Feed the Birds and the Bees March 10, 2009

Spare a thought for the wildlife in your garden this month. It may seem like it is warming up, but food will still be in short supply for some time to come. It’s also a good time to put up nest boxes for birds and bats and remember to keep birdbaths and ponds topped up, ideally with rainwater.

You could also try growing some hardy annuals, choosing varieties that are beneficial to insects such as the yellow and white Limnanthes douglasii (poached egg flower), Tropaeolum majus (nasturtiums) or Calendula officinalis (scotch marigold). Amaranthus caudatus (love-lies-bleeding) and Nigella damascena (love-in-a-mist) also produce attractive seed heads after flowering which are a valuable food source for birds and other animals. They can be sown straight into the soil now because they are generally not affected by frost. Prepare and weed the bed. Then level the soil with a rake and tread lightly before sowing.

Spring is a wonderful time of year to be out in the garden, every thing seems to be waking up and coming to life. So get out there and make the most of it!

Abominable Snow Bunnies February 14, 2009

The snowfall this month provided an unexpected opportunity to see exactly what goes on at night in the garden, with all our nocturnal visitors leaving footprints wherever they roamed. At first I thought there must be hundreds of rabbits all over the garden, but I soon realised that it is was more like two or three extremely busy little bunnies! A hare it seems, takes the notion to pass through on occasion and also the tracks of a fox tread a regular beat round the garden. I hope he likes rabbits!

Eranthis hyemalis winter aconite                                                     Rabbit prints

Early Veg January 27, 2009

Oh spring is a comin.

I’m itching to get started in the Vegi garden but of course its still far too early to really get going yet, I am doing a few we bits and pieces though.

I ordered some garlic before Christmas, unfortunately it wasn’t delivered until the beginning of January so 4 rows of Printanor were planted on the 14th.

Bought the spuds

Formost – First early 2.5kg

Charlotte – second early 2.5kg

Desiree -  main 5kg

and I still want some Picasso.

These are all now chitting in the Keeder House until they are ready for planting in a few weeks.

Bought onion and shallot sets too

150 Red Barron onion

45 Golden Gourmet shallot

45 Red Sun shallot

Again they spread out in trays in the Keeder House. The shallots need to be planted fairly soon but the onions need to wait till it warms up some.

Sown some chillie seeds on the 24th; Prairie Fire, Peach Habanero, Jalapeno, Fuego and some I was given called C. pubecens ‘Albert Locos’. All sown into little potts in the Keeder House with some bottom heat

I wish I had my sweet peppers to sow but they haven’t arrived yet.

Rabbits have been chomping on the purple sprouting so I have had to net it off, at some point I will need to put a proper net over the whole plot.

Still harvesting leeks, celariac, cabbage jerusalum artichoke and some rough salads. The salads planted in the polly tunnel last November are still a wee bit small for eating, but coming on well.

Keeder House                                                                                                        Chitting potatos

Winter Beauty January 22, 2009

It is a welcome sight in these short, cold days to see the snowdrops begin to make an appearance. There are always a few of these ‘fair maids’ who can’t seem to wait and eagerly start to flower at Christmas! However, depending on conditions during November and December, the main show of snowdrops at Ragley is generally through the end of January and into early February. If the rainfall isn’t too heavy they can last for several weeks. These little flowers may be common, but they are an absolute joy to behold at this time of year as they offer the assurance that spring is just around the corner.

Snowdrops belong to the genus Galanthus, which literally translates from Greek as ‘milk flower’ (Gala – milk, flower -anthos). The majority of the snowdrops at Ragley are the common snowdrop, Galanthus nivalis, and Galanthus nivalis ‘Flore Pleno’, which boasts irregular, double flowers. Ragley has a small collection of different cultivars, 21 in total now, which is really very modest when you consider that there are about 19 species and over 500 cultivars.

The thing about snowdrops is that they are incredibly versatile and look fantastic whether planted on mass in lawns, or more subtly to add a touch of life to a bare border in the depths of winter. Let’s face it a plant which increases rapidly and propagates easily is usually called a weed! Not so with snowdrops, we have been lifting and spreading established clumps throughout the garden each spring for the last 10 years in order to create these cherished late winter displays. Snowdrops are best lifted ‘in the green’, so once the flowers have faded, dig up the clump and tease the bulbs gently apart. I also believe them to be gregarious, so I like to plant them in pairs at least!

