gardening ideas/todo
Sep. 13th, 2006 09:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ewtI want bamboo. Tall, strong bamboo. The neighbours have a tendency to smoke in their garden; I want something I can plant that will grow up reasonably quickly into a nice thick hedge so I don't have to smell them. I don't want those leylandii things because I think I'll find more use for bamboo (could build things with it) and because I don't like it so much. The plan would be to make a bamboo hedge sort of thing a foot or two wide all the way down the one side of the back garden. I think I'd sink some sort of divider into the soil to stop it just spreading to everywhere, as well.
Also, I need to get organised with getting some seating in the garden before next summer. I'd quite like to sit outside and work on fine days/evenings, and right now that isn't very comfortable (working whilst sitting on the ground not so good).
I still have half a plan to collect loads of those large plastic water bottles, cut them into tiles and make a terrace roof out of them. I'm sure if I had a good plan and turned it into a bit of a party it would only take an afternoon. Then I could work outside even if it is raining a bit.
Definitely need to order creeping thyme and creeping chamomile seeds this year. They are ever so much nicer than grass.
I'd like to move the path from the side of the garden (landlady said I could, way back when I first moved in), so that instead of straight down the south side of the garden it meanders down the middle. I'd like to plant perennials like lavendar and sage down the edges, plus maybe some taller things (fennel? or does it interfere with carrots?). I think having a bit more definition in the garden plan will make it a little easier to keep tidy and to not just put random plants in random places.
Need to assemble another rose arch and put it up and take the Passiflora edulis out of the container where it is not too happy and put it in the ground where it will be much happier.
I've seen many gloriously tall sunflowers this year. This makes me think I should be a good ewt and start some early indoors this year (rather than just dumping sunflower seeds on the ground outside in June, like I did in 2005), and plant them out. They're truly magnificent plants, given half a chance.
Everything growing where the shed was has rust or mildew of some sort. I guess squashes are rather prone to it. I need to be better about the weeding, though. And maybe get some copper sulphate or Bordeaux mix or whatever the organical gardeners use to stop things getting rusty and mildewy.
Need to sort out the compost heap; the current setup for the large one is not going to make enough heat to make compost in winter, resulting in yucky sour compost. Eww. And the magical one with the pyrex dome is too small for the volume of kitchen waste we produce (and really needs some sort of handle so it can be filled without getting hands mucky); I might take the dome off and plant something in there instead, something perennial that won't mind being surrounded by strawberries.
Need to cut up the Big Pile of Dead Shed into more manageable pieces.
The fig tree is definitely alive, yay for drought-tolerant plants. I may have lost the pear tree for good. Also the two new rosemary plants are ill of something, which is annoying. I think the thyme died again bt the supermarket ones do that sometimes, I should have planted it out much sooner. I'll wait a while, sometimes they recover.
I've brought the aubergine inside for winter - they're perennials where they're native - and if I'm lucky it will fruit in a few months. I hope also to have fruit from the physalis at some point, although they take longer. And I've finally managed one (1) lone lavender plant from seed; it doesn't seem to do so well from seed, it might have been cheaper for me to just find small lavender plants on sale and buy them. Oops. If I plant some around the path I will do this, unless I find that they take extremely well from cuttings.
Lemon tree very happy. Aloe vera plants need dividing again, if you bring a plant pot and compost you can have one of these wonderful plants that are full of soothing aloe gel (just break off a 'leaf' and squeeze the gel out - much better than paying for tubes of it in the shops). I'm always amazed by the amount of abuse and neglect they'll take, from being left in a dark corner with no water for nearly a year to being left on a hot sunny windowsill for a month with no water to overcrowding to being planted far too shallowly and left outside in the rain without proper drainage... okay, none of these things made them healthy, but they recovered. That's pretty neat.
The peas are done now, because there was so much mildew I pulled the plant up. They were delicious while they lasted, though. Still lots of purple beans, still a few spaghetti squashes, still potatoes from the stack, still chives (everywhere), wild garlic, fat hen and goosefoot in the front garden, chickweed everywhere. Loads of quinces on the tree, I'll have to do something with them soon (and the thing sends up suckers with a vengeance, so if any of you want a quince tree of your own, same thing applies - bring a plant pot and some compost, and they're yours).
The greywater bucket, I think, needs to a) be bigger, b) not have a hole in the side that leaks afer it gets to a certain volume of water, and c) have some sort of solar-powered pump so that it doesn't get smellies and wigglies in it. I mean, it's geeat that the stuff is clean enough to support life, but I don't particularly want mosquito larvae in my back garden, and it doesn't smell great. The catch is it still can't be taller than the place where the water comes out of the wall. I am vaguely considering some sort of raised pond; loss to evaporation would be higher, and I don't know that I could grow many water plants because sometimes soap and stuff do get in there, but it would be much prettier as a water feature than it currently is (as an old plastic bin). Of course, if I'm going to end up retting nettles in the back garden it's going to smell a bit anyway. Hmm. Must organise nettle-gathering expedition, it's the right time of year, they're all really tall now.
