Raised beds..fed and not fed
Making more videos
Our first short video was an update on deadheading roses. Our first attempt with a video a few years ago ended up as an outtake as I was too busy getting tongue tied and laughing on screen to do anything ( I put it down to first time nerves). It’s still not appeared on Rude Tube or You’ve Been Framed yet, probably because I wasn’t riding on a skateboard, naked or falling off a table drunk at a wedding. Now there’s an idea...Roses, it depends who you talk to...
It depends who you talk to when it comes to deadheading your rose bushes. The usual method is to cut off the faded flower at the first big stem joint. This is supposed to rejuvenate the plant into a second flush of blooms. If your rose only flowers once a year then the flowers can be left on to produce hips. The other method is to just nip the head off just underneath the flower itself just where the hip would develop. This keeps more foliage on the plant, which in turn produces more energy, producing more flowers. The debate continues but just noticing that your roses need attention is a step in the right direction. The time for cutting the plants back comes later as the end of autumn arrives. Giving the plants a good cutting back of the old wood keeps them solid in the ground reducing the chance of wind damage as roses tend to work themselves out of the soil even though they have a long taproot.It’s funny writing about this now. I didn’t say any of this in the video. All the1minute film consisted of was a slow motion shot of me cutting a stem, the dog running around with the cut stem in his mouth and fast action music playing frantically in the background for dramatic effect. Oh, how we laughed making it...In hindsight it’s not that informative...or funny.
The second video update was more of a seasonal warning about caring for raised vegetable beds, dramatically stating that “This could happen to you if you are not careful” This is what happened to us because we weren’t careful:
Raised Bed Update
At the end of last year I made the raised beds and filled them with soil. The soil came from Linsfort on two big lorries and looked pretty good with a good proportion of sand, silt and clay. The main thing that was missing was nutrients, but that’s what creating good soil is all about, working on it until it’s full of goodness for the plants to thrive.I fed some of the beds with well rotted cow muck but put it quite deep and didn’t mix it in. The other beds were just left without any soil enhancing at all (I ran out of cow muck, it wasn’t a grand plan for research). I planted the mange tout into the bed with the cow muck and after a slow start the legume roots managed to tap into the added nutrients and have shot eight feet up in the air to the top of the hazel rods producing lots of fine fresh pods to eat. The other bed without feed has the runner beans in them and they are a disaster. The leaves are pale and sickly looking with stems that should be nine feet tall hardly getting past the two foot mark. Add to this the fact that no beans are appearing means that it’s going to take more than a few pints of nettle juice to revitalize these plants. The peas haven’t fared much better either, the hazel structures look great but the only thing that’s growing up them at the moment is the weeds. Our dog loves the peas even if they are a bit chewy, he likes the pods too for that matter.
Talking of weeds, I put some of the raised beds down on top of some small coltsfoot plants and they have penetrated through the paper and cardboard I put down then grown through the soil and taken over the beds. The courgettes didn’t stand a chance as the rose bay willow herbs have taken over. It’s not all doom and gloom though, there is loads of chickweed, and the guinea pigs love that. So there might be a couple of plump additions to the Christmas dinner table this year.
ps
Mary from Greenhilld farm rekons that the beans will fix their own nitrogen...It was probably the fact that the beans were in a cold spot...she's right again I'd say.. :)