Meadow November 22, 2008

Our 3 acre meadow has been evolving for 10 years now. Originally a regularly mown area, it was decided to manage it as a traditional hay meadow and it has produced some fairing results, there is a diverse range of flowering species in it now but the grass is still very dominant. We have left it to its own devices  cutting and collecting the grass in late September and planting only a few Fritillaria meleagris bulbs.

Meadow after scarifying                                                                        Close up of ground

Doing some research this year on hay meadows I have found that we are cutting it far too late and possibly encouraging the grass rather than weakening it to encouraging flowering species. We need to be cutting it in mid July, lifting the cuttings and then regularly mow it until late winter/early spring emulating animal grazing.

Yellow Rattle seed

This autumn we have scarified it very hard exposing a few bare patches into which we have sown some yellow rattle (Rhinanthus minor) . Yellow Rattle is an attractive, partially parasitic, grassland annual.  Once it is established it can reduce the competitive vigour of certain grasses, by up to 50%, benefiting other wild flowers.

Raking in the seed                                                                                    Ground after raking

We have also stripped the turf from a small area and double dug another small area which will be left to regenerate, Lord Hertford and his groom have had canter around the site on their horses to help break up the sward little. Other areas particularly around the trees have been left uncut to allow some cover for any creatures. I look forward to seeing how these areas develop and how the meadow evolves over the next 10 years.

Water in your garden October 6, 2008

At long last we have lined the hole in the garden that has there for nearly 18 months, completing the third and final pond in the Scott Garden. It still needs tucking in and a deck laid but the waters in and it looks good.

One of the main management principles at Ragley is encouraging wildlife, creating a diverse habitat which will encourage insects, birds and small mammals, helping to maintain a natural balance throughout the garden. Water is crucial for encouraging wildlife no matter how big or how deep.

There are many ways to create a pond in your garden in order to suit different budgets, but when we build our ponds we use a butyl liner. One cubic meter of water weighs about a ton and that’s a lot of weight on the liner when it’s full so first we have to put down a ten centimeter layer of sand, followed by a special underlay to prevent any stones or sharp object puncturing it from underneath. All you need to do after that is fill it with plants and watch the wildlife move in.

Pond dipping is a popular attraction for schools doing Mini-Beasts at Ragley Education and it’s incredible how many different creatures they find!

http://www.ragleyhall.com/schools.html

Sunshine September 11, 2008

Well it was a wee bit wet this morning but the sun has come out and it has been a smashing afternoon, I hope we get a good day tomorrow.The tomatoes and the chillies are desperate for some sunshine.

Some of the grass at the Hall hasn’t been cut for over three weeks now and the weeds are almost imposible to keep up with because of the wet weather.

Some things are enjoying the rain though, all the trees and shrubs are thriving and the herbaceous perennials are doing well to , but most of the bedding is sulking now.

Crops are okay from the Kitchen garden as you can see but salads have been a wash out for most of the season. I have put some late courgettes in the tunnel, but they will need some sunshine and I will sow some salads in there too next week for late winter cropping.

I didn’t want to start complaining about the poor weather but that jet stream has alot to answer for.

R

Slug attack August 26, 2008

The start.2006

First day back to work after my holiday today even though I have been pottering around since I got home on Thursday.

It’s been a funny old year for growing and I think the veg garden has attracted every pest possible, partridge, slugs, pheasant, slugs, moles, slugs, deer, slugs, mice, slugs, caterpillars, slugs,rabbits, slugs, not to mention blight on the tatties, oh and did I mention the SLUGS?

In every square meter there are at least 5 large gastropod mollusk and that’s only the ones I can see. I know they are all part of the ecosystem helping to break down organic matter, but it drives me mental when they’ve been chobbling away at my produce all night.

So much as I hate to admit it I have broadcast the slug pellets. Now, before anyone gets their panties in a bunch I have used a brand available from ‘The Organic Garden Catalogue’ called ‘Advanced Slug Killer’. The active compound of these pellets is not that nasty ‘metaldehyde’ (toxic to everyone and everything) but ‘ferric phosphate’ which, so they tell me, will break down into iron and phosphate nutrients.

Even so I cant help but feel I am destroying part of a chain that makes the veg garden at Ragley its own little ecosystem. You can’t just wipe out a species like that and not suffer some kind of consequence? What that consequence will be I have yet to find out. Next year I am going to start early and get plenty of beer traps out, its either that or I slash and burn all the wild habitat I have created around the veg garden that the wee b****rs seem to come from!

2008

R.