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Grow dome

JFDI June

Pete and I have a number of unfinished projects that are weighing us down, so Pete came up with the idea of JFDI June – it stands for Just F* Do It. The idea is that we finish two of the major projects so that we can start new things next month – when we will have JFDI July and try and continue the momentum.

I’ve been fighting some kind of bug and I haven’t had much energy, but this week I have been feeling better and have (somewhat unexpectedly) taken a couple of long jobs off my garden to do list.

Firstly, I spent a couple of hours pruning the fruit trees in the chicken run. Whenever I do this I normally go on about how I don’t know what I’m doing, but this time I found it quite a zen-like experience, outside in the dappled shade on a nice day. The apple, the only tree to reliably fruit, has a good crop this year; but the big news is that the three other trees (a pear, plum and cherry) also have fruit – although not enough to get excited about it does give me hope for future years. I would have grubbed them out last year, except that the one thing they do do is give the chickens some shade.

Yesterday I spent a similar amount of time removing 9 concrete blocks (they’re pretty heavy) from the Grow Dome raised bed to make it one block lower – the idea being to make it far easier to reach the back of the bed. It has had an interesting effect as the Grow Dome now looks far more open and inviting. I didn’t take two hours to move the blocks, though. I spent the rest of the time mulching with black plastic, watering, and planting out some exciting plants. Half a dozen watermelons and one luffa.

Hopefully now I can make better use of the greenhouse. I do need Pete to chop back a bush which is causing too much shade. I can’t reach, but we’ve been waiting until the sparrows finished nesting as they like that bush. Maybe it will be on the list for JFDI July ;)

The Big Drippa

I’m not that great at remembering to water things, and a little while back I thought I would order something to give me a hand in the Grow Dome to stop plants expiring before I get around to quenching their thirst.

I settled on the Big Drippa, because it’s free-standing and doesn’t require a pump or power or a water source – none of which are available in the Grow Dome.

The Big Drippa is a sturdy plastic bag that hangs up and is fitted with 5 metres of plastic tubing. You cut the tubing at your chosen intervals to fit 6 adjustable plastic drippers, which can be set to water plants at different rates. This is a low pressure system, relying on the bag being the same height as the drippers.

I have two, and they are now installed and I’m finding out how they work and tweaking them as necessary. They were a bit of a pain to set up, but hopefully they will work. If all 5 drippers are in use then the contents of the bag (10.5 litres) only lasts 24 hours, so it’s not a solution if you want an automatic watering system to take care of plants while you are away.

Green Thumb Sunday: Upgrading

Winter is traditionally the time when structural changes are made to the garden – mainly because there’s very few plant-related jobs to do.

I had 12 concrete blocks on the patio, waiting for me to find them a home. This morning I have moved 8 of them into the Grow Dome, where they take some of the space I freed up on Friday and turn it into a new bed. I can now plant low growing plants around the bottom of the ponds, and have a small bed I can use next year to grow taller plants where they won’t throw a shadow.

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Dust bathing

Nice weather took me out into the garden yesterday, and I had a plan to move some of the blocks around in the Grow Dome. When I looked more closely, I decided they were better as they were – and pulled up the remains of the peanut plants instead.

The chickens don’t normally come into the Grow Dome, but yesterday they did – and immediately decided that the empty low bed was actually a giant chicken dust bath. They had so much fun getting themselves dirty that I’ve decided to leave that bed empty for the winter for them. Providing a dry dust bath for them when the weather is murky is always problematic – now they have one permanently available, although visits will have to be supervised. (They may look innocent, but moments before this was taken Princess was scratching away in the carrot tub!)

I’ve transplanted sorrel and chard into some of the empty planting holes around the edge of the bed, leaving a couple empty so that the chickens have easy access. They can nibble on the greens if they want to; the plants should be tough enough to survive the chicken treatment.

Once the chickens were done I started clearing out the Grow Dome. The cardboard chips were swept up and plonked on the compost heap. They did their job really well, but they’re a pain to make, so I will replace them with bark chips instead.

