cybermule: (Default)
Here's something I didn't know you could do until recently - make new tomatoes from side shoots of your established tomato plants. You need to take some of the side shoots off once fruit start forming anyway, so put the firmer ones in a jar of water until they grow roots; once the roots are 1-2cm long, you can pot them on and grow them up like new seedlings (keep them shaded!)

This is the first year I've really got on top of the allotment (pictures will probably follow). I set up some actual beds, and stole a planting idea from one of my clients - instead of planting big blocks of one veg, I've got lots of little blocks intermingled. Hopefully they won't all get pilfered by pests (or rotavated by pests!) and I'll also have pictures of cornucopial produce.

I'm not going to be doing an awful lot more veg though - some late potatoes, and seedlings for winter cabbage and lettuce. The focus for the rest of the month will be seeding up some cottage garden favourites for gentle screening next year, and tackling the monster bushes in the front garden in time for the big winter makeover.

Originally published at Terrapy.

cybermule: (Default)
The thing I love best about gardening is that it's never finished. Every time I think I can kick back and take it easy for a bit, new things happen and new ideas spring to mind. A lot of what this blog will be about is charting those ideas and influences (and their effects) as they happen.

When I first moved into my house, it was the first chance I had to have a fixable garden. A reasonably sized terrace house sort of garden was a good starting project for someone who was sort of interested in gardening, but had never really tried it. I don't have many pictures of the arly garden, but when I first moved in it was a wilderness of bumpy lawn and waist high weeds, with some bizarre concrete block fish breeding tanks right by the patio. I'll try to find some early pictures showing some of the true horror!

It's slowly evolved over the years. The most recent landscaping I did was over the winter of 2008-09 - I wanted to get rid of the huge and mostly unused greenhouse and put a lawn in for the child to play on. I also had the idea of making an Arts and Crafts inspired garden (I'd visited both Hidcote and Rosemoor the previous summer) with "garden rooms". There's basically a patio, a veg room, a lawn and a more secluded and wild seating area at the far end at this point in time, but who knows how long that'll last?

[gallery link="file" columns="2"]

Originally published at Terrapy.

October 2023

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