Winter Garden Produce

The array of colours, forms and textures created by companion gardening is evident in this photograph of beet leafs emerging from carrot fronds, neighboured by leeks.

Winter Garden Produce

Here you can see our Brussels sprouts, still quite small but growing, next to the broad beans sagging under the shivering coldness. These beans are Spanish varieties which are frost hardy and produce prolifically in the late spring. Usually I dislike cutting them to stop their growth, the end up growing way too high. This year I am determined to stop their growth at about 1.3 - 1.5 metres.

Winter Garden Produce

Here is the Sorrel sagging in the bitter cold, frosted over.

Winter Garden Produce

While this is mid-winter, and the weather is appropriately cold, that does not mean the garden is bare; indeed some plants thrive better in winter for being left alone by pests. There was a sharp frost on this morning, 27 December, so I took some pictures. On the left you can see the frost on a leek, seeds from Britain. Of course, because of the companion planting, the leek is not sitting in the middle of a row of leeks, but is surrounded by carrots, garlic, and other vegetables not seen.

Potting Shed, Greenhouse Project

Here is a picture of the shed at the end of work on January 1. The upper frame is now sunk into the lower frame, and a couple of uprights, and bracing straps added to the corners. My neighbours passed on their way to visiting their relatives or friends and wondered why I was working on New Year's day, me too. But time is not something I possess a lot of so, a little done here and there speeds things along a little more.
One very kindly neighbour remarked that she had old hoop greenhouses on abandoned farm land, I think she was suggesting I could have had or used them.

To the left, foreground you can see last year's Xmas tree stripped bare of needles in most of its branches by a bagworm attack late summer. The infestation went unnoticed because I was busy and neglected the garden, and the worm gather pine needles around themselves, looking like a part of the tree, from which they exit, gather more needles into the cocoon to dine in cycles. I pulled off 200-300 of these cocoons, large and small. The treatment is weekly feeding with fishmeal fertiliser mixed with molasses sprayed over the plant, and compost and vegetable scraps, coffee grains etc., scattered around the base. Watching to see if spring bring some recovery, though it is obvious that the branches have not died as they remain flexible and have not become brittle.

Potting Shed, Greenhouse Project

This was the shed as work began on January 1. My daughter Hannah is sitting in the centre of the shed.

Potting Shed, Greenhouse Project

Here is the results of the first day's work on the shed. I dug out much of the sandy soil from within the base, to allow me to build the frame for the floor and the growing beds. Next the verticals were put in place, with supports, adding the top frame in stages. The next day saw the way the top frame is attached here modified slightly to lower it within the verticals supports. Two reasons for that: One, I discovered that the two main woods used for the project sold as 2 metre lengths are different lengths; the frame lengths here are a little over a 2 m, while the other piece that will make up the wall, door and window frames were shorter, and nearer to 2 m in length. Thus by lowering the top frame here this problem is solved. Second a modicum of strengthening is added by sinking the top frame into the bottom frame.

Potting Shed, Greenhouse Project

On the left is a picture of the base prepared. The base is partly sunk into the ground to the north, top of the picture, and partly elevated above ground to the south, requiring some adjustments later to enable a raised bed in the south side as the greenhouse.

Potting Shed, Greenhouse Project

It has been too long since last posting to the blog, so now I return to write about a new garden project. It will soon be time to think about sowing seeds for next years growing season, thus the question arose of where to put these and the idea of a potting shed for sowing and storing the seedlings arose. This soon developed into the idea of a potting shed with adjacent greenhouse. After searching for some open source plans for building a potting shed, I adapted some i found and came up with my own. In the left is a picture of the ground being prepared for the construction. Previously this was where my daughter's garden and sand pit were, but it became obvious that this was not the best place for her garden and the design was not the best for her either. So, some new concepts came into being, and some new plans are being worked on for Hannah to have a new garden and perhaps an equivalent of a tree house.