Summer work continuing

Transcription

1 Summer Work... The Bridge Garden Newsletter No 16 New growing areas being set up... Monday August 6 th Today we have continued working on re-shaping our growing areas, removing as much grass as possible has been our main aim which we are going to replace with a weed suppressant membrane covered with wood chip a far safer and more practical working surface in all weather conditions... Summer work continuing

2 Hazel Tree has produced some nuts... The hazel tree that is growing in The Bridge Garden has produced some nuts this year a clear favourite of squirrels, so we need to keep a look out for the squirrels who will quickly eat these nuts or store them up somewhere!!... Interesting shaped courgette... Tomatoes ripening slowly... Here you can see our tomatoes are starting to ripen... Despite plenty of water and sunshine, plus, regular feeding, the fruits seem slow in ripening so far...

3 Yard Long Beans are producing some beans... It is always interesting to grow different unusual crops merely almost for the novelty value, so this year we have grown some yard long beans aptly named because they produce beans that are extremely long. From all accounts they are a difficult crop to grow favouring a warm protected environment, so there is no real excuse this summer the beans have been growing inside the poly tunnel, so with the heat of this summer coupled with lots of water and the added protection of the poly tunnel, these plants have just formed some beans...

4 Lots more growing area preparation taking place... Wednesday August 8 th Today, we have continued with our growing area preparation work as we look to set up more raised beds and clear working pathways that will allow the growing areas to be organised far better... Below you can see some of this development work... Micro tomatoes loaded with fruit... On the left you can see one of our Micro tomato plants that is growing inside the poly tunnel as you can see it is absolutely laden with fruit which we hope will begin to ripen very soon to give us a bumper crop of home grown tomatoes...

5 Cucumbers are taking over... Our cucumber plants growing inside the poly tunnel are making some serious growth with the plants loaded with delicate yellow flowers... On the left you can see the cucumber plants that are growing and climbing all over the corner of the poly tunnel attaching themselves to anything that is in their way... The plants have grown all the way through the shelf unit and are making tremendous growth... Hopefully they will produce lots of cucumbers too... Lots of cucumbers... In amongst all of this vibrant green foliage, there are lots of little cucumbers growing... Cucumbers

6 More growing area development work... Thursday August 9 th After collecting 20 bags of wood chip this morning from Beechwood Trees and Landscapes Limited in Brinklow, this allowed us to continue the development of our growing beds and the pathways around these areas. After removing all of the grass from the areas around the growing beds, today we have been laying a weed suppressant membrane which we have started to cover over with wood chip... Below you can see some of this work that we have done this afternoon... Pathway Garden Growing Bed development

7 Zinnias and Cosmos coming into flower... This year we set out to grow plenty of flowers in the garden, we have probably chosen the worst summer to do this with all of the extremely hot temperatures that we have had for a couple of months this has meant that the growth has been relatively slow because of a lack of rain. Having said all of this, we are now starting to see our Zinnias and Cosmos all producing some stunning flowers with a real mix of vibrant colours as you will see from the photographs below... Cosmos and Zinnias...

8 The Bridge Garden is producing plenty... Friday August 10 th The Bridge Garden is becoming a very productive area as you can see from some of the photographs taken today Runner Beans, Climbing French Beans, Dwarf French Beans, Courgettes both green and yellow, plus some baby turnips... To add to this we have tomatoes ripening very slowly, pumpkins that are getting bigger by the day, our Turks Turban squash are also getting bigger by the day... Spinach is growing well now... With the hot summer weather that we have experienced this summer, there are plenty of crops that do not like hot weather, spinach being one of these crops, so over the last week or so, now that it has rained and the weather has cooled off our spinach is looking very healthy now...

9 Pumpkin watch... Here you can see the biggest of our pumpkins so far, this variety called Atlantic Giant is renowned for producing big pumpkins if the weather stays warm and we get some rainy conditions, coupled with feeding the plants, watch to see how big we can get these fruits to grow... Temperature change!!... Look at the thermometer on the left, this reading was taken today at 2.30pm [Friday August 10 th ]... Now consider that the thermometer was up to 100 degrees and over on a couple of occasions just over two weeks ago, so the contrast is quite significant indeed...