And I moved the potting table out and into the sun room, which gives me more room to play with in the Grow Dome, makes it feel less cramped and gives me space to overwinter plants in pots (like the fig) out of the worst of the weather. I found a lot of slug eggs, which the chickens happily disposed of.

New pond plants

My new pond plants arrived yesterday. I ordered Frogbit and Water Soldier from Wiggly Wigglers. They got a bit battered in transit, but they’re free-floating plants so all I had to do once they arrived was chuck them in the pond. Some of them are already looking perkier this morning.

The Hornwort plants from last year are all doing well, but the ponds are still a bit murky.

Grow Your Own Elephant's Ears

I saw these eddoes (aka Taro and Elephant’s Ears) on sale in Tesco and couldn’t resist buying a bag and trying to grow them.

According to Food Plants of the World, Taro (Colocasia esculenta) rarely flowers because it has been cultivated by division for so long. Originally from south east Asia, it’s now grown in many parts of the world for its edible tubers, leaves and stems. It is easily grown from tubers in warm, moist conditions. Cooked in similar ways to potatoes, taro has a high energy value, is easily digestible, and also contains vitamin C, phosphorus and iron. It’s a highly ornamental plant, but outside the tropics it may take two years to grow new tubers.

Joy Larkcom’s Oriental Vegetables suggests that taro is not really worth growing outside of the tropics, but that there is a variety which is being grown in Europe for the leaves and stems. A 1m tall perennial, taro likes lots of water and can be forced to provide blanched leaves. It suggests planting tubers around 15 cm deep and 38 cm apart.

Bearing this advice in mind, I have planted my 4 tubers singly in large tubs, in the Grow Dome. 3 of the tubs have a built in water reservoir to help keep the moisture levels up. The 4th has drainage holes that are raised above the bottom of the pot, so it isn’t completely free-draining either.

Joe Swift grew taro in his garden of tropical edibles on Gardeners’ World last summer, but I don’t think he ever tried to eat them.

Green Thumb Sunday: Pea flowers

Pilot peas, flowering away in the Grow Dome.

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The maximum temperature in the Grow Dome yesterday was 20°C .
The overnight minimum was -2°C.

Heating up

The Grow Dome in August 2007

In the last week or so, the sun has been getting high enough to creep back into the garden. The chickens are pretty much ignoring the short-lived sunny corner of their run, but the Grow Dome is slap bang in the sun’s path. Yesterday I reconnected the automatic vent on the front and it swung straight open – and closed again later when the sun moved on.

I’m now more motivated to do what I should have been doing all along – monitoring the temperature inside the dome.

The maximum temperature yesterday was 22°C.
The overnight minimum was 2°C (for reference, it was a frosty night).

Cheap as chips

I was going to put bark chips on the floor in the Grow Dome, to keep it nice and weigh down the weed control fabric (which I otherwise keep tripping over).

However, there’s not much money in the bark chip budget and the chickens get priority for what there is. So, since we have plenty of cardboard, I’m experimenting with cardboard chips instead. (Well it is the season for silly gardening ideas, and all of 2006’s turned out OK!)

I’ve torn up a couple of boxes today (it’s quite hard on the wrists!) and started putting them down in the Grow Dome. I don’t know how well it will work, but I thought it was worth trying. In the event that it doesn’t work, all I have to so is sweep them up and throw them on the compost.

Green Thumb Sunday: Pak Choi

I’ve been growing pak choi and other Oriental vegetables in the Grow Dome over the winter. They’ve done really well and look very healthy. While I was out in the Grow Dome this morning I noticed that the Pak Choi was flowering, which means it’s definitely time to start eating it. I’ve pulled this plant out and we’ll have if for dinner tonight. I’ll harvest the others over the next few days.

The concrete blocks I used to build the raised beds in the Grow Dome have large holes in them, which are great for growing small plants (with some restrictions, I’ve learned). The problem is that the holes line up and so are more than 2 feet deep – and I don’t have enough soil or compost to fill them all. I’ve been pondering this problem for months and have come up with a possible solution.

