This blog is now defunct, and has been superceded by my other blog, Pete Blogs, to be found at:

http://bloggero1.blogspot.com/

Useful weeds

I bought a new gooseberry plant today at a local garden centre. The variety is "Hinnonmaki Red", a dessert and culinary variety. Gooseberry plants in pots can be planted any time of the year, and this one is in a pot. Bare-rooted ones can only be found and planted in October to November or February to March. I bought this plant on a whim, although I was going to buy some more fruit bushes in the autumn, so had not prepared any soil for it. I did this when I arrived home. I had to consider the site where it was to go. It has to be sunny for a good part of the day although gooseberries can tolerate some shade being a woodland plant in its natural state. It had to be sheltered from high winds, and the soil had to have reasonable drainage. The site I found was okay for the first two but needed some improvement for the third. Having dug quite a deep hole, I poured some horticultural grit into the hole and dug it further with a fork at the sides and bottom to allow room for the roots to spread out as they grow. I also put a load of horse manure into the hole, and covered it up again. I shall now leave it for a few days and plant the gooseberry some time next week. Ideally, the soil should be prepared some time beforehand, but I don't have that luxury. It will take two or three years to mature enough to produce plentiful fruit.

I have noticed over the past couple of years that I have in my front and back gardens what I thought was a weed. It has attractive purple flowers and is quite tall, with grass-like leaves and produces a puffball of seeds like a dandelion clock, only larger, when the flowers are finished. This gives the plant its folk name goatsbeard. It is a weed in the sense that it is a plant in the wrong place, but it is in fact a salsify and I have a few of them in the garden. I don't know how they came to be here because I have never grown salsify before. I can only think that they easily self-seed and the seeds came from another garden on the wind. Last year I dug some up not knowing what they are, but this year I shall keep them and let them mature until their roots are ready to harvest. I have never eaten salsify before so I don't know what they are like. But if they are good to eat they will be an unintended addition, and hopefully a regular weed in my garden. Most weeds are not so welcome!

New Blog

I would like to direct blogwatchers of mine to a new blog that I have begun, called Pete Blogs. It will have a wider remit than either the Digger or my other blog, Alpha, because I often want to blog about other things than gardening or Christianity, so my new blog will be a place for those other things, politics, gardening, cooking, green issues, Christianity, my interests, and everything! I have subtitled it An ordinary life in extraordinary times. To access this blog click on:

http://bloggero1.blogspot.com/

Most of my blog posts will be on there from now on.

Veggies update

Most of the french and runner beans I planted in the ground over the past two weeks from pots have died on me or look very unhealthy. They would be very unlikely to recover, so today I sowed some french and runner bean seeds directly in the soil where the plants had been, and which I had pulled up. I think in future, I shall plant all beans directly in the soil. Those that look reasonably healthy I have left in the ground. I had soaked the beans in water overnight as this aparently helps them to germinate more quickly. The squash and courgette plants I planted in tyre towers recently don't look too health either, so I sowed some seeds as well and some of those have now germinated.

To feed plants such as salad leaves, herbs, beans, squashes, and potates, I use liquid seaweed fertiliser, which I buy from the Organic Gardening Catalogue. It's a bit expensive, at nearly £10 a litre, including postage, but it is good stuff, and even if I was not a full organic gardener, I would rather spend £10 on that than buy chemicals! I also use organic tomato feed, although not for totatoes, as I am not growing any this year. I use it for other fruit-bearing plants once the fruits have started to form, such as strawberries, gooseberries and beans. I have a chilli pepper plant indoors which I bought as a plant from a garden centre recently. Once it starts to form fruits in August, I shall start to use tomato feed on the plant.

The website of Garden Organic has lots of advice and one can order items from there. Click on this link:

http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/index.php?PHPSESSID=3a612ba54300c7bab4ff36be8b424655

I took the following photos in my garden this morning:

Potato plants

Inside my shed

Herbaceous border