10 Turks Turban Squash are looking spectacular... They are called Turks Turban for a reason the top of the squash fruit has a strong resemblance to a turban if you look at the photograph below, you will see what we mean. The plants are producing lots of fruit too... Oriental Salad leaves growing quickly... Vietnamese Coriander...

11 Old Garden Area Work... Monday August 13 th This week we are going to focus on sorting out the old garden area which has in all honesty been left while we have looked to set up the new garden area... When you take a step back and look at the whole growing space that we have, then you realise how big the Bridge Garden is it really is a big growing area... We have started this work by clearing the pathway of weeds, mainly dandelions that are notoriously difficult to get rid of with their long tap roots... This is a long pathway that we will look to utilise more by setting up some raised beds that we will fill with soil the depth of the beds can be increased if we build the raised beds up. Also, the pathway serves as a dry access through the garden... Below you can see the pathway clearance work on the left you can see the weeds and then on the right hand side you can see the pathway completely clear of weeds and ready to be used Lots of apples... Tree bending under the weight

12 Tromboncino Squash is looking good!!... We have often talked about the fascinating world of seeds and plants. Take a look at the tromboncino squash fruit that is growing in The Bridge Garden... Absolutely fascinating to see how a plant can produce a fruit that looks like this fruit is growing... Bramley cooking apples... We have two first year bramley cooking apple trees growing one has produced some fruit as you can see below... Courgettes are plentiful... Given plenty of water and sunshine courgettes will produce heavy crops of fruit below you can see plenty of the yellow variety Athena Polka... A solitary pear is growing... Our pear tree has just one single pear growing on the tree... It better taste good!!

13 More Garden Developments... Tuesday August 14 th On the left you can see that we have cut the grass in readiness to continue the tidying up work in the old garden area... Also, we have dug out the rhubarb plants and moved them to another part of the garden area... All of this work is part of our garden development work... Rhubarb has been moved and re-planted...

14 Pollination is a crucial part of growing... Today we have set up two solitary bee nest boxes in the garden area to hopefully encourage more bees into our growing space. We have made a conscious effort to plant lots of bee friendly plants in our growing space this year which has really encouraged lots of bee activity in our garden. In Britain there are 267 different species of bees of which 90% are solitary bees unlike honeybees and bumble bees they do not live in colonies. Also, they do not produce honey or have a queen. Solitary bees are non-aggressive, do not swarm and are safe around children. There are three solitary bees that are the most popular Red Mason Bee, Leaf Cutter Bee and the Wool Carder Bee. They are fantastic pollinators, indeed, a single Red Mason Bee is equivalent to 120 worker bees in the amount of pollination they provide... Red Mason Bee Leaf Cutter Bee Wool Carder Bee Solitary Bee Nesters and Solitary Bees...

15 Solitary Bees... Bees are very, very clever creatures our solitary bee nesters are a way of helping solitary bees but if you read on, you will understand that our help is sometimes not required. A solitary female bee will lay 20 to 30 eggs during her lifetime... When a bee finds a nest, she will collect material to create the cell to lay her first egg a ball of pollen stuck together with nectar for each larvae to eat until it develops into an adult bee. She places the ball inside the cell and lays an egg on top, leaving space for the larvae to grow into an adult bee. Then she will build a partition wall and repeats the process until the whole tube is filled with eggs... She will leave a space at the entrance of the tube empty before closing it off and moving on to another tube. A female bee will choose whether to lay male or female eggs: since males emerge a couple of weeks before the females she lays all of the female eggs at the back of the tube and the males at the front... Solitary bees will spend the early months in the nest growing, they will spend the winter as a cocoon [or pupa] before merging the following spring or early summer as adults. Once the adult bees have mated the female looks for a suitable nest and the cycle repeats itself again. A fascinating and very clever creature indeed... Tomatoes are ripening inside the poly tunnel... Chilli peppers too...

