Humph's Happy Horti-cult: harvesting, preserving, mulching, leaf-gathering, bulb-dibbing, seed catalogue-surfing and hunkering down for winter

[Lexilicious]

Following on from the original March to August thread. For all - whether still gardening through the winter or planning to sweep the shed, hibernate, sharpen the tools and get started again in the spring.

Happy gardening again!

Oops. I bought a plant. At Rosemoor, in the rain last week.

I dragged my mum there (she's the member although I'm thinking about it), with at least half the aim being to go to the half price plant sale, and also to see the garden sculpture exhibition which was mostly great. The plants in the sale were all pretty sad specimens, although I'm sure perfectly healthy. Instead I bought (at full price) a Cornus alba 'Midwinter Fire'. Which is going to look great in front of an evergreen honeysuckle which itself will eventually cover the nasty Ronsealy fence.

I have got little quivers of excitement about seed potato time too, but I can't go to any fairs. I've already planned my potatoes and got them coming from Marshalls - can't remember now what I'm getting but I think it's an early, second early, salad, and baking potato. Definitely four. Will be grown in those tall sack things.

Oooh. Do all the RHS gardens have a half price plant sale at the moment?

::Points car towards Wisley::

yup I think so! hie thee hence!

Eek!

::Credit card starts to twitch::

I wonder if I can persuade DH to go tomorrow?

Oh no, I was at Wisley today but steered clear of the plant shop. There was a sale????!!!

The gardens were nice though...did get cross about the change in the age at which you start paying for children. They stealthily changed it yesterday and made it a year younger (now under 5 rather than under 6). This means we now need to pay for DD1 so had to upgrade our membership a year earlier than planned; so a cheap afternoon out turned out quite expensive .

That does seem a bit cheeky. Likewise, we were at Warwick Castle a few days ago and I was appalled that they charge the adult admission price from the age of 12.

Hope all your gardens are bearing up in this wind. We have some trees down in the woods (no ancillary damage luckily so we'll be out with the chainsaw to top up our wood shed) and my broad beans are at strange angles despite their supports .

I haven't been out to look - it really is filthy here - but I see that one of my neighbour's fancy Christmas pots has blown off the windowsill and smashed. I'm more worried that the windowboxes are now so waterlogged that the windowsill itself may collapse under the weight.

Needless to say, we changed our minds abut driving to Wisley. My consolation was to be a trip to the local garden centre, but we discovered that in January it only opens at weekends. Ah well.

My complicated psuedopolytunnel made of two rings of about 5-6 plant supports with three 3ft tall hooped over canes, and polythene skin over the top secured with, er, clothes pegs... did not survive the wind and/or rain. As I said to Alys Fowler on Twitter because @TheMontyDon didn't reply I will re-engineer it on Friday in a break while working from home.

All else is stable, too dark to see if anything came down in the woods out the back but I doubt it.

Alys Fowler on Twitter?

::Rushes off::

But what a PITA about the collapse of the Heath Robinson unique polytunnel.

Heath Robinson it surely was. I've just PM'd you with my twitname (is my real name hence not on the thread! If you look at yesterday's posts from me you'll see a picture. Is quite shabby.

And I PMed you too!

Sorry about your Polytunnel Lexi.

Am very very pleased as just got RHS membership for £16.50 of Tesco Clubcard vouchers. Had been thinking about it then found this.

Now, how much discount do I get on tickets to Chelsea ? ....

Wow! What a bargain. I should start shopping in Tesco, rather than paying full whack!

Apologies but have to share this website. Found it while searching for climbing purple french bean seeds. Have placed a conservative order for some veg seeds but could happily go mad with the weird and wonderful - grow your own rain forest anyone?

Wow! Thinking of jungly, every year I toy with growing ricinus communis as it's so fantastically structural. I gather you can only buy the seeds now by mail order, so that they can trace where it goes.

Wynken (and others of course!) when you go to Chelsea (although I would recommend Hampton Court in July above Chelsea) another money saving tip is to cancel whatever magazine you might currently be subscribed to, and sign up for something else at the show. Because you will get a new subscriber rate, and also probably a free gift! I signed up a year's subscription to GYO mag in 2010 at the HCFS and got the Carol Klein 'how to grow fruit' book (hardback), two or three small paperbacks about veg and compost, and that current month's issue - i.e. 13 issues and three/four books for the shelf price of about 6 issues!

WHSmith also has a deal on magazine subscriptions at the moment... haven't checked closely enough if there are any horti/vegi ones

Very much agree with Lexi that the Hampton Court show is a far better experience than the overcrowded scrum that is Chelsea!

Ah, maybe I need a rethink on Chelsea. I don't really do London but would love to go to one of the shows so was thinking I should make the effort if possible this year.

Wow to the Jungleseeds site. I'm not sure my moneysaving January is going to work. I don't know where my seed tin has gone, if I have to replace that there is going to be a big hole in my bank account. I feel quite twitchy not knowing where it is.

Try real seeds for trail of tears climbing French bean . It has a lovely story, I also grew the fat baby Cucurbit from there last year which was interesting but grew well here in the north. Grew it through the brambles and had some quite decent produce .

Hello all - been a bit quiet on here lately! I actually managed to get into the garden at lunchtime today which made a refreshing change. I dug up a mass of artichokes as I suddenly realised that I needed to get through them as with the weather so mild they'll probably be starting to sprout soon! So dug up about half the bed and am planning a soup using the artichokes and some teeny celeriac (and possibly some mooli if I get out again to pull some tomorrow). I also dug in some of my green manure to start prepping the veg beds. I decided to try the pit full of kitchen peelings under my beans theory so dug a hole and threw some scraps in...not convinced but I'll go with it.

Need to get out and do something with the long bed - all my bulbs are coming up and I've not cut back last year's plants so it all looks a bit messy at the moment.

My Jungleseed order arrived today , unfortunately they also popped a catalogue in the parcel and I'm finding it hard to resist flicking through it...

hello everyone

I picked a large bunch of marigolds from the remains of the wild flower meadow yesterday, SO odd in January. The birds have been very active in all the seed heads, we are really glad we left it all there. There are some raspberries on the canes and I ate some brocolli yesterday.

Otherwise the herb beds have been cleared, the manure spread over (but not yet dug) the round veg patch. Three roses have been moved, the magnolia resited to the middle of the new border and the borders by the back of the house have been done. Mostly by DH but I have been out there.

We are expecting a frost so have been out to cover up all the stuff that was inside my cheapy greenhouse until it blew down.

Frost here finally this morning . I sneaked off to spend my garden vouchers from Christmas. Went to a lovely little walled garden centre which has loads and loads of roses. Gallic roses, moss roses, ground cover, climbers, ramblers, the list goes on and all at £10.99. Thought that was good value for decent quality ones.

I bought Mme Alfred Carriere and a Tayberry. So have planting to do soon.

So glad I don't have a Jungleseeds catalogue . I can control myself on a website but sitting down with a cuppa and seed catalogue is fatal.

Noticed my marigolds were sprouting again Humphrey, but I'm moving allotments and they had to come out. Self sown ones ate coming through though so will transplant them onto new allotment if they survive the frost.

My Dad has requested garden vouchers for his birthday. He's got a small garden and does lots of annuals in pots. There is a shady bed down the end he hasn't done much with. AIBU to ignore voucher request and buy him a hosta, lily of the valley, dicentra and hardy cyclamen ?

I love Mme Alfred Carriere.

Buy the plants for your Dad, you know he needs them