Pub Kitchen Garden – Re-opening

Tags

#gdnbloggers, Spring, The Queen at Brandeston, Vegetables

As we all know, it has been an unusual and difficult year all round but especially for the hospitality industry. The Queen at Brandeston, where I manage the garden has met each new challenge full on, opening a local shop and serving food and drinks as takeaway, then sitting outside and inside, as permitted, at different times.

Last week I was there on Easter bank holiday, trying to catch up with jobs in the vegetable garden to make sure I was ready for the growing season ahead.

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Rhubarb

Usually the pub would be busy, but this year it was just me and Mr Blackbird feeling the chill of snow showers.

You can just about see the snowflakes!

I was weeding the final beds to be done and he was following me, filling his beak with worms. He must have a family in the hedge.

Every year I hope to keep on top of the weeds with a little bit of regular hoeing but once I spend more time planting, watering and sowing seeds, the weeds take overk. So I will just take this moment to enjoy the vegetable patch being under control before it all goes crazy again.

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Here it is, ready to go. Strawberries in the foreground.

There are already some things coming on. I have winter lettuces and chard under green mesh, which seemed to have survived the recent late frosts.

Chard foreground, lettuces behind.

There are some tiny radish seedlings and peas planted out, having been started off in the the greenhouse in early spring.

Peas

The wild garlic, which I planted a few years ago, is looking well and finally spreading. I just have a bit of a problem in that bed with tiny field maple seedlings.

Wild garlic surrounding my new pinkcurrant bush.

There is lots of self seeded coriander in the herb garden and the chives are romping away as always. The only bed not sorted out yet is the flower patch.

Coriander

The flower patch – still to be sorted.

A week on and the flower patch is still waiting to be brought to order but I have planted 14 kg of pink fir apple seed potatoes to be used in the pub kitchen. A main crop variety, they should be ready, once they have flowered, late summer.

With the tables and outside space restored and and the glamping facilities re-vamped and improved, The Queen is ready to welcome people to sit outside to eat and drink and stay. Visit the website here for opening hours.

The tulips are flowering with perfect timing now customers are allowed to sit in the garden again.

April 2020-Lockdown

Here we are in week 5 of the lockdown and life is not the same as usual. Following the government guidelines, I clearly can’t do my job from home and as I work on my own in my customers’ gardens I have mostly carried on. I know some people in the garden industry have been forced to give up because they need access through the house and others have received abuse for working when they are not key workers.

I am feeling so lucky to be living in a friendly village in a rural environment. Sometimes it feels different with no children to get to school and driving along empty roads to work, quite nice actually, and sometimes it’s just the same as I sow seeds, and pull out weeds with just the birds for company.

At home, with my family it feels normal, then I realise that I can’t  go anywhere. I would like to be able to visit open gardens, bluebell woods and the sea.  I don’t know if it is a coincidence, but since the lockdown began we have nearly endless blue skies and sunshine. This has no doubt helped the fantastic show of blossom this year, hence all the pictures! Apple, cherry and pear so far.

Lots more cherry blossom pictures to come.

With the endless rain earlier in the year and now the endless sunshine, the weeds are really growing fast now. It is difficult to balance the time spent sowing seeds, planting out (I’ve risked some beans this week) watering and keeping on top of the weeding.

Beetroot, lettuce, chard and broad, runner and French beans are in the ground, with a few in reserve just in case. I’ve got courgettes, squashes, cosmos and ammi in the polytunnel and dahlia seedlings inside on the windowsill. No show yet for the tomatoes, chillies and giant pumpkins. Maybe I should stop poking them!

I’m very excited because I have a delivery of compost coming this weekend, so I really must get on with potting up the new dahlias that I ordered this year.

Enough cherry blossom! This week I have been harvesting herbs and rocket from the garden and purple sprouting broccoli from the allotment.

It still feels like a strange juxtaposition that that normal life has ground to a halt for us but the plants are still growing, the potatoes are showing today, and the birds are busy feeding the next generation.