16 Plenty of seeds and plants growing... Thursday August 16 th Now that the weather is a little bit cooler and there has been some rainfall, there is plenty of growth coming from our plants both out on the allotment space and inside the poly tunnel. Seeds and plants are a little bit like us too much heat and not enough water makes us lethargic so the growing conditions are much more conducive to growing now. Seeds that have been sown like carrots, beetroot, rainbow chard and kale are making some super growth we have sown two varieties of kale Scarlet and Nero di Toscana, both of which are making some strong growth also, we have covered these crops with netting to stop the pesky pigeons from feasting on our crops... Kale Scarlet... Kale Nero di Toscana... Here you can see some of our scarlet kale plants growing well under the protection of the net cover... Another variety of Kale, again growing well under the protection of the net cover essential protection to keep the pigeons at bay!!...

17 Lots more growing area developments... Monday August 20 th We are always looking at different developments to enhance and develop the garden space today we have set up some new water butts so that the two water butts that are linked to the poly tunnel guttering, when they are full this water will be drawn off and stored in the two new water butts new taps have been fitted so when it finally does rain we will have a means to store some water to hopefully alleviate the watering issues that we have been experiencing during the extremely hot weather that we have endured this summer... Our new water butt set up Water conservation...

18 New wormery is being prepared... We are in the process of setting up a new wormery which we will hopefully have up and running very soon below you can see the worm box has been insulated with polystyrene in readiness for when the colder weather arrives basically we want to keep our worms active even in the colder weather... New pond area being dug out... This week we have started to dig out a new pond area basically we are trying to enhance the ecology of the garden area. If or when we set up the pond, the thinking is that it will hopefully attract some amphibians into our garden space. Frogs, toads and newts are great for controlling slugs and other not so welcome visitors to our growing space. Also, we will plant the pond up with some attractive planting that will improve the garden area even more...

19 Sensory garden work being carried out... Tuesday August 21 st Our sensory garden area is a space which we are continually trying to develop so today we have been working on some planting around the outer perimeter and also some developments around the outside of the actual raised bed area... We have planted a complete row of lavender plants that will not only be a magnet for the bees but also will provide a beautiful lavender aroma... Also, around the walkway around the sensory garden we have added some different textures which again provide a sensory walking experience... Around the actual walkway we have set up some gravel areas all with different gradients of gravel, plus we have added some bark chippings to some of these areas and we have also set up some walkway areas using re-claimed stones from the garden digging work. We are also setting up a rail around the sensory garden. Sensory garden planting... Lavender has been planted at the front of the area... Gravel, Stones and Bark have been added to this area.

20 Spectacular planting all around The Bridge Garden... If you take a walk around The Bridge garden area you will lots of plants all growing but when you look more closely you will see some really colourful and spectacular looking plants with some stunning colours too. Take a look below at some of these plants and the different shapes and colours... Turks Turban Squash Victoria Cross Poppies... These poppies have been bred especially by Mr Fothergill s Seed Company with 25 pence from each packet sold being donated to the Royal Hospital Chelsea where many of the military veterans live - The Chelsea Pensioners... This is also the site of the world famous Chelsea Flower Show... Beetroot... Rainbow Chard... Orange Calendula Lemon Calendula Lots of colour...

21 Autumnal Signs in the garden... Thursday August 23 rd... Autumn is just 30 days away and there are some tell-tale signs in the garden that it is not far away... Hawthorne berries, elderflower berries and conkers are all on the trees in the garden... Poly tunnel crop production continuing... Cucumbers... In amongst all of the lush green foliage, there are plenty of cucumbers... Yard Long Beans.. On the left you can see our yard long beans that are growing inside the poly tunnel... The beans seem to be getting longer by the day indeed, we probably need to measure the beans...

22 Big garden space cleared today... Today, we have been working on clearing a big space in the garden area in readiness to prepare a space to accommodate some animals in the garden area... What animals will they be will be revealed in the coming weeks... Clearance work commences... Clearance work completed...

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