Isn't it always the way? I have three days with nothing in my diary. I don't have to scurry around collecting twigs and checking my projector works, or going over to the plant centre to borrow plants, before driving to the other end of the county for a talk. Nobody is coming round, and I don't have to clean the house, or cook. I haven't arranged to meet anybody, or got a ticket for an exhibition in London I'd rather not have to go to this week, except that I've already booked my slot. I am completely and utterly free to get on with the garden for three days, and it's raining, and forecast to rain again tomorrow, and on Friday.
I woke early this morning, and the rain held off until a quarter to eleven, so I was able to pull up more of the nettles from the gunnera bed. Human nature being what it is, I have left the boggiest areas until last, and am now at the stage of pulling nettle roots from thick mud, wearing waterproof nitrile gauntlets, and resting my kneeling mat on a section of board to spread my weight and prevent the mat from sinking into the mud. It is impossible to shake all the soil off the weed roots, and slimy gobbets of mud are going into the bags of debris to be taken to the dump (I believe in home made compost, but I'm not putting nettle roots leavened with horsetail on the compost heap). The nitrile gloves come in one size, which is way too large for my hands, so that my fingers don't nearly reach to the tips of the gloves. This makes getting my hands under sections of root to prise them up more difficult than it need be. A small, sharp border fork inherited from my late father-in-law (though with a new handle since I unwisely attempted to use it to move a hydrangea. The hydrangea won, and is still where it was, and I have adapted my ideas to fit round it) is a more useful tool than a trowel.
If you have a hosepipe ban then sorry for harping on about the mud. The water table comes to the surface at this point. It is unstable, and among the nettles were the dead stumps of a couple of shrubs that I planted there when it was normal soil, albeit on the damp side, and not a bog. I hope that planting my Primula bulleyana, Osmuda regalis and other extreme moisture loving goodies will not be the cue for the water table to drop again. Or come up somewhere else really inconvenient, like the middle of the lawn, or underneath the Daphne bholua (it has already done for an Edgeworthia. An expensive loss).
At least the tickets arrived for the Chelsea Flower Show. I had been starting to get twitchy about those, as we got to within five weeks of the day and nothing came. The ticketing agency was saying 4-6 weeks, down from 6-8 when I ordered the tickets, months ago, but given the difficulties we've had with things not arriving in the post, and things addressed to other houses being delivered here, I've been gently anxious not to have received anything since before the six week point. The Post Office never acknowledged my e-mail telling them I'd received what looked like a financial letter addressed to quite a different house, and I can't imagine they'd be a bit helpful if my tickets hadn't turned up. Now that the RHS is so big, and subcontracts the ticketing to a commercial agency, I wasn't at all confident I'd get any joy out of them either, though I suppose I could have tried to enlist the boss's help, him being an RHS stalwart on the hardy tree and shrub committee, and moderating at Chelsea and everything. Still, it's much easier just to have the tickets. I felt a little warm glow as I tucked them into the letter rack where I keep tickets for things. It is our most extravagant day out in the whole year. Indeed, it is my only really extravagant day out.
The Systems Administrator has taken advantage of a brief later afternoon lull in the rain to go and dig holes for the posts to support the back of the new deck. I could go out and weed the gravel, but I'm not sure I have the willpower. It is still windy, and cold out there. Exchanges of e-mails with my fellow beekeepers concerning our preparations for the Tendring Show are laced with concerns about how it is too cold to open the beehives and see what our bees are doing, and our conviction that as soon as it warms up again they are going to want to swarm.
Showing posts with label gunnera bed. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gunnera bed. Show all posts
Wednesday, 18 April 2012
Thursday, 23 February 2012
bees and bamboo
Today felt like spring. I went to see the bees, and to my pleasure they were alive and flying from all three hives. I was particularly impressed that the little colony in the nucleus hive, only half the size of a normal beehive, has made it this far. They appeared as a swarm late last season, and by autumn were not nearly as large as my bee instructor told me a colony needed to be to come through the winter. However, there was nothing to do about that, short of risking upsetting one of the established colonies by trying to combine them, so I fed them and left them to take their chance. It looks like they may have seized it with all six legs and both wings.
I didn't open the hives fully. It would probably have been just about warm enough for a very brief inspection if I've absolutely had to, but I didn't. There's a risk they may have lost their queens during the winter, in which case there is no future for them, unless I intervene with a replacement, but they probably haven't. Instead I gave each of them a 2.5kg lump of fondant, a soft paste of sucrose, glucose syrup and invert sugar syrup, which is supposed to be easy for them to digest, and not to require them to collect too much water to use it. Stored honey by this stage can be rock hard, and require the bees to gather water to dilute it before they can eat it. The fondant comes in plastic bags similar to vacuum packs, which are peculiarly resistant to being cut open with kitchen scissors. The brand is called ambrosia (which makes me think of tinned rice pudding) and is German. On the side of the box it says Bienenfutterteig, which translates as Feed Paste, and in smaller letters Einzfuttermittel, which less felicitously translates as Single feeding stuff. You put it on top of the crown board over one of the holes leading down into the body of the beehive, and they come up and collect what they want.