Mr blackbird has been very busy.

We have no idea of and end in sight at the moment so we just have to keep going and keep growing!

Easter 2020

It is mid April and everything is bursting into life, as it should be, but the reality for us is anything but normal. Across the whole world, countries, including the UK, are in lockdown because of the Covid19 pandemic. With a large percentage of the population confined to home, and a settled spell of fine weather those who are lucky enough to have one have been out in the garden. And I am no exception.

Looking back, the last blog was March 3rd so I’ll try and catch up a bit. This is Berberis Darwinii looking good in early March.

I have been managing to carry on gardening for most of my customers as I tend to be on my own and away from the houses anyway. Here are the daffodils at one of my larger gardens and a new garden structure which I am rather fond of.

The daffodils were followed by a fantastic show of other bulbs in the grass. Muscari, Anemone blanda, Scilla and Chionodoxa. They always are but that doesn’t stop me being excited and taking photos every year!

New Acer leaves.

It stayed cold for so long that I managed to hold off sowing seeds until the very end of March and beginning of April. But the weeds started growing so I weeded, gave  the lawn edges their first trim of the year and divided and moved a few perennials.

Fast forward a couple of weeks and it feels like it has been hot and sunny forever. The tulips are out at the pub which has temporarily morphed into a local shop. I have been sowing seeds in the greenhouse (not mine) to hopefully produce some crops that can be sold to the shop’s customers.

So far the cumin is doing well!

At home, we have moved the polytunnel  back a bit, here it is before and during the move, and put a replacement cover on because the old one was full of holes. This has created a bigger vegetable patch and honestly I have been sorting through my pots and it looks a lot better than this now.

Inside the polytunnel, I have sown most of my seeds now including the more tender vegetables like tomatoes and squashes and the half hardy annuals such as cosmos and zinnia. Dahlia seeds are inside on the window sill. The sunflowers, sown a week ago, have come up already. As you can see it is also used for storing guinea pig supplies which is not ideal.

Just the rest of the garden to do now before everything needs pricking out!

This cuckoo flower has sprung up in the lawn, quite a large patch, as if to emphasise how damp it has been, right near to the house.

Tonight it rained, which has filled up the water butt and hopefully gone down into the soil as far as the potatoes. I am so grateful to have my garden and live in such a nice place so staying hasn’t been such a chore and there is still lots more to do to keep me busy.

 

April Diary 2019

Tuesday 9th April

In the greenhouse, the French marigolds are up and the Gypsophila, pricked out last week, are doing well.  Sowed more squash seeds.

Started checking the dahlias. I usually pot them up at this stage but I have decided to water the dry soil that they have overwintered in, and move them from there if they grow.

Outside, pulled up the last of the brassicas and planted the next lot of peas. Put pea sticks in.

Friday 12th May

Planting seedlings in my raised bed

Managed to get the teenage daughter into the polytunnel to re-sow the failed sunflowers and also start the giant pumpkins. Planted spinach and lettuce seedlings into my raised bed. Still a bit cold at night so hoping they survive.

Found vine weevil in pots so tipped out completely in the chicken run.

Easter Holidays

Made use of the light evenings to sow squash, courgettes and beans in the polytunnel while learning Macbeth.

Visited allotment to water, first potato up so starting earthing up. The broccoli are too infested with aphids now to bother eating, so gradually bringing a couple of sticks home at a time for the chickens. Car also has aphids now!

Tuesday 23rd April

After a hot dry Easter break, it is back to grey weather and chilly nights.

Ready to eat, rocket, radish and baby spinach. Broad beans, not really but I can see the little beans forming.

The dahlias, that I bury in the bone dry greenhouse beds over winter, are beginning to shoot. I have been storing them like this for several years and it is really successful but you have to have a large, brick built greenhouse to do it! My customer is very lucky.

