Gardening – Page 2 – Enviro-Mentalist

Winter Colour

Despite all of the snow and frost of recent weeks there are still some flowers attempting to bloom. One of the easiest to spot is the small but bright yellow, perennial Winter Aconite (Eranthis Hyemalis) which can be found flowering away in January and February in the UK. These are hardy plants (members of the buttercup family) that grow close to the ground in shady woodland, and, as you can see from the picture below are quite able to survive frost and snow.

The leaves only show fully once the flowers have died, the leaves themselves dying off when the forest canopy shades the plants out.

Although the plant looks pretty and as though it wouldn’t harm a fly, beware, as all parts are poisonous. According to Wikipedia, Medea attempted to poison Theseus by putting aconite in his wine. Despite (or maybe because of) this, Winter Aconites are commonly sold in garden centres as an easy way to add a bit of Winter colour to an otherwise drab and dormant garden.

Sweet Chilli Success.

For the last few years I have been trying, and failing, to grow and ripen chillis. The last two summers have been a complete wash out apart from a Prairie Fire plant that we kept as a pot plant that produced tiny weeny chillis. Even the summer of 2006 with all its sunshiny glory and bees and butterflies didn’t produce anything but some green chillis that were eaten by slugs.

This was to be the final year…look what happened.

The secret of my success is a tip that I picked up from the Alternative Kitchen Garden Podcast. Last year I had a couple of runty Heatwave chilli plants that I planted a little late and which did not grow. I potted them on and kept them in the house (much to James’s chagrin as we also had to find a home for some gerberas that I had grown) over Winter. Nothing much happened until the days lengthened in March when they put on a bit of a growth spurt. Flowers started to come in May at which point we put them outside. Chillis started to grow sometime in June, and there are loads of them. This is the first one to ripen, but there are some more that are just showing the signs. Once they start they seem to take only a week or so to become completely red.

Are all the white butterflies in my garden evil?

The short-ish answer is, if cabbage white butterflies are evil, then yes. OK, there are wood whites, and marbled whites, but I bet the ones that you have been looking at are either small white or large white butterflies.

What’s the difference I hear you ask – well, one is larger than the other! Other than that, the large white has broader wings which does make them easier to identify if you see them at rest (which is not very often as they range around looking for a mate). Other than that there are a couple of differences that will help identify them and I have provided some photos to help.

Large whites have black tips on their wings, the females have two black spots, the males do not have any. Small white man butterflies have one spot on their forewing, the lady butterflies again have two. The small white wingtips are also dark, but as far as I can tell are much lighter than their larger friends. A word of caution on this last point however, there are two broods of white butterfly each year and the markings on the July / August batch tend to be darker than those of the earlier brood – probably a bit like a sun tan. Oh yes, and, when the wings are closed, even the male large white appears to have spots.

In terms of their cabbage-destroying propensities, then they have different modes of attack. Large white butterflies lay their eggs on the outer leaves of plants of the cabbage family, and their conspicous caterpillars appear in large numbers munching all the leaves in sight. The small whites are more devious – they lay their eggs in smaller numbers in the heart of the cabbage where a single caterpillar will munch away the innards making them much more difficult to deal with.

There used to be a lot more of the whites in the UK, but a combination of pesticides and a virus drastically reduced their numbers (mmm… sounds familiar). Many of the whites seen in our gardens will have come over from the continent.

OK, I am not a farmer or allotmenteer, but I have had some brassicas attacked by caterpillars, but I think you have to agree that the world would be a sorry place if the pretty white butterflies were not perpetually on the move around our gardens. I will make sure I have some verbena and buddleia for them in my garden, I will even contemplate a brassica or two for their caterpillars.

Gardening for Wildlife (and photography)

We have a small front and back garden which have completely different conditions and uses. Whilst the back is an extension to the house, the front is in full public view. With this in mind the back was designed by James to be tranquil and shady, with quite a few trees, and, although there are some flowers, this is not the focus. The back also has a pond, and is designed with both wildlife and us in mind. The front is another story!

The front garden is south facing and is blasted by the sun for much of the day. It is also not at all sheltered and can have the wind whipping across it. It has been designated as a place for flowers, and, hopefully insects. I am therefore packing in as many flowers, colours and as much movement in as possible. The hope is that I will be able to take photos of both the flowers and the insects that they attract, but also have something vivid that will eventually work through all the seasons.

