties aren't looking too happy after that! I'm not counting my chickens just yet!

pfffft... come back at xmas and see what it looks like! There should be trees, raspberries, strawberries (and pineberries .... I couldn't resist), some red cane plants, bamboo, pampas grasses and more.

These next few months are the points at which things start to really fill out. I can't wait for next year though, I have to admit!

haha I have wondered about getting one but I don't think I'll have enough uses for it. I will get one when I move house though.

 

Good evening @Radiation91, I've only been gone for 3 weeks and I can't believe how much your veggies have grown, they all look very healthy no wonder the snails and slugs are hanging around lol

 

Had an outing to IKEA today and ended up hovering around the garden section again. Bought myself 2 tillandsia plants (tillandsia was the first ever type of plant I personally owned so it's quite special to me). Also bought 3 small cacti, one large cacti, a bromiliad and a venus fly trap plant.


While living with my parents, I had about 50 different cacti on my windowsill (which I slept underneath as the bed was adjacent to the window). I loved having a nice collection of them and loved the variety. The issue was that they all died one night when it got really cold in the house. I was gutted but I've caught the "cacti collecting fever" again!

I also took a bit of time to inspect the raised beds today. I noticed that the rocket was really spreading last time I checked so I went out to harvest some! On opening up the cloche, a few flies came out and I noticed some of the brocolli leaves were riddled with holes. It turns out... there's some of these hanging around in there



pesky things! I've picked out about 15 of them, which are now in the compost heap. I've rinsed off the little balls from the leaves and cut the dodgy looking leaves. All is back to normal!

Even better.... I've got a little brocolli!



A did say LITTLE! The leaves on the other hand... not so little!



This is about 2.5ft tall. The lowtunnel that I got would have been pointless with these. The added hight of this cloche frame is really proving useful.


I've taken out the rocket plants at the back right so that the peas have more room to grow.


That's a full plate of rocket (and some small lettuces) and it's barely made a dent in what I've got growing Loving it!

Now the peas have room to grow. They've grown another few inches this week and are starting to climb the first rung of my makeshift ladder.



I also noticed a robin hanging around while I was working and he's been picking out my damn onions and piling them up. I had to stick them all back in, trim off some dodgy leaves from the kale plants and then get the lowtunnel over them. That was easier said than done but I've got a good setup I think



A drawstring on each end to let me water everything and I can just pull it out if need be. The soil in this bed is straight from the original garden. Almost clay like soil. I don't really care how these kale plants turn out (obviously I'll be happy if they do well) but the roots from these plants should help break up the soil a bit. I will be mixing in some compost next year to give the plants a bit more oomph.

It will be an onion bed throughout next year but I'm going to add some herb bunches in between the onions.

 

It's all looking good enough to eat at the moment Rad.

 

@Sheal the green caterpillars seem to agree with that!

 

Thought I'd pop my head in and let you all know I'm still alive! Although Storm Barney seems to be testing that claim! I've been watching stuff on GC but not posting stuff. I'm sooooo busy!

A quick all round update:

The potato leaves went mushy and I snipped all the stems back down to 1" from soil level. Nothing's really happened with them over the last few weeks. I'm guessing they are a failed attempt, though I will leave them alone and see what happens!

The compost heap is building up nicely and so is my wormery. I'm now onto my second box for the wormery. I'll update later when something interesting happens.

I've got 5 pots in the house and I'm going to grow herbs. I've bought a new cabinet for the sole purpose of drying out my onions/garlic next year too. Oh and I've got a drying rack for my herbs. I plan to make the most out of herbs.

I'm still waiting for my rhubarb and trees which should be here within a fortnight but I have got my strawberry plants all sorted. They are currently growing in their 3 tier planter (which has been modified for winter). They are showing some good growth already which is nice. I will be covering them with straw to protect them from the winter.

On a different note, I went out and bought a couple of pet rats which are now settled and they're proving to be lovely little things! One's sitting on my shoulder listening to me type right now. Happy days!

Hope everyone is doing ok on GC!

Rad91

 

Glad to hear you're doing okay Rad. I don't like your choice of pets much but that's got to do with where I live. The Manx hate them and they are referred to as Longtails here. There's superstition attached to these animals also.

 

Hello stranger,

It's good to hear from you
Glad everything's ok with you both, and that the gardens shaping up for the Winter

At last a pet I could live with, what are they called and can we have some pics please

 

Toyboy, you're divorced!