Sunday, August 3, 2014

The promise of Spring - green shoots are up

I feel hope in the air, Spring promises to arrive in the not-so-distant future.  This is my August posting for the Garden Share Collective http://www.strayedtable.com/grow/garden-share/


Small green shoots are showing from the garlic, and around our trees where there are daffodils.

Crocuses are appearing in small clumps.

Jobs I have undertaken this month included pruning out the old canes and clearing out unwanted parts of the blackberries.  I also sprayed around the bottom of the raspberries with roundup (shock-horror).  While the canes are bare of any leaves it is safe to do this, and it will prepare the raspberry bed for spring growth.  In the picture below the weeds have just started to die down, in a week or two it will be all clear.
We have had a lot more trouble with wind, both cold and warm, and all the citrus which are in pots have lost their leaves in protest.  This Lime is a particularly bad example, and one of the jobs I have to do this month, is find somewhere more sheltered to keep them.  They looks so nice on the veranda, but are far to much at the mercy of the wind and cold.  One of the places I am considering is the glasshouse, where they would join the lone orange tree.

These flowers and parsley are so much happier!

Jobs to do this month: - Dispose of the glass which came out of the glasshouse in the recent winds and smashed, which I have left lying in place... Weed the garden round the underground water tank.... Move the lemons and limes to a more suitable location

Harvesting this month: - Spring Onion, Cabbage (Red and Savoy), a few herbs, and that wonder food Kale


5 comments:

  1. Do you trim your raspberry canes right back to the ground? We need to do ours soon. You have more garlic coming up than us, we've gone one! That's going to go a long way..not! :D It'll be all go soon in a few weeks, roll on spring.

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    1. Hi Sue, no, don't trim the raspberries back. Raspberries fruit on last years growth. To prune, first remove all old canes that have died. Then prune out any at odd angles, or which are over clumped and what not. Pruning is best done after fruiting, because the growth that you get after that is what will produce fruit. If you cut canes back to the ground etc, they will not fruit this year, they will be making canes in the next growing season, then those canes will fruit in the 2nd year. So you would have a year without raspberries! I hope this makes sense.

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  2. We've never grown garlic but are keen to try. Is it hard?

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  3. Your poor old citrus trees! I do hope they recover for you.

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  4. Oh that is exactly what my lime tree looks like. I am yet to find a place in my garden it's happy with.

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