Weeding the Web

Happy Christmas - and be kind to relatives

Christmas is a time when the generations are often in closer proximity for longer than usual, so, although the following video isn't specifically Christmassy, I thought it might give you a giggle (stick with it past the opening), and the touching list of "Blessed be...s" might help keep a few tempers

I hope you have a lovely Christmas and I'll look forward to seeing you again in the New Year.

Presents to create gardeners: review of Grow Your Own kits

Last-minute presents are exercising grey cells at the moment. With that and the fact that, every so often, a gardener wants to inspire a non-gardener to try the magic of growing, I was pleased when Find Me a Gift sent for review a choice of gardening kits by Gift Republic Ltd.

OK, so some might be excited at opening a present to find a trowel, gloves and seeds, but I think we all know that many non-gardeners need a bit more encouragement and, noticeably, almost all the kits carefully avoid mentioning the growing an actual plant. Instead you're tempted by the notion to Grow Your Own Chocolate or Grow Your Own Extra Hot Chilli Peppers. The latter has a box guaranteed to make a small boy look twice.

Inside each are 4 coir pots, 4 compost discs, 2 packets of seed and 4 plant markers.

And no instructions.

At this point my inner gardener began to get grumpy. Then I checked the box and found the instructions on the outside. They're brief enough not to scare anyone off. Too brief if you know nothing about growing.

I know nothing about compost discs, so placed one, as instructed, in a pot and added water. Coir pots let the water drain through. My suspicion that a brief immersion would not be enough to expand the compost disc quickly proved correct. 

I plunged the pots up to their necks in water, with the discs in them, thus soaking the compost enough to break it apart. Not according to instructions.

"Sow the seed" sounds a simple enough instruction, but there's nothing to tell a non-gardener how deep to sow them. "Keep warm and moist until germination" also sounds simple. How warm? How moist? How long till germination?

You get my drift. Another kit, Grow Your Own Bug-Eating Plants (a different box to that currently on offer) offers Venus flytrap and pitcher plant seeds. This came with a colourful leaflet of games and bug-eating plant facts and a few more instructions, but a search on the web will prove there's more information needed if you're to grow them successfully (Little Shop of Horrors gives details on growing Venus Flytraps) and it's not clear which Pitcher Plant it might be (though I assume it's Sarracenia).

Something that does need to be borne in mind is that these are the products of a non-gardening company. I may find that they all germinate brilliantly, but all the boxes carry the following disclaimer: "The seed can die before or after germination...Due to the varying nature of the conditions that the seed are stored and grown in, neither Gift Republic Ltd nor any other company supplying this gift can accept any liability in relation to any non-performance of the seed."

This is obviously the risk one has to take if one doesn't buy direct from a dedicated gardening company. My grumpiness didn't leave me, though.

One of Husband's abiding memories of childhood is the frustration of being given tools and equipment made especially for children that just didn't work (his particular bug-bear was soon-broken walkie-talkies.) These kits enrolled me in his remembered frustration.  If you want to encourage someone to grow something, you want the instructions to be made as foolproof as possible, and the outcome darn near guaranteed.

However, the fun presentation of these boxes might be one way to awaken the interest of a child (or adult) hitherto uninterested in growing things. The Chocolate Daisies (Berlandiera lyrata) are an easy-to-grow perennial and, with a bit of (uninstructed) bottom heat, the chillies shouldn't present a problem. 

There is still time to order for Christmas. If you do want to buy this for someone, and you're the only member of the family with experience of seed-raising, then it's certainly offers a chance to pitch in, amaze them with your gardening wisdom, and (maybe with some seeds on standby) help grow something together.

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day: Cotoneaster horizontalis flamed with berries

Cotoneaster horizontalis is one of those plants that is done no service by its easy-going nature. You see it all over the place in municipal planting and I think people think it's boring. This winter, though, has been fantastic for berries and it stands out against the fence like a burning bush.

For a paean of praise and how to grow it, see How to Grow: Cotoneaster Horizontalis.

To see more of what's in bloggers' gardens around the world this December, pop over to May Dreams Gardens.

Plant Me Now Christmas Gardens Competition - 5 Tips for Decorating the Outdoors

Christmas decorations have exploded all over our neighbourhood. Obviously not literally - that would have made the 6 o'clock News - but whereas a few isolated homes used to string up lights, now they're joined by gardens filled with festive adornment.

It makes a walk on a winter's evening a colourful show of discovery (and, let's face it, occasional jaw-dropping horror).  I love it.

So does Plant Me Now*, who are running a Christmas Gardens Facebook Competition. Decorate your garden, post up as many pictures as you like on their Facebook page by 22nd December, and you're in with a chance to win £100 of plants. You won't have to wait too long to choose and receive them either, as some starter packs, like those of Bacopa, are available early in the New Year.

What, I wonder, makes us want increasingly to make a splash in winter? Partly, it must be that decorations are more affordable, but I think that, deep down, it's an act of defiance, a primal instinct to drive the dark away while we wait for the return of warmth and light. The fun thing is, now self-expression is positively encouraged, people seem ever more happy to be festively flamboyant.

So, having beaten the streets in pursuit of Christmas cheer, here are my 5 tips for decorating your Christmas garden:

1. Just because the lights are on, it doesn't make them look good. Hang them up securely (removable hooks from 3M might be your answer) and make sure they're well arranged. An artistically jumbled line can be more attractive than a straight one, as below where the occupants have fed lights into the climber that frames the window and added a wreath to the front door.