In the orchard, the apple blossom is divine, see top photo,  and I love the quince flowers, above, too. Saw my first speckled wood of the year.

Monday 29th April

Not a single potato left at the Hall. Not sure what has eaten them, possibly rats. The squashes are doing well, no germination on cucumbers, maybe the seed is too old now.

Tuesday 30th April

Saw the first damsel flies emerging from the pond. It is still cold though.

Ulting Wick Open Garden April 2019

Here are my pictures from the open day on Sunday April 28th 2019. Awesome tulips in the parterre.

Spot Lou on the plant stall!

Front of house.

Round the lake.

 

 

Swimming pool.

 

I saw this one while in the toilet queue!

 

Wisteria, obviously.

And finally,

The start of the alliums.

Pub garden 2018 – April

Ladybirds on celery leaves

The pub garden in April has mainly been about preparation. I have been steadily working my way through the vegetable beds trying to catch up with the weeding. These are red celery leaves from last year, obviously very hardy and a tasty addition to soups and stews

 

The red veined sorrel also overwintered well and looks like a permanent fixture now so may be moved to the new herb bed.

 

 

The broad beans have continued to grow and now have lots of flowers on.

Mummy blackbird was very busy collecting food as I dug each week, she did well, look at the size of the chick!

The off site greenhouse has been the place to be in the cold, wet weather at the beginning and end of the month, not so good in that sweltering week in the middle. I have struggled with quite a lot of seeds this year, especially pumpkins and cucumbers, for which I am blaming the weather!

Even so, the curly kale, spinach and beetroot are doing well. They can be planted out at the beginning of May if they are big enough.

At the end of the month, the wild garlic which I planted a couple of years ago, came into flower and it has filled up the bed a bit more.

 

This is the view at the end of April. I have started sowing a few seeds and not quite finished clearing the old vegetables, but it won’t be long before it is all filled.

 

The most exciting thing, however, was the tulips flowering. I’m most pleased because the planters look exactly how I imagined which is very satisfying. Incidently,  look out for that narrow window in the next update.

Columbine Hall

I came on here tonight to do a quick blog post to and found lots of lovely comments and new followers so thank you and sorry that I took so long to reply, I shouldn’t rely on my email notifications, obviously.

 

Well, life’s been a bit hectic recently, I have been preparing for a large gathering of my dad’s friends and relations to celebrate his life and my head is full if arrangements. Even though it was cold and raining I decided to have a break this afternoon and visit a garden at Columbine Hall not far from home. Thanks for telling me Perfect Perennials!

It’s a beautiful, moated 14th house with winding grassy paths and formal pleached limes.

We went through a lush wilderness and down a tree lined walk to the bog garden which follows a stream and was full of ferns and wild garlic.

 

In a newly planted herb garden there were the same mixture of tulips, in an old copper, as close to the house.

 

At the back of the house is a courtyard garden with a large prostrate rosemary and pretty fencing.

It was busy despite being such difficult weather so I hope that they did well. The warm barn for teas was a very welcome respite and the greenhouse looked busy.

On the way home I stopped to take a photo of these magnificent cherry trees, something that I have been meaning to do for years.

 

 

 

 

Homework

This weekend I have made a bit of progress in my own garden. As it has been such a cold spring I held off sowing seeds until we had a bit of milder weather at the beginning of April, then it went cold again with little sunshine. The result has been that seeds haven’t germinated, and some have rotted in the pot, the sudden heatwave finished them off.

Now, the polytunnel is full of sprouting dahlia tubers, successfully overwintered despite the low temperatures, and newly sown seeds just emerging. I started chilli seeds in the heated propagator, then they moved to the windowsill and now in the polytunnel.  The free ones from Mr Fothergills are doing well, the Razzmatazz didn’t germinate very well so I have re-sown, fingers crossed for a good summer so that I get some chillies. With frost forecast for this week, I am glad that I didn’t put the fleece away.