Want some sort of raincatcher for the front, too. The eavestroughing needs to be cleaned (SEP, as we rent) and there is a place where the water just comes down in huge quantities when it rains... onto the paved front garden. Ugh. I'd much rather have it come down into a container and use it to water things that will actually benefit from the water.
Still want spider plants (need to get babies from elsewhere) and ivy (plenty of it locally for me to transplant) for inside. Maybe if I put plants on every surface I won't have any room for all the mess.
I have a sizeable collection of small plastic bottles now. Next year when I am doing the vegetables (hopefully more of them than this year, oops, but OTOH I do think I'm right to concentrate on perennials if push comes to shove) I am going to put them in the ground upside down with the bottoms (now on top) cut off to use for watering things close to the roots and stuff. It would be Really Cool to build one of those big underground clay pipes for watering, but I think that's something for when I get a place of my own.
Other things:
I quite like this. But where are the books? Surely there should be books in that house. Maybe they are in the office spaces, where Cats Do Not Go.
DIY Jerky Machine.
grass lounger chair.
I've been saying this for years - Exercise to Increase Health, Not Necessarily Lose Weight.
Recycling obsolete Tube carriages.
Natural Burial. I believe there are a few of these companies around now.
Also, I need to get organised with getting some seating in the garden before next summer. I'd quite like to sit outside and work on fine days/evenings, and right now that isn't very comfortable (working whilst sitting on the ground not so good).
I still have half a plan to collect loads of those large plastic water bottles, cut them into tiles and make a terrace roof out of them. I'm sure if I had a good plan and turned it into a bit of a party it would only take an afternoon. Then I could work outside even if it is raining a bit.
Definitely need to order creeping thyme and creeping chamomile seeds this year. They are ever so much nicer than grass.
I'd like to move the path from the side of the garden (landlady said I could, way back when I first moved in), so that instead of straight down the south side of the garden it meanders down the middle. I'd like to plant perennials like lavendar and sage down the edges, plus maybe some taller things (fennel? or does it interfere with carrots?). I think having a bit more definition in the garden plan will make it a little easier to keep tidy and to not just put random plants in random places.
Need to assemble another rose arch and put it up and take the Passiflora edulis out of the container where it is not too happy and put it in the ground where it will be much happier.
I've seen many gloriously tall sunflowers this year. This makes me think I should be a good ewt and start some early indoors this year (rather than just dumping sunflower seeds on the ground outside in June, like I did in 2005), and plant them out. They're truly magnificent plants, given half a chance.
Everything growing where the shed was has rust or mildew of some sort. I guess squashes are rather prone to it. I need to be better about the weeding, though. And maybe get some copper sulphate or Bordeaux mix or whatever the organical gardeners use to stop things getting rusty and mildewy.
Need to sort out the compost heap; the current setup for the large one is not going to make enough heat to make compost in winter, resulting in yucky sour compost. Eww. And the magical one with the pyrex dome is too small for the volume of kitchen waste we produce (and really needs some sort of handle so it can be filled without getting hands mucky); I might take the dome off and plant something in there instead, something perennial that won't mind being surrounded by strawberries.
Need to cut up the Big Pile of Dead Shed into more manageable pieces.
The fig tree is definitely alive, yay for drought-tolerant plants. I may have lost the pear tree for good. Also the two new rosemary plants are ill of something, which is annoying. I think the thyme died again bt the supermarket ones do that sometimes, I should have planted it out much sooner. I'll wait a while, sometimes they recover.
I've brought the aubergine inside for winter - they're perennials where they're native - and if I'm lucky it will fruit in a few months. I hope also to have fruit from the physalis at some point, although they take longer. And I've finally managed one (1) lone lavender plant from seed; it doesn't seem to do so well from seed, it might have been cheaper for me to just find small lavender plants on sale and buy them. Oops. If I plant some around the path I will do this, unless I find that they take extremely well from cuttings.
Lemon tree very happy. Aloe vera plants need dividing again, if you bring a plant pot and compost you can have one of these wonderful plants that are full of soothing aloe gel (just break off a 'leaf' and squeeze the gel out - much better than paying for tubes of it in the shops). I'm always amazed by the amount of abuse and neglect they'll take, from being left in a dark corner with no water for nearly a year to being left on a hot sunny windowsill for a month with no water to overcrowding to being planted far too shallowly and left outside in the rain without proper drainage... okay, none of these things made them healthy, but they recovered. That's pretty neat.
