One of my tv gardener heroes was Geoffrey Smith and I often still watch his gardening videos on good old YouTube. Here are two gardening quotes by him:
"Put the brown end in the soil, the green end above it , and you're in with a much better chance."
"If I am depressed, or I think the world's a filthy place, I just go and look at a flower".
Geoffrey like myself came from Northern England and he believed in hard graft and forking over the ground and leaving the rough clods for the Winter frosts and rain to break them down and make lovely friable soil.
My gardening digging habits have evolved to the Irish climate. Ireland gets its fair share of gales and very wet winters. But we rarely get the snow and frost like they get in the north of England.
I am 62 this December and I still grow some crops like new potatoes in the ground. But in recent times I have been repurposing containers like plastic baths, heating oil tanks, Belfast sinks, rear wheel tractor tyres, mussel and fish crates and IBC tanks...
They give me a lot deeper depth of growing medium and I am gardening at waist or knee height. I am not no dig and I climb on top of them and dig them over after a crop is harvested.
The weather is very good this spring and summer. I took the black plastic cover off the dung heap and filled up my weeding big bucket 🪣(tree plant pot) with fym and filled up some of my vacant plastic raised beds:
I used to like Geoffrey Smith too. No nonsense.
ReplyDeleteDown to earth and very humble and working class JayCee. He believed in God and he was a pure gentleman. Geoff Hamilton was the same.
DeleteAhhh, but you also need a green thumb Dave. And a bit of hard work. Your harvests are always amazing wherever you plant
ReplyDeleteThanks Linda. Muck and magic and Mother Nature does a lot of work behind the scenes. The rain provides the nitrogen for free.
DeleteI have home made leaf mulch for my raised beds, probably go on later this month.
ReplyDeleteWonderful stuff Marlene. The estate gardeners of old use to use moleskin soil for their hanging baskets. Everything was organic and natural.
ReplyDeleteAHH, Geoffrey Smith, one of my favourite "old timers", along with the likes of Percy Thrower, they really knew their business. None of the airy-fairy lifestyle nonsense that seems to be so prevalent today.
ReplyDeleteI once walked into a marquee tent Will at Southport Flower Show and had eye contact with the great Percy Thrower. We didn't speak but he knew I knew who he was I think. The Blue Peter garden especially. Carol Klein is another one of my favourite television gardeners. A lovely Lancashire lass and mad for plants.
DeleteScully and I will be going out this very day (after our gruelling walk) to pitch up a trailer load of rotting haylage to put on my nascent veg garden.
ReplyDeleteHaylage is wonderful TM. It's got a cider like aroma. Our ponies love it. Nascent is a new word to add to my ever expanding vocabulary. Thanks to the likes of your self, JayCee and YP.
ReplyDeleteAnyone else making use of the fine weather and getting their veg plot topped up with fym and ready for spring?
DeleteNope! Just you Dave. The rest of us are sitting on our arses watching telly.
I am getting my winter work done before the Irish monsoon season starts YP. Raised vegetable beds make gardeso much easier.
DeleteI grow in raised garden beds, small plastic barrels that have been made into wicking beds, and those big white IBC Tanks which we also made into wicking beds.
ReplyDeleteOur summers are very hot, and we live on a dry continent. So using as little water as possible is a good thing for us.
Hi Angela. I used the German Hugelkultur min some of my raised beds and filled them with logs to retain moisture. I also use IBC tanks cut in half and drilled drainage holes and what ever container or plastic bath I can use.
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