I have also taken over my Dad’s plot at my parents house. He loved growing vegetables, long rows of runner beans which he shared with the village as there were always too many for the two of them. It’s good to carry on, although he wouldn’t think much of my wiggly lines, but hard too. The asparagus that I bought him a few years ago are just coming up.

 

On Sunday, sweltering in the heat, I sowed french beans, radish, carrot, beetroot and parsnips which won’t come up because they are last year’s seeds but I can’t just throw them away. There is still a bit of broccoli from last year under the netting. I am using his mesh which is the stuff used for plastering but works well.

At home, in the polytunnel, I sowed my giant pumpkin seeds from Matthew Oliver at RHS Hyde Hall. I have been too nervous to sow them in case they don’t come up, now I just have to stop myself rooting around in the pot to see if they germinate. I will post updates as hopefully they get bigger and bigger.

Giant pumpkin seeds, with normal one for comparison

Spring Visit to Beth Chatto Gardens

I took the family to visit the Beth Chatto Gardens  a couple of weekends ago now. It was a free entry day so I got to take loads of photos and enthuse about the plants but didn’t feel obliged to spend hours there to get my money’s worth.

The garden covers 7 acres comprising of lawns, beds and ponds in the bottom of the valley and woodland and dry areas further up the slopes. There are lots of different paths suitable for a bit of perambulating and exploring and the different age groups visiting were doing what suited them best. With bright spring foliage, the mature trees created a cohesive link throughout the garden.

The dry garden used to be a car park and gets no irrigation so is perfect inspiration in this parched spring. The erysmiums and euphorbias were looking great, spikey yuccas, grasses and alliums to come.

Sometimes seen as a problem area, the woodland is the place to see hundreds of uncurling ferns, comfrey and arums as well as a surprising pink Rubus spectabilis ‘Olympic Double’. Really cool and green with a little stream running through to the reservoir at the bottom.  The yellow flower I have yet to look up!

Impressive skunk cabbage at the back!

A series of ponds, linked by bridges and streams, are generously planted with damp loving  species. Ferns, irises, Persicaria and bergenia.  Lots of grasses and phormiums on the banks, all beautifully reflected in the water.

I loved the self seeded forget-me-nots and the odd weed in the beds. A whole new planting scheme was taking place in a large sunny area which will showcase even more plants to illustrate Beth Chatto’s mantra ‘right plant, right place’.

The attached nursery grows and sells a lot of the plants found in the gardens. They are helpfully arranged according to habitat, dry, damp, shady and scree making it easy select what you want. There was a good choice of, mostly herbaceous, varieties and I did buy a few. Given the extensive selection on offer my quote of the day had to be “I think I’ll go for pansies they flower ok”.

And my confession of the day? I didn’t try the cake, sorry but the number of people eating must mean it’s good!

Late spring frost.

Tags

#Frostprotection

We had a frost in early April, a couple of weeks ago and my newly emerging dahlias suffered as a result. They were in the polytunnel but it’s only a little one and obviously wasn’t enough protection. So when frost was forecast for this week I decided to take proper precautions. My first plan was to move some of the more tender seedlings, cosmos, tomato and dahlia from my obliging parents’ greenhouse to their conservatory, as well as the dahlia tuber which was affected before.

With my own plants taken care of, Monday morning saw me get into action at a customer’s garden. It was my own fault for planting the beans too early but I was quite pleased with my use of secondary double glazing panels to improvise a cloche. They survived Monday night but tonight is colder so we’ll see.

 

The potatoes were covered with black plastic which isn’t ideal but is better than nothing.

 

 

 

The dahlias and seedlings in the greenhouse survived perfectly due to it being quite large and the brick walls of the lean to acting like a giant storage heater.

One thing that I can’t do anything about is the apple blossom. In my very inexpert opinion, it looked all right this morning and there were lots of bees so hopefully there will still be a good crop in the autumn.

The only good thing, is that it might kill off a few aphids which have started appearing on the roses, here’s hoping!