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Charlotte plants a couple of apple trees

June 17, 2019 By nmgarnett Leave a Comment

Firstly, a little story about ignorance…

We’ve got a neighbour who had a beautiful little apple tree in their garden. It wasn’t very old, maybe ten years, but it gave a little fruit every year that was passable. What was very nice is that some branches hung over our back fence and we’d eat the apples that dropped into our garden. Very neighbourly as we’d bring the woman who lived there a bottle of wine every now and again.

Anyway, we got home one day to witness the son chopping it down. Charlotte was very upset because the tree was like a family member and she decided to displace her rage by planting a couple of apple trees in our garden, which is not big. Her mum, Jane, left her a couple of really beautiful Italianate terra cotta’s that just seemed ideal. We, of course, used Wonderpost to help the trees feel comfortable in their new home.

So not really a tale of the allotment, but perhaps in the spirit of the allotment, and a tale of hope in the face of ignorance. I mean, chop down an apple tree, really!!!

How to do Soil Improvement the correct way

May 23, 2019 By nmgarnett Leave a Comment

It’s not often we re-publish other peoples blog posts, but when I was thinking of writing a post about ‘Soil Improvement’, an enormous subject at the best of times, I started to do some research and came across this wonderful article in Gardeners World. Simply titled ‘How to improve your soil‘ it was such an easy, informative read, I’ll just re-publish it, because I can’t do any better.

I’ll just give you the soil improvement preamble and then link to the article and the author:

Plants need good soil conditions if they are to give the best results. Improving the soil with plenty of organic matter in the form of compost helps drainage and aeration on heavy soils and conserves essential moisture on light ones.

Please click here to read the full article on the Gardeners World website

The Green Gym and onion tales…

October 11, 2018 By nmgarnett Leave a Comment

I often think that a day spent working in the garden can be physically rewarding for my old body. After all, the garden is often referred to as ‘the green gym’ as many gardening activities provide some light and gentle exercise. After weeks of traveling in the car which has involved journeys to Scotland and Holland, I’m in real need of a session in the ‘Green Gym’ and I am itching to get going on our Wonderpost allotment. However, pictures of me in action will not happen for at least 10 days as I still have a few journeys to make before I have some free time. Despite that I often find that gardeners, when actually not gardening are still thinking about it, and I am no exception.

Yesterday, in anticipation of some free time spent on the allotment I visited my local garden centre and bought some onion sets. The soil around our part of Suffolk is particularly good for growing onions and if you drive out towards Bawdsey you will see fields and fields of them growing in the light sandy soil. Onions like loose loam soil rather than heavy clay and as they have shallow roots they particularly benefit from the addition of organic matter to the top few inches of the soil … Which is just as well as we have covered half of our allotment with our fantastic soil improver.

I have bought two varieties of onions, Electric and Troy and will be planting 25 of each in both sides our plot. I am anticipating that those planted in the half that has been treated with Wonderpost to do very well. In the meantime, I’m off to Holland which is a Mecca for plants. You never know I might even pick up some fruit plants for our allotment!