Gardening

[Kirbstone]

While walking my dogs most mornings I learn the words to mostly funny songs, a selection of which, like piano pieces, I keep in my brain. To prevent loss I constantly repeat those I know, so when next there is a convivial gathering I can deliver something appropriate without faltering.
Tom Lehrer features, of course, but I find his particular brand of humour frequently quite bloodthirsty, so I avoid the worst ones, like 'I hold your hand in mine, dear' or 'The old dope pedlar' which is too close to the bone, nowadays. My favourite of his is 'Lobachevski' which I can manage. His 'Elements' or 'New Math' are beyond me, however.
Flanders & Swan are wonderful and I can't get enough of their numbers on board. Percy French wrote a lot of specifically Irish songs, some of which are hilarious, so I have a selection of those.
One thing I deeply regret and which I admire in others is the ability to play and sing. For me it's either or, not both together, try as I might.

T.

[Kirbstone]

That was Thread drift. Now back on track we're reclaiming our croquet lawn-cum-football 'field' from the watermeadow as the place has dried up a bit, but the goal is in urgent need of structural rebuild. We have forthcoming descentions of grandchildren at half-term and in the Summer, so outside recreational diversion facilities must all be up & running.

Rs damaged football goal.jpg

Son 2's chain saw 'massacre' down by the lake spared the teepees but provided a lot of thin wood for sawing up for fuel.

Rs Wood thinning by lake.jpg[attachment=1]Rs Log sawing.jpg

!st rhododendrons are appearing late and grow only agonisingly slowly. It'll be another 50 years before they're big enough to make a decent splash, alas.

MM has had to install a fortress around some seedlings against our new menace this year....Rabbits, and like the WW2 barrage balloons she had installed all sorts against aerial raids on her raised beds.

[Kirbstone]

Pics. of 1st rhododendron and defences against hungry predators.

Rs Magic wood 1st rhodos.jpg

Rs Defense ag rabbits.jpg

Rs Defense ag. birds.jpg

Meanwhile I'm busy re-erecting fences everywhere knocked awry by the Winter storms....

T.

[Kirbstone]

Then there are the bits that require a LOT of maintenance, e.g. this parterre garden in an area to the North of the house where it gets little Sun for much of the year, but integrates with the other 'formal' bits well.

T

Parterre Garden Early Spring 13 Rs.jpg

[skirtingtheissue]

Flanders & Swan are wonderful and I can't get enough of their numbers on board...
T.

Relevant to gardening:
I loved their song about the honeysuckle and the bindweed battling it out. One spirals clockwise, one counterclockwise, while climbing, and the song imagined what would happen if they tried to climb together!

[Kirbstone]

Yes, I believe they 'touched tendrils and fell in love'.

I have just returned from a three-day excursion to Outermost Greater Sligo with a coachload of superannuated Archaeological Soc. people. We include a couple of grand gardens on such trips, which is always interesting, but on two evenings after dinner we had sing-songs which were well subscribed. Part of my contribution was some Fl.&Sw.....'The Gas Man cometh', the Hippopotamus Song and 'Have some Madiera, m'Dear'. Ever popular, of course.

T.

[Kirbstone]

On the Gardening front, with so much to do it's nice to stop and look at what's braving it after Winter at last lost its grip. It's too early for veg. or fruit, of course, so it's blossom and there's a lot of it to cheer the spirit just now. Sitting out among that lot the only sounds are the birds. Nothing else.

T.

[crfriend]

Those are very nice shots, Tom. I'm a wee bit envious.

Sapphire is out in our veggie garden pulling weeds left over from last year, and then it's up to me to turn things over, which I'll be glad to do.

I need to pull some of the junk out of the old flower-beds and clean paths to them.

[Kirbstone]

Gardening......
Take a bare flat field in 2000, dig a hole in it and build a boathouse in 2001. Fast forward 12 years to 2013 and it's hard to believe it's the same place, but honest, we didn't move it after we built it.
My MM finds operating the winch to lower and raise the ramp well-nigh impossible for her to use, despite generous reduction gearing, so on a fine morning this past week I put the little fun-boat down on the water for the visiting grandchildren & their friends to enjoy while I was at work chipping away at 'the Face'.

'Summer' has arrived at last and our temp. topped 21 (70F) for the first time this year.

T.

[Kirbstone]

A self-tailing winch and pulley system operates the ramps and the boat-trolley retrieval, but my MM now refuses to use it, saying it's just too much effort.

