Diary for February 2021
2/2/21
We’ve had quite a lot of rain and wind over the past couple of weeks and it was driving me nuts. Covid19 means we are pretty much confined to home which, to be frank, is beyond a pleasure when I can fiddle about in the garden. There’s a ton of jobs at this time of year and I am more than happy to be doing them. Just not sitting inside, farting about on the internet and watching the garden being battered.
But not today. It has been utterly glorious. 20℃ outside and brilliant sunshine, over 40℃ in the greenhouse. The seeds I sowed during last month are bursting from the soil and many are ready for pricking out. I started that job today after I’d shifted the final remnants of the pile of pony poo we had delivered last week - into the compost bins and also some piled up tyres ready for squash plants.
Pricked out:
5 cardoons, 7 Black Beauty tomatoes, 4 Amish Paste tomatoes & 21 purple sprouting broccoli. I also planted two Willamette raspberries & a Hinnonmaki red gooseberry.
Terrific roots on the cardoons.
3/2/21
Another 20C+ day. Bonkers for this time of year, but very welcome T-shirt weather. Fixed the electric fence round the hens so it isn’t grounding any more. Planted out Jessy sugar snap peas in the potager. It’s probably going to be too cold for them, but they’re ready so they have two chances. Or we can eat the shoots. Also planted out more strawberry plants in the bottom blackcurrant beds.
Pricked out:
Tomatoes - 5 Beefsteak, 5 Roma, 5 Amethyst Jewel, 5 Dikaya Roza & 10 Join or Die x Beyond.
4/2/21
Had a delivery of logs last night. They are much smaller than we usually have to they are in an untidy pile at the back of the carport, leaving enough space for another 3m3 of more dense wood. We already have 3m3 in the frames leading into the soon-to-be-orchard.
By the time we have the final delivery in the next couple of weeks we will have enough to see us through this winter and for all next winter too. Luckily there were lots of very short logs in the most recent lot. Ideal for the wood-burner in the workshop.
We removed a processional caterpillar nest from one of the pine trees today. Logic says that you have to burn the nest when it is cut down from the tree as the caterpillar hairs have a necrotising toxicity, especially for curious dogs.
Well, I can tell you that this is easier said than done. We cut the nest down and caught it in a cardboard box. I set light to it with a heavy-duty blowtorch. Several fat caterpillars wriggled from the nest and succumbed to the heat, although they didn’t burn. The nest clearly had hundreds of the toxic blighters inside, each protecting the other from the heat. The nest simply did not burn.
I put it into a metal bucket with some wood, but still the nest did not burn and the hairy wrigglers continued to make a half-hearted break for the outside. I put the entire nest, wood and a barbecue starter disc into the Weber bbq. I added wood. I went at it full blast with the blowtorch and still the chenilles were sauntering out of the nest. I’ve added more wood, put the lid on and cranked the bbq up in the hope that the high temperature will do for them.
Don’t, for a minute, think that you can just put them in a paper bag and take a match to it.
7/2/21
Pricked out:
Aubergine: Black Beauty x 9
Tomatoes: Colgar late hanging x 10, Pink Bumblebee striped cherry x 4
Peppers: Chinese Giant paprika x 10
Cabbage: Chinese x 10
Flowers: Sage Blue Monday x 3
8/2/21
Bought wood, nuts & bolts to make frames for beans, peas and cucumbers. Until now the wind has been so strong that it has given the flimsy creations I’ve rustled up from bamboo a severe hiding. So I decided to go for something much more substantial. Although adding quite a bit to the cost I’ve used nuts and bolts so I can dismantle them at the end of the summer for storage. The wood is autoclaved so should easily withstand a few years of sunshine & rain without crumbling away. 9 x 200x38x38 lengths of wood make up one frame. Each frame has 18 bolts. I have stapled netting to the frame for the plants to grasp and climb.
The first one is in place and currently has sweet peas growing beside it. I started them in the greenhouse last winter. I have far too many sweet pea plants so I’ll put all the leftovers on the steps of the chapel for people to take.
10/2/21
We took a trailer of rubbish to the tip yesterday and discovered a huge pile of free compost. I’ve had it in the past and been disappointed with the glass, plastic and weed seeds, but this time it looked perfect and had been fortified with horse poo. The guys at the tip lent me a shovel so I was able to half fill the trailer before exhaustion set in.
This morning I bucketed it down to the potager. Having strimmed the grass and laid down cardboard I then made a new path with the sawdust I’d had delivered a couple of weeks ago, then used the council compost to extend the vegetable beds to meet the new path. This should reduce the need for strimming and it’s widened the adjacent beds for more growing.
16/2/21
I spent the last week making four more bean/pea/squash arches. Two of them are half height for dwarf beans which always seem to need supporting despite bing vertically challenged.
17/2/21
We’ve had 9 days of rain in the past 16 so it hasn’t been ideal for putting some shape into the garden. The long borders look decidedly neglected so I’m looking forward to getting back to them. We even had snow on the 14th but it didn’t settle, so a relaxing Sunday off.
Today I worked in the greenhouse pricking out:
Tomatoes: Balcony x 6, Blue Beauty x 5, Alice’s Dream x 6 + Unlabelled (how did that happen?) x 3
Peppers: Aji Panca x 17
Brassicas: Chinese cabbage x 10 & Purple sprouting broccoli x 20
25/2/21
Our friends Micaela & Sue are staying with us for a week, visiting from their home near Saumur. They like a project and were here for the major pond-building exercise a few years ago. This time we set to painting the bean supports and shed.
I couldn’t be more thrilled with the outcome. During the autumn I sowed a ridiculous number of sweet pea seeds. I don’t know what I was thinking because I certainly don’t want to waste precious potager space with a million sweet peas, but now they have grown I can’t bear to cull them, so they’re going in. I’ll just have to pray that they’re over by the time vegetables more worthy of the space are ready. Wild violets are sprouting on our morning dog walk, so spring in springing despite the near-constant rains.
I’m absolutely thrilled to report that I’ve seen the first toad in the pond. ‘Build it and they will come’, and come they do. I think it’s a Western Spadefoot (Pelobates cultripes)
Later note: There also appear to be some Common Spiny toads (Bufo bufo spinosus) unless anyone wants to throw in a more educated suggestion than my Google trawl. .
Last day of the month and loads more seedlings. Comme d’habitude there will be enough for the entire hamlet and half the Languedoc. But who can throw away a seedling that has so recently burst from the soil? That struggle for life has to be respected surely?
