Gardening under lockdown