The high rope & pulleys raise & lower the ramps, the low rope (hidden by the boat) launches and retrieves the trolley + boat. When not being used, the 5-meter ladders for the ramps are supported level with the piers by large horizontal gate-bolts set into the floor either side, so the lifting ropes can be slackened off and the weight of the ramp taken off the pulleys..

Behind me hanging up are a pair of good chest waders which I use for Salmon fishing, but also primarily for 'gardening' the lake.....pulling out unwanted bullrush tubers and digging out ditto reeds, which are very invasive and a hindrance to rowing. The water is up to 4 feet deep at Summer level, quite a bit higher in Winter.

T.

[Kirbstone]

Playing the role of 'The Exterminator is high on the list in high Summer with growth at its most vigorous. My tasks include the elimination of tall prickly (thistles, teazels) and stingy (nettles) unwanted monsters.
To do the actual pulling I wait for evening and dress up in overalls plus those gauntlet gloves, but barrowing and collecting allows hot weather attire like illustrated.
Handling the things needs the gloves, but a pitchfork keeps them at handle's length, so to speak.

The place is a riot of bloom just now.

T.

[skirted_in_SF]

If those teazles get any taller, they're going to become triffids.
We have the occasional teazle patch on roadside in California, but I don't think I've ever seen any taller than waist high. In the '60s my mother used to collect and dry them to use in dry flower arrangements.

[Milfmog]

A small challenge for the gardeners here...

I hope to move house soon and the place we are trying to buy has rather more useful land than out current home. I feel an urge to create a kitchen garden but do not want to create too much work for myself, particularly for the next couple of years as we will need to spend a lot of time on the house itself. A couple of years ago I seem to recall hearing of a book on how to feed a family of four from a patch 3 meters by 3 meters. The reviewers were all enthusiastic about how simple it made it and how effective it was in using all the ground all the time. the author proposed a rotation of different crops at different times of year to get the maximum output from minimum space and effort. My problem is that I can't remember either the title or the author. can anyone point me in the right direction?

Have fun,


Ian.

[Kirbstone]

A bit like a 10 lb. trout...an 8 foot teazle would be a 'specimen'. Alas we have regiments of specimens and Tom the Exterminator here has had his brief: Eliminate the docs (plantains) nettles, but not all (butterflies like 'em) Teazles & thistles.
In the early morning and late evening I don all-covering garb plus rubber gauntlet gloves and deal with an area at a time. Forking & barrowing them is exercise!

Now Ian, I'm delighted to hear that you are buying up a new extensive estate. I assume you'll be offering your new Undergardener a three-bedroomed period cottage in the grounds, so he can look after your new kitchen garden for you, assuming you've chosen 'the wight mayn fow thu jawb'.( you can spit the plumb out, now) I know that some of your clan have owned Kilkenny Castle over here for hundreds of years, so I suppose you're 'to the Manor born!'

My meek suggestion on that front is that you go for 4 foot wide raised beds, about 18 inches or so high, with barrow-able paths in between. Suppose you made four of those parallel to each other, some 15 foot long each, you would have more than the written-about area and easily managed, as they are all raised. The trick is to plant sequentially so you don't have a flush of carrots/spinach/beetroot/beans, peas/ lettuce &c all at once. Same goes for spuds, of course. One bed should be for herbs, of course.

The real advantage of raised beds is access and ease of weeding.

Here, the wife has a load of book-club women coming 'to tea' next Tuesday, so you can imagine the frenzy of tidying-up that's underway, just now.

T.

[Kirbstone]

Not being 'to the Manor born' I have to do the donkey work myself......

My MM ordered some dense black soil from the bottom of a dried-out pond so she could use it in her parterre garden, so I obliged while she was at Church,

Black soil to order & that spade's a shovel..JPG

Parterre gdn hoeing..JPG

Then among many things the little enclosed rose garden needed rescuing as the Triffids had sent an advance party of non-carnivorous growth in there.

Rose gdn rescue.JPG

Next a little terrace with a half-circle seat at the top of the pergola had to be 'liberated' as well, so the list goes on....

Our boating lake was also down rather low, so I set up our 4 &1/2 HP Honda pump driving a 2" dia. fireman's type hose and ran it for several hours at the w/end, abstracting water from the stream at our Northern border. I measured that it had put four inches of fresh water into the lake, which is great.

Meanwhile having abandoned our 'sports field' to water meadow last year in the face of relentless daily deluges, this year has allowed us revisit and rehabilitate it using my MM's 'Ferrari', which I caught on camera just as she was changing down, slowing for the next chicane. In anticipation of Summer hols. grandchildrens' stay I have to mark out a badminton court on there using creosote for lines. I've looked up the dimensions, so that should be fun.