I bought the fondant a while back, when I was concerned that the unseasonably warm weather might be leading the bees to be more active and use more stores than they would normally, at a time when there wasn't much forage. My bee tutor said that they knew what they were doing and would be fine, and then it turned cold again and a friend warned me that they wouldn't touch the fondant when it was that cold. Then I began to feel so tired and unwell I decided to believe my bee tutor and leave them to get on with it, but today felt like paying them a visit. It was very nice to see them, and fairly soon it'll be time to have a look inside each hive, and find out what's going on. If I see them bringing in pollen in the meantime that will be a good sign that they are likely to be feeding brood. They were foraging today, working the crocus in the bottom lawn and the hellebores, even the new ones in pots that are still stood in the porch.
I worked at weeding the damp bed. I still call it the Gunnera bed, even though the Gunnera died a couple of years ago. They grow from a great scaly core, like a rhubarb crown on steroids, which is vulnerable to cold in severe winters, rotting if it gets too wet, and being eaten by voles. I have a replacement sitting in a pot in the greenhouse awaiting planting when the milder weather arrives. Before planting anything it is necessary to remove the excess yellow stemmed bamboo, which has run far beyond its intended space. Its name is Phyllostachys aureosulcata 'Aureocaulis', and if you are ever offered one I should treat it with the respect it deserves. Once I've hacked mine back to a quantity of bamboo I consider appropriate, I am going to try and check its future wanderings by sinking two rolls of galvanised lawn edging around it. It may of course attempt to burrow under or climb over the lawn edging, but at least that will give me a boundary to work to. I shall have to be vigilant. The way this bamboo spreads is to send out horizontal shoots only just below the surface of the soil. These periodically send down roots, and a new vertical stem arises from that point, which gradually thickens into a large woody plate. The roots do not go deep, but in established parts of the clump they are extremely firmly attached to the ground. It's no good trying to fork them out, you would just break the fork handle, and a pick axe is required. Bafflingly and rather frustratingly, while the yellow stemmed bamboo has gone wild, the black stemmed Phyllostachys nigra planted in the same bed keeps dying out in patches, and has never made a good clump.
Self seeded willows have shot up in this bed, and reached a considerable size remarkably quickly. I should have hauled them all out last summer, but never got round to it. Fortunately their trunks and roots are comparatively soft, quick to saw through and to chop through with the pick axe. The bamboo roots are tough as hell. I have heard of really rampant clumps that could only be removed with explosives.
I didn't open the hives fully. It would probably have been just about warm enough for a very brief inspection if I've absolutely had to, but I didn't. There's a risk they may have lost their queens during the winter, in which case there is no future for them, unless I intervene with a replacement, but they probably haven't. Instead I gave each of them a 2.5kg lump of fondant, a soft paste of sucrose, glucose syrup and invert sugar syrup, which is supposed to be easy for them to digest, and not to require them to collect too much water to use it. Stored honey by this stage can be rock hard, and require the bees to gather water to dilute it before they can eat it. The fondant comes in plastic bags similar to vacuum packs, which are peculiarly resistant to being cut open with kitchen scissors. The brand is called ambrosia (which makes me think of tinned rice pudding) and is German. On the side of the box it says Bienenfutterteig, which translates as Feed Paste, and in smaller letters Einzfuttermittel, which less felicitously translates as Single feeding stuff. You put it on top of the crown board over one of the holes leading down into the body of the beehive, and they come up and collect what they want.
I bought the fondant a while back, when I was concerned that the unseasonably warm weather might be leading the bees to be more active and use more stores than they would normally, at a time when there wasn't much forage. My bee tutor said that they knew what they were doing and would be fine, and then it turned cold again and a friend warned me that they wouldn't touch the fondant when it was that cold. Then I began to feel so tired and unwell I decided to believe my bee tutor and leave them to get on with it, but today felt like paying them a visit. It was very nice to see them, and fairly soon it'll be time to have a look inside each hive, and find out what's going on. If I see them bringing in pollen in the meantime that will be a good sign that they are likely to be feeding brood. They were foraging today, working the crocus in the bottom lawn and the hellebores, even the new ones in pots that are still stood in the porch.
I worked at weeding the damp bed. I still call it the Gunnera bed, even though the Gunnera died a couple of years ago. They grow from a great scaly core, like a rhubarb crown on steroids, which is vulnerable to cold in severe winters, rotting if it gets too wet, and being eaten by voles. I have a replacement sitting in a pot in the greenhouse awaiting planting when the milder weather arrives. Before planting anything it is necessary to remove the excess yellow stemmed bamboo, which has run far beyond its intended space. Its name is Phyllostachys aureosulcata 'Aureocaulis', and if you are ever offered one I should treat it with the respect it deserves. Once I've hacked mine back to a quantity of bamboo I consider appropriate, I am going to try and check its future wanderings by sinking two rolls of galvanised lawn edging around it. It may of course attempt to burrow under or climb over the lawn edging, but at least that will give me a boundary to work to. I shall have to be vigilant. The way this bamboo spreads is to send out horizontal shoots only just below the surface of the soil. These periodically send down roots, and a new vertical stem arises from that point, which gradually thickens into a large woody plate. The roots do not go deep, but in established parts of the clump they are extremely firmly attached to the ground. It's no good trying to fork them out, you would just break the fork handle, and a pick axe is required. Bafflingly and rather frustratingly, while the yellow stemmed bamboo has gone wild, the black stemmed Phyllostachys nigra planted in the same bed keeps dying out in patches, and has never made a good clump.
