The temperature yesterday reached 6.8°C, the warmest for a week, not that it felt remotely warm with the wind trying to go through me. This morning it's trying to rain, not pleasant at 2°C and still blowing. The only gardening I've done this week is armchair gardening. I've been trying to sort out digital photos,…
Author: Jim Stephens
Just following the science
A month ago I wrote a blog about giving up composting, https://wp.me/p6bCCa-2Ft largely because I had a hunch that what was happening on the compost heap would be better happening in the soil. Today I looked at The Garden Professors™ – Advancing the science of gardening and other stuff since 2009 and there was the…
Six on Saturday – 6/2/2021
Throughout the winter I have struggled to find six things going on in the garden and have toyed with different angles, six gardening books, six tools, six views from a window, six types of rain. Now that the days are lengthening and things are waking up and starting to do their thing, I'm thinking of…
Six on Saturday – 30/1/2021
How time flies when you're doing jigsaw puzzles. January down. Hopefully this year will go better than last but I'm not holding my breath. At least the days are beginning to lengthen and the temperature's up a bit, meaning that a bit got done in the garden this week. One.Scale insect. I never like to…
Six on Saturday – 23/1/2021
Seeking inspiration, I looked back at what I'd posted as sixes in Januaries past. No help there. Walking round the garden didn't help much either. It's cold and wet and dull. Next door have a mini digger in and are starting to do something, so we have a grandstand seat to watch and tut. Anyhow,…
Soil texture
A few years ago I took on an allotment. It was a new site and had been operating only a year when I started; I took over a plot that had proved too much for the first tenant. At the start it had been shallowly ploughed, turning the grass over but not effectively burying it.…
Six on Saturday – 16/1/2021
Having rained all night, it's due to clear into a half decent day. We'll see, at the moment it doesn't look promising. It was forecast so I made sure I had some pictures in the can yesterday. I was thinking I might be able to find half a dozen things flowering even after the cold…
Garden History
I was sorting out backups of my too many digital photos yesterday and became side-tracked into looking through old photos of the garden. I was struck by how many pictures of plants I had and how few of the garden they were growing in. It was only when I started blogging, joining in with a…
Six on Saturday – 9/1/2021
It has at least been mainly dry this week and my feelings of guilt at having spent most of December indoors finally got the better of me. I have been excusing my lack of engagement on my allotment on the grounds of it being too wet but this week I have dug out and spread…
On Compost and Composting
It's a funny old place the internet, full of information about absolutely everything and providing an equal opportunity for complete idiots and world experts to put forward their views as if they were of similar value. The distinction between fact and fiction has never been fuzzier. On almost every topic under the sun you will…