The peas are done now, because there was so much mildew I pulled the plant up. They were delicious while they lasted, though. Still lots of purple beans, still a few spaghetti squashes, still potatoes from the stack, still chives (everywhere), wild garlic, fat hen and goosefoot in the front garden, chickweed everywhere. Loads of quinces on the tree, I'll have to do something with them soon (and the thing sends up suckers with a vengeance, so if any of you want a quince tree of your own, same thing applies - bring a plant pot and some compost, and they're yours).
The greywater bucket, I think, needs to a) be bigger, b) not have a hole in the side that leaks afer it gets to a certain volume of water, and c) have some sort of solar-powered pump so that it doesn't get smellies and wigglies in it. I mean, it's geeat that the stuff is clean enough to support life, but I don't particularly want mosquito larvae in my back garden, and it doesn't smell great. The catch is it still can't be taller than the place where the water comes out of the wall. I am vaguely considering some sort of raised pond; loss to evaporation would be higher, and I don't know that I could grow many water plants because sometimes soap and stuff do get in there, but it would be much prettier as a water feature than it currently is (as an old plastic bin). Of course, if I'm going to end up retting nettles in the back garden it's going to smell a bit anyway. Hmm. Must organise nettle-gathering expedition, it's the right time of year, they're all really tall now.
Want some sort of raincatcher for the front, too. The eavestroughing needs to be cleaned (SEP, as we rent) and there is a place where the water just comes down in huge quantities when it rains... onto the paved front garden. Ugh. I'd much rather have it come down into a container and use it to water things that will actually benefit from the water.
Still want spider plants (need to get babies from elsewhere) and ivy (plenty of it locally for me to transplant) for inside. Maybe if I put plants on every surface I won't have any room for all the mess.
I have a sizeable collection of small plastic bottles now. Next year when I am doing the vegetables (hopefully more of them than this year, oops, but OTOH I do think I'm right to concentrate on perennials if push comes to shove) I am going to put them in the ground upside down with the bottoms (now on top) cut off to use for watering things close to the roots and stuff. It would be Really Cool to build one of those big underground clay pipes for watering, but I think that's something for when I get a place of my own.
Other things:
I quite like this. But where are the books? Surely there should be books in that house. Maybe they are in the office spaces, where Cats Do Not Go.
DIY Jerky Machine.
grass lounger chair.
I've been saying this for years - Exercise to Increase Health, Not Necessarily Lose Weight.
Recycling obsolete Tube carriages.
Natural Burial. I believe there are a few of these companies around now.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-09-14 07:41 am (UTC)Since I can get all the wild fennel I want from the park I might grow Florence fennel or something. Or maybe cumin, which is related but not so common here because we don't normally get the long hot summers it needs (but we've had two in a row now...), except cumin is an annual and I really want to stick with perennials as much as possible.
The difficulty with the compost heap is that it's currently too wide and shallow, so the heat escapes too easily regardless of what I cover it with or mix in. I need a much deeper container so that the heat generated will keep rising.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-14 09:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-14 08:13 am (UTC)"creeping chamomile seeds" - There's no creeping chamomile seeds because teangue chamomile doesn't flower so there's no seeds. It's one of those annoying herbs that must be vegetatively propagated.
Rust - flame thrower. I bought a weed burner to burn my mint because it has rust on it. You can get mildew(powdery)resistant varieties of marrows/courgettes/squashes.
Have you looked into tumbler composters? The council here has them for £20-£30, which isn't a bad price for them. They absolutely work miracles and we don't even go down to tumble it every day like you should do (oops). Still composes very quickly. Are you putting in enough dry material? My main source of dry stuff is my hamster/chinchilla bedding which is made from Megazorb (sort of waste paper product in little nubs).
Check the rosemary plants to see if they're potbound. Mine look a little yellowysickly at the moment because it's been ages since they had their roots trimmed and been repotted.
Still have to divide up that cheap spiderplant I bought from Homebase.. We have some ivy growing at the allotment but I'm not exactly sure of its source... it's just covering up a treestump and before that was a tree stump, it must have just been growing up the trunk of the tree. It's varigated though.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-14 09:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-14 09:56 am (UTC)I think my chives have done making purple heads for this year (time will tell), but I could divide the one that is in a pot and give you that if you like.
Could also try to capture some wild garlic from the front garden if you like. It's yum.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-14 10:15 am (UTC)I don't think I'll make Nile's birthday thing this weekend, because I just need to have a rest and do some of the to-do list, but I will do a London again at some point.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-18 03:44 pm (UTC)