One of the first jobs I did on the wildlife plot was to remove the raspberries from the bed at the side backing onto the outdoor area of Gorfin Hall. They had run halfway across the plot and I just don't have the time to keep something like that under control. So, out they came and in went a sour cherry donated to the plot. I wasn't sure what to do with the bed so left it partly covered in plastic and grass and leaves to reduce the bindweed and waited for inspiration to occur. Sometimes it can take a long time!
Last week I read an article in Gardeners' World magazine by Rosi Rollings who has identified her top 12 plants for bees. Rosi has a nursery and undertakes research into the plants that bees like best alongside Dave Goulson a professor at Sussex University. For the magazine article Rosi planted reported on her six year research counting the number of bees per square metre on each plant and sharing with us which plants had the highest number of bees over time.
In the cherry tree bed, I am going to plant from the list that Rosi recommends as I have some of these plants in my garden and I can grow others from seed or get cuttings and divisions from friends.
Read on to find the 3 best plants to use if you are short of space and see all 12 if you have a bigger area.
I have had to make a lot of decisions about the wildlife plot since September. Coppice all the hazels or just a few? I coppiced them all. Leave the Allium triquetrium to spread or remove it? REMOVE IT! Prune the cooking apple tree all over or just half and do it over two years? I pruned it all over. So, I am used to making decisions and probably what made these easier is that what ever I decided, it wouldn't have much of an impact on anyone else apart from the Alliums.
Today, I had to make one of those more difficult decisions about some wildlife rather than plants.
Finally, some of the biennial crops are starting to develop seed; beetroot and leeks in particular. It feels like a long time ago that I sowed this seed - about 14 months and they finish off my first year of seed saving. Charles Dowding shared an interesting post on instagram about Boltardy beetroot from Kings.
I am not quite sure where April and May went but they do seem to have passed me by. However, I have been busy as have the bees on the phacelia.
This is a buff-tailed bumble bee - it might be a worker because it has a white tail with a buff-coloured stripe at the start of the white.
These bees can be found in many countries because they are used as pollinators in glasshouses. In fact, there are places where it is no longer legal to import them such as Australia as they compete with native bees.
In this post you can read about camouflaging spiders, the best shrubs for pollinators and the flowers that are coming out now on the plot.
Like everyone I am sure, my windowsills and green house are full to brim with seedlings that are almost ready to go out when this cold spell stops. What I want to do is share some of the seedlings grown from seeds that I collected at the end of last year. Most seed companies do a germination percentage check to ensure that the seed they have will germinate so I wasn't sure whether mine would.
The first saved seeds that I have sown are from the dahlia 'Bright Eyes'. It is a single flower so accessible to bees and other insects. The normal way to create more dahlias is to take cuttings when they start to sprout but I thought I would try seeds. I have no idea whether they will come true so it is a wait and see job.
If you would like some of these seeds, you can reach me via the saving seeds blog. You will need to log in to see the comments and who has what seed.
All of the sun that we have had in the last few days has meant that the wildlife has started to emerge in the wildlife garden and because I am not very good at naming insects, I am focusing on trying to identify one bit of wildlife each time I visit. About 10 days ago I saw and managed to photograph this bee; Bombus lapadarius or Red-tailed bumble bee.
I was given a couple of books for Christmas about soil. I read the fun-looking one a while ago but left the more serious one, Teaming with Microbes by Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis, and have only just got round to it. It turns out that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover! I learnt masses from the second book so here are my top 10 amazing facts.
I am one of those people who does not like to spend too long in the kitchen preparing food to store it and would rather explore how I can grow and harvest crops throughout the year. I have managed this with carrots, leeks and beetroot, and this year with fennel as well. It is all about when you sow the seed and how well they can sit out the winter. Fennel, for example, will only survive the winter under cover but does so very well. Last week, I found a bag of forgotten potatoes all sprouting and a few rotting at the back of my shed at home and it started me wondering whether there was a way to grow potatoes so that you could harvest them all year round and it turns out that there is!
Harvesting potatoes out of season is already a 'thing' as many people plant left over potatoes late summer to obtain a crop for Christmas day. What I want to know is, can you harvest potatoes after Christmas day?
This post is a sharing of resources that I found on my investigations in all things potato in case anyone else would like to try something different. Growing potatoes in pots, growing very early potatoes, growing very late potatoes, growing sweet potatoes and creating your own sweet potato slips.
I am a little obsessed with compost because I can never make enough. To help, I sometimes have manure from Bruce delivered but it is so much work because, like everyone near me, you can't get a vehicle near the plot. This means it is dropped off and then has to be barrowed onto the plot. I had two loads this year, each load taking 2 hours to move and then I couldn't move the next day!
There are so many different ways of making compost and I do a bit of each because it all is used in different ways: cold composting, hot composting, worm composting and leaf mold. This post has a video explanation of each method made by a variety of growers.
It had been a quiet month on the wildlife plot until I decided to coppice the hazels! There are about 8 or 9 large clumps behind the shed and behind Gorfin Hall. Normally if you have more than one hazel, you coppice them in turn so that you have stems or wands at various sizes and you can then cut them depending on what you want. Never one to shirk, I decided to do them all in one go although when I say I did them, I have to give a massive thank you to Dave and his chainsaw as he cut and I dragged them away all over the wildlife plot and my plot.