I started the garden a year ago, and have a few plants that have really worked well. One of these is verbena bonariensis. I have tried growing this for a few years from seed, but never got any to germinate. I was therefore over the moon when my mother-in-law gave me three small plants that had seeded in her garden. Last year they attracted the white butterflies, as well as the occasional tortoiseshell. This year? Well, it is a good year for Painted Ladies, and the good news is that they have found my garden. Saturday was the first sunny day in a while and we had three Painted Ladies in the garden, all on the Verbena.

As I was hoping it would attract insects I planted it next to the path, this makes photography easier. I took a few photos yesterday, but the wind made it a little difficult at times, but the Summer is hopefully young and I will get some good shots at some point. Here is one of my better shots – have you seen one of these this year?

Slugfest! A Veg Garden Update.

Just a quick update about the garden. First the bad news: Pak Choi , all eaten, brassicas, almost all gone, coriander and parsley – just about holding on – all the victim of slugs and snails.

On the positive side, the chillis are still growing well, and the blackberry has been prolific, providing lots of great opportunities to improve my bee photography skills, the first of the berries have just started to blush.
The French beans and courgettes have managed to survive various slug attacks and the beans are starting to flower.

I have popped a few chard plants in the back garden which I have grown from seed as the ones I sowed directly do not seem to have grown. We will see if they survive a rainy night and a visit from Mr Slug and his army of friends. This is in contrast to the front garden where three of the chard seeds that I planted have grown well and survived the ravages of wind, rain and the aforementioned slugs. I decided to grow rainbow chard after seeing them growing every winter at Ryton Organic Gardens, unfortunately, I have never tasted it, never cooked it and am not sure what I am going to do with it. Still, I have popped a few more seeds in and am hoping it will brighten the front garden in the gloomy winter months.

Bumblebees

I spent a short amount of time in the garden today trying to photograph bees. I have found that looking through a macro lens makes one study insects much more closely and reveals a fantastic level of detail. So much so that I can be distracted from pressing the shutter button.

I was particularly interested in a bee with an orange behind, which, I am assuming was a red tailed bumble bee (Bombus lapidarius) and wanted to get a shot of it on a cornflower due to the contrasting colours. I took some shots and then it flew off. I then noticed it on some yellow flowers, time for another shot.

It was whilst I was sitting watching the bee and waiting for it to emerge from the midst of the flowers that I noticed another bee on the cornflower. Whilst observing both of these bees, it became apparent that one preferred the orange and yellow flowers, whilst the other was only interested in the cornflowers. Is it the case that individual bees prefer certain colours or types of flowers, or had, for example, cornflower bee already visited all of the yellow flowers and so was avoiding them? Should I be growing as many different types and colours of flowers as I can?

How’s your garden growing?

This is just a quick update on the produce in my garden. Following on from last year’s disaster, I have already had some minor success.

After living in a pot for a couple of years whilst we relandscaped the back garden, the blackcurrant bush has grown well, survived aphid attacks and has yielded about 1 lb of blackcurrants. We are going to freeze some of them and others will no doubt end up in blackcurrant muffins (I will post a recipe at a later date if any of you are interested). The variety that we grow, for no reason other than it looked healthy when we bought it over 5 years ago from the garden centre, is Ben Sarek. I have included a picture to prove they exist (and in case we don’t get any next year).
The gooseberry has been attacked by sawfly for two years, so we are giving it one final chance this year and have relocated it to the front of the house. It has one solitary gooseberry, but, so far no sawfly devastation. Hopefully it will continue that way.

The garlic that I planted in December is having mixed fortunes. Those planted in the front garden are doing wonderfully well and have some of the thickest stems I have seen, the 3 cloves that I put in the back are looking a bit sad and weedy. I think it will be time to harvest them before long.

My courgettes are also doing OK (although the ones I gave to my mother-in-law appear to be twice the size) and the first flowers appeared on Thursday on both the one in the ground and the one in a pot. This is a big relief as they failed completely last year, being annihilated by slugs soon after planting. This variety is Partenon which I have grown before, fruits early and is self fertile so should be fine whatever the weather.

I have also planted out some pak choi and my beans as well as some either cauliflowers or cabbage that I was given (Colin couldn’t remember which was which). Radish (which are supposed to be easy to grow) have benefited from me making the effort to thin them out and I finally have some carrots coming up in containers. However, I am particularly pleased with some rainbow chard in the front garden and my chillis in the back garden which are already fruiting. (I will share the secret of my success once they have ripened.)

