 Wild Flower Meadow Friends, all those of you who follow the RHS @ Chelsea Flower Show, like me, will know that wild flowers are all the rage. Last year we saw a fantastic wild flower meadow in the centre of Canterbury. We had visited it before and wanted to check it out again just to make sure it was as good as we had imagined it.  Rough grass It was so good we thought it would be nice to try and make one ourselves, in a scrubby area of grass and weeds we have.  More Rough grass (looking the other way) Having done some research we were met with conflicting info. Do we try and clear everything and start from scratch. Or keep what good wildflowers there are already and add to them with additional seed. We decided to do the latter and then try and remove some of the more persistent weeds. We purchased some seed from pitchcare http://www.pitchcare.com/shop/wildflower-seeds/index.html and sowed the seeds at the end of April.  Weeds - Nettles Everything seems to be growing well especially the weeds, mainly nettles, as can be seen here.  Discoloured Nettles We have doused them with glyphosate weed killer, but as can be seen all it seems to do is slightly discolour the nettles on first application Fortunately on second dousing a couple of weeks later the nettles have gone black and died off. It will be a long slow process as we only want to kill the nettles and not the new wildflowers around them. We will have to wait and see how it all pans out as the season progresses, but hopefully with lots of wildflowers and few weeds.  This is my ad hoc update and diary describing how I am developing our garden at Trostrie Cottage in Galloway. You can see the garden for yourself if you book a self catering holiday @The Shieling which is attached to Trostrie Cottage http://www.trostriecottage.co.uk/ in the South West of Scotland.
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Friends Even though the weather does not seem like it, spring has sprung and the snowdrops are popping up all over the place. It is thought that the Romans brought Snowdrops Galanthus to the UK  The snowdrop grows from a small bulb, producing slender leaves about 15 cm long, and flower stalks ending in a solitary white flower with three spreading outer petals which are larger and more convex than the three inner ones. The flower is milky-white, as indicated by its scientific name, Galanthus (Greek,gala= milk,anthos= flower). There are green markings on the inner petals, which are used as a means of identification.  Snowdrops @ Trostrie They grow freely in the wild; but 'wild' snowdrops seem to be garden escapees. It is generally thought that, if you find snowdrops growing wild in the middle of a wood, you can be almost certain that there was once a dwelling there. Snowdrops are generally spread by birds scratching the soil, dispersing the bulbs.  Snowdrops @ Trostrie So the fact that we have then growing in an overgrown area of the garden by a flattened area indicates that there used to be buildings there.  Snowdrops @ Trostrie All they are is really sign posts that are telling us that the daffodils will be out soon.
This is my ad hoc update and diary describing our garden at Trostrie Cottage in Galloway. You can see the garden for yourself if you book a self catering holiday @The Shieling which is attached to Trostrie Cottage http://www.trostriecottage.co.uk/ Friends Those of you who know me will have seen that I like lawns with straight lines, not quite bowling greens but getting on that way, so it is quite a challenge to let an area of grass go wild – hopefully into a wildflower lawn (but that is for the future).  Plan of fruit trees In part of this wild area we have decided to plant a small number of fruit trees. 13 so I think it counts as a small orchard. It will be a mixture of pears, apples, plums and damsons. The layout can be seen from the very rough plan.  Marking out - with peg and string  Marking out - with peg and string Firstly we had to mark out where the trees would go  Digging the hole for the roots Then dig the holes  Four holes dug - nine to go! The 8 trees we planted this time came from Walcot Organic Nursery www.walcotnursery.co.uk, as bare root trees. They were very efficient, phoning us up to arange delivery, and the trees arrived when they said they would. All the trees were in good condition, except for one which had had it's very top broken off, presumably in transport, but that was no real problem. (They were certainly in much better condition than ones we ordered from another so called famous nursery, that arrived seriously damaged, so much so that it had to be replaced) Anyway we are not talking about them.  Putting in the stake Though it did say in the instructions that staking was not necessary, we thought we would stake these, and not the remaining 5 just to compare as it is quite a windy spot.  Adding the mycorrhizal fungi We added mycorrhizal fungi to the hole before planting the tree. Finally adding a rabbit guard around the base of the tree to help protect it.  Ahh - Cuppa Green Tea Finally getting a well earned cuppa.
This is my ad hoc update and diary describing how I am developing our garden at Trostrie Cottage in Galloway. You can see the garden for yourself if you book a self catering dog friendly holiday @The Shieling which is attached to Trostrie Cottage. Watching the Great British Bake Off, always makes me feel really hungry, especially for things I cannot eat due to the low fat diet I am on, so to combat this graving, I thought we would have a lovely Risotto, with freshly baked bread. The ingredients for the Risotto were largely inspired by what needed to be eaten in the fridge. (Any suitable vegetables will really do. ). Anyway this is what I used to make a meal for two.
Ingredients
Serve with warm crusty bread. (and the rest of the bottle of wine if allowed to drink it) |
Tim Fuller
Dyslexic doodles on photography, food (growing, cooking & of course eating), faith and other fascinating things. This is a personal blog expressing my views. Archives
November 2015
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