Self seeded willows have shot up in this bed, and reached a considerable size remarkably quickly. I should have hauled them all out last summer, but never got round to it. Fortunately their trunks and roots are comparatively soft, quick to saw through and to chop through with the pick axe. The bamboo roots are tough as hell. I have heard of really rampant clumps that could only be removed with explosives.
Wednesday, 27 July 2011
mud
The Systems Adminsistrator has gone to London to meet up with former colleagues for drinks and a potential curry, leaving me to supervise chicken exercise time. The rooster is a modest soul who is in bed by six, even on nice evenings, but one of the young hens is always determined to extract every scrap of enjoyment from her period of liberty, and is still rootling around among the dahlias. The wi-fi works sitting in the Italian garden in front of the house, so long as I don't position my body between the house and the lap-top.
I spent the rest of the day, until it was time to release the chickens, weeding the gunnera bed. This is going to be a slow one. I have a piece of board to rest my kneeling mat on, to spread my weight, and haven't actually knelt in the mud so far, but it is impossible to dislodge most of it from the roots I pull up, and the bags of stuff to go the the dump have got a lot of soil in them. Once the site is cleared I think I'd better hold off planting for a while, to give the remaining roots a chance to resprout so that I can hit them with glyphosate, and then I need some rampant competitive groundcover for boggy places. I've got one Darmera, bought from work, which is looking very sorry for itself in its black plastic pot and needs to go out soonish, but I don't want too many thistles and things shooting up all around it. I'm amazed at how many worms I've dug up in the wettest patches. I didn't think worms were adapted to aquatic conditions.
A large dumpy bag of gravel is due to arrive tomorrow. The gravel is thin in so many places I could easily use more than one bag, but I am trying to learn from the builders' sand experience and not order more at once than I can spread fairly quickly. I forget who is was that said that true stupidity lay in making the same mistake repeatedly.
In the Italian garden the Crinum x powellii is blooming. It lives in a fairly large pot, and spends the winter in the greenhouse, where it's kept on the dry side while dormant. The leaves come back in the spring from a huge elongated bulb, that only wants to be half-buried, and the flowers are trumpet shaped like a lily, held in a tuft on top of a stout stalk. Last year I think it threw up a second stalk, and the bulb is starting to form offsets. The flowers are pale pink. I do have a white one as well, but that has only made a small and weedy plant, and has not actually flowered yet (so it might not even be white).
Addendum The other ginger, the one with a white tip to its tail, has just strolled past, looking very casual. Our ginger has gone to look at its departing back with an air that said that of course he could take the other ginger on if he wanted to, but fortunately without starting anything. I've told him, no more septic bites. The feline medical budget is all spent for this year.
I spent the rest of the day, until it was time to release the chickens, weeding the gunnera bed. This is going to be a slow one. I have a piece of board to rest my kneeling mat on, to spread my weight, and haven't actually knelt in the mud so far, but it is impossible to dislodge most of it from the roots I pull up, and the bags of stuff to go the the dump have got a lot of soil in them. Once the site is cleared I think I'd better hold off planting for a while, to give the remaining roots a chance to resprout so that I can hit them with glyphosate, and then I need some rampant competitive groundcover for boggy places. I've got one Darmera, bought from work, which is looking very sorry for itself in its black plastic pot and needs to go out soonish, but I don't want too many thistles and things shooting up all around it. I'm amazed at how many worms I've dug up in the wettest patches. I didn't think worms were adapted to aquatic conditions.
A large dumpy bag of gravel is due to arrive tomorrow. The gravel is thin in so many places I could easily use more than one bag, but I am trying to learn from the builders' sand experience and not order more at once than I can spread fairly quickly. I forget who is was that said that true stupidity lay in making the same mistake repeatedly.
In the Italian garden the Crinum x powellii is blooming. It lives in a fairly large pot, and spends the winter in the greenhouse, where it's kept on the dry side while dormant. The leaves come back in the spring from a huge elongated bulb, that only wants to be half-buried, and the flowers are trumpet shaped like a lily, held in a tuft on top of a stout stalk. Last year I think it threw up a second stalk, and the bulb is starting to form offsets. The flowers are pale pink. I do have a white one as well, but that has only made a small and weedy plant, and has not actually flowered yet (so it might not even be white).
Addendum The other ginger, the one with a white tip to its tail, has just strolled past, looking very casual. Our ginger has gone to look at its departing back with an air that said that of course he could take the other ginger on if he wanted to, but fortunately without starting anything. I've told him, no more septic bites. The feline medical budget is all spent for this year.
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