Damselflies

At this time of year you may notice lots of damselflies zipping about. As far as I can tell these emerge from the pond earlier than dragonflies, and, who can blame them as they make a tasty meal for their voracious cousins.

The damselfly lays it eggs in or close to water and these hatch after about a month. The nymphs then remain in the pond for one to two years before crawling up a convenient piece of vegetation and emerging from their larval case (exuvia). I think we have had at least 10 emerge from our pond in the last month. Here’s a picture I caught of a damselfy as it was emerging.

The damselfly then has to sit there as it pumps fluid to its wings and dries out before it can fly off. The time taken for this depends on the weather and one I was watching took about 3 hours in early May, but about half that time a couple of weeks later.

Damselflies are much smaller than dragonflies, and sit with their wings held in to their long slim body (thorax) unlike dragonflies which are much larger and wider and who hold their wider wings out.

This is a large red damselfy (which I think is the species that emerged from the pond in early May). Unfortunately they only tend to live for a few weeks so enjoy them whilst you can. Can you think of a better reason to put a pond in your garden than to see these fantastic creatures close-up?

For a great introduction to dragonflies and damselflies see the Leicestershire and Rutland Dragonfly Group website.

No salad days just yet.

I thought I would put up a quick note about how the garden produce is going so far.

The rhubarb and blackcurrant are settling in well, although there has been a brutal aphid attack on the blackcurrant necessitating a bit of prunage. I think we should get something out of both of these this year. The gooseberry has been moved to the front of the house to try and loosen the grip of the sawfly. This is the last chance saloon, but it appears to be OK at the moment even though it only has one berry. The blackberry (Oregon Thornless) is also growing really well.

The seeds that I have sown in the last month are doing well. Five out of six courgettes have germinated, which is fine as I don’t need any more (I am trying Partenon again, and it was my one remaining seed of Black Beauty that did not germinate). My first salad leaves are growing well, I am hoping to make regular sowings and grow just enough for sandwiches or salad for lunch. The beans and sweetcorn are also growing away nicely, although I don’t have any plans to plant these out for another month (as suggested by Monty Don). I have included a few pictures of my most photogenic crops below, this is partly a reminder to myself of how they looked before the slugs found them!

On the negative side, my tomatoes are progressing very slowly, although they have germinated I think they need to get a wriggle on if they are to be planted out at any time in the foreseeable – none of them have even bothered to think about a second set of leaves yet.

Pak Choi are also growing well, with the beginnings of life beginning to show from the chard (new this year as is the Pak Choi) and radish.

Have I outgrown BBC television?

When I was younger I remember watching Countryfile on a Sunday morning with my dad, not every week, but fairly often. It seemed to me to be full of information about farming, a bit about nature and the week’s weather forecast. Growing up in the suburbs, I lapped it up, it was my weekly dose of ‘The Country’.

They have moved it to a prime time slot on a Sunday evening – something relaxing before a hectic week at work perhaps. I have watched it for the last two weeks and have found it deeply disappointing, I don’t think I will bother to tune in next week. I may be viewing through age-misted glasses, but there seems to be a lot about tourism – last week we had the Cleveland Way and the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, this week it was kayaking and snow climbing around Nevis. Even these are only snapshots and in some cases seem to be poorly edited bits from other, perhaps longer, programmes.

There is very little of educational value, a small section from Adam on his farm, and an article from John Craven about some rural issue, but even these were only surface deep and didn’t tell me anything new. Most of the features would have been more likely to have featured on John Craven’s Newsround or Blue Peter 25 years ago, not Countryfile.

Something that I know has definitely changed in the last year is Gardener’s World. I have watched this most weeks for many years, my way of winding down and chilling on a Friday evening. Whilst I admit I was a fan of Monty Don (there is something incredibly soothing about his presentation style and his love of gardening was obvious) and that I am struggling to take to Toby Buckland, it is not the change of presenter that is causing me a problem. After all, Toby did present quite a lot last year along with Alys, Jo Swift and Carol Klein, and still I kept watching. This season though, it is dumbed down television at its worst. How to make an auricula theatre in 30 minutes, plant daffodils bought in flower from the garden centre and the dreadful and completely pointless what’s hot and what’s not section.

I know that they are trying to appeal to as many people as possible, but nearly everything is about starting something from scratch. Please don’t forget about those of us who already enjoy spending time in our garden, give us something new as well.

Is anyone else finding the latest BBC series a little dull and dumbed down, or am I on my own? At least Radio 4 remains an island of informative programming in a lowest common denominator world.