Back in September I was partially filling the large raised bed itself with cardboard sheeting, to lessen the amount of soil needed to fill it. At the same time I got hold of lots of moulded cardboard (it’s old computer packaging), which I was going to gradually add to the compost heap.

In my gardening hour this morning I have been tearing these bits of cardboard into chunks and pushing them into the planting holes, crushing them down and leaving a few inches on top for compost. I’m hoping that the cardboard will gradually compost down and settle, so I can top the holes off with compost every season. I had enough to fill 16 holes, which is space for 16 more plants in spring. As to whether it works, I will have to wait and see.

Second Grow Dome bed

I didn’t get out in the garden yesterday (and today looks like it will, literally, be a washout), but on Thursday I moved 4 more concrete blocks into the Grow Dome and put together the second raised bed. It might not be entirely symmetrical, but I don’t care. I’m going to stop at one layer of bricks for several reasons. Firstly, the ground is not level and another layer of bricks would be very wobbly. Secondly, I haven’t got enough compost to fill a deep bed and there are lots of plants that will be happy in several inches of compost. Thirdly, if I stop here I have 24 blocks left and can make another raised bed in the garden at some point.

That only took the first half of my gardening hour, so for the rest of it I emptied the bag of mulch onto the bottom of the garden again. The bag is now empty and the bottom of the garden largely mulched.

Green Thumb Sunday: December

This was the garden yesterday lunch time, with the sun falling directly onto the grow dome and the chickens in shadow almost all day.

Sometimes the winter sun entices me outside, but it’s cold and I’m not in the mood for digging up the weeds in front of the Grow Dome.

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Everything in the Grow Dome is... green

I spent some time in the Grow Dome yesterday morning, cramming in a few more seedlings (lettuce for the chickens and more chard for all of us) and the good news is that a couple of the saffron crocus corms are sending up shoots.

Some of the peas have already reached the top of the twiggy sticks and it appears that I should have read the packet before I stuck them in – they can grow up to 150 cm tall, so they will need more support. I should have planted the Douce Provence instead of the Pilot.

The ‘greens’ are doing well, though, with the Chinese cabbage romping away. They may be planted too closely together, although that’s not really an issue because if they get overcrowded we can just eat them :o)

Grow dome goodies

Although the nights are getting colder, the grow dome is doing its job and protecting my seedlings.

The peas are growing nicely into their twiggy sticks, although some of them are a bit lazy and attempting to trail along the ground.

The tatsoi and coriander are doing well in their tub.

Oriental greens are fast-growing, healthy-looking plants. This is one of the tatsoi seedlings.

The largest dwarf green kale is also looking well.

The temperature inside the dome is currently 10°C. When the sun comes up (and today looks like it will be a nice day), that will rapidly rise into the 20s.

Patio nectarine

Decorating has been our top priority this week, as the painting needs to be finished before the new bedroom carpet arrives on Monday. It’s surprisingly hard work, and combined with lousy weather it has kept me indoors.

While hubby was recording his podcast (bleepshow) this morning, I decided that a change of pace was in order and did some gardening. Same dirty clothes, different muscle groups.

My first job was to move my patio nectarine ‘Nectarella’ into a permanent home in the grow dome. It has been in a container for several years now, and although it is supposed to be happy there it generally isn’t. A permanent indoor home will prevent it from getting leaf curl, and hopefully encourage it to fruit.

With the nectarine planted and given a thick mulch of home made compost, I could see how much space I had left to plant out my salad plants. I planted out the kale, leaf beet and the odd spinach seedling (spinach germination was patchy). The Oriental vegetables (pak choi, Chinese cabbage and tatsoi) were all nicely grown. Unfortunately I ran out of space and so the tatsoi and the coriander are planted out in a large container instead.

I still have more spinach seedlings, lamb’s lettuce, land cress and parsley to plant out at some point, so there will have to be more containers.

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