 

2. Repeating motifs can create an elegance that's missing from a mish-mash of different elements.

 3. Are you decorating your garden, or using it as an open space (see top picture)? Think about where you put your decorations. Placing them carefully could make a garden feature, like the tree below, part of the tableau.

4. One large feature can have more impact that lots of smaller ones. This garden has only this gorgeous silver and gold tree. The occupants leave the lights in place all year and I look forward to their turning them on every Christmas.

5. In the end, it's your garden. Do whatever makes you happy. Just try not to cause accidents by startling passing traffic. 

*If you fancy a few minutes respite, they've got rather a nifty plant filter that lets you select plants according to up to six criteria, including height, position and light level. It's kept me playing for far too long. :). You can also see much more professionally decorated gardens on their Pinterest page, Christmas Garden Inspiration.

This post is sponsored by Plant Me Now.  (NB Dec 2015 Plant Me Now no longer seems to be operating.)

The joy of juicers - fresh veg for breakfast

Every so often a list appears in a newspaper - Top Ten Least Used Kitchen Gadgets - and you can be sure that, along with the bread maker and the sandwich maker, a juicer will be among them.

I was reminded of this in a recent post by Wellywoman. Juicer sales* are up by 210% in John Lewis but, she says, anyone who has ever owned one "knows the reality. You use them once or twice then you realise they are a nightmare to clean, they spend a year in the cupboard before you give it away to some unsuspecting relative."

NO, NO, NO! Honestly, are you wondering if it would be a good idea to buy one? Do it!

Quite why we felt moved to buy a juicer has been lost in the mists of time, but our first - a Kenwood - lasted 14 years. When it finally failed in the face of daily use, we gulped at the modern prices and bought one from, yes, John Lewis.

This too comes in for daily use. Yes, it's a pain to clean. I mean what idiot - what idiot? - thinks tiny pointed pockets you can barely reach with a pin, let alone a washing-up brush, are a reasonable design? You possibly don't want to know that I tend just to close my eyes to parts where contact with fresh juice seems minimal and blitz them with curses every so often.

But it is a joy. I grow an inordinate number of beetroot. Why? Because it's heavenly juice to drink. Here are some lovely combinations:

Beetroot, apple and orange.

Beetroot, apple and carrot.

Beetroot, apple, orange and carrot.

Beetroot, apple and celery.

Beetroot, carrot and celery.

In fact any combination of the above, so long as you don't mix orange with celery. 

At this time of year it's particularly enjoyable. The russet apples are now softening, even in the chill storage area. Some of our other apples suffered from codling moth. So these go in the juicer (I cut the brown bits out). Beetroot are gradually harvested from the beds (I "store" them where they grow. It seems to work). After nearly 20 years of daily juicing, I find shop-bought juice tastes thick, heavy and dead while juice from fresh fruit and veg packs a zing on a winter morning. And the colour is beautiful.

But am I delusional? you're wondering. After all, there's that Top Ten list that argues I might be. Take a closer look.  The Daily Mail article lists the unloved gadgets along with "the percentage of people surveyed who own, but rarely use them". So 16% of juicer owners rarely use one. That leaves 84%. I'm betting that a high proportion of those, especially anyone who grows their own veg, are as happy with them as I am. 

*That rise in juicer purchases is spurred, apparently, by Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, which sounds like another of those if-you-don't-stuff-yourself-with-fast-food-you'll-feel-better" documentaries. There are some interesting sounding juices from the movie at Awesome Rawsome.

Gypsum for clay soil

"It's regarded as rather old-fashioned," explained Chris, the nice lady at Rootwise who answered the phone. "And people don't understand what it's for."

My arrival at Rootwise had taken time, because tracking down gypsum is not easy. According to this thread on Allotment Gardening, because people don't understand gypsum and it's so bulky and hard to shift, garden centres are now reluctant to stock it. Rootwise supply it in 25kg bags to gardeners by mail-order (and to agriculture in massive tonnage), but are finding it extremely difficult to persuade garden centres to take it.

This is a shame, because when I first used gypsum it seemed almost sinfully easy. All you do is sprinkle it around; you don't even have to dig it in. I first tried it about ten years ago. I gave one of the beds a topping that looked as if I'd iced it with sugar, thought, "What on earth is that going to do?" and forgot about it. When I came back to the soil the following spring, it didn't seem as heavy as I'd expected, and then I remembered the gypsum.

How gypsum works

It's this sort of effect that can get you hooked on soil science. The calcium contained in gypsum reacts with the chemically active clay particles and encourages flocculation - the binding of the particles into slightly larger aggregates. This means the spaces between soil particles are larger, so the soil looser and, immediately, drainage is improved. The effect doesn't last forever, which is why gypsum needs reapplying every so often.

Rootwise recommend an application in spring and autumn for really heavy clay, dropping down to one application every other year once it's in good condition.

Nothing, of course, substitutes for adding bulky organic matter, or compost (equally old-fashioned but, arguably, better understood) but anything that aids the break up of the sort of massive, solid clods that I chip my way through in the garden has to be embraced.  As long as you can find it.

If you have clay soil, can I ask that you beetle down to your local nursery or garden centre and ask for gypsum? Only customer demand will make it more widely available.

Incidentally, occasionally you find references to using it as a general soil improver. Read the ever-helpful Linda Chalker-Scott to see why it's pointless to use gypsum on any soil but clay.

NB And Michelle from Vegplotting has kindly pointed out that this post (completely coincidentally, I have to admit) coincides with World Soil Day (always December 5th). Find out more at the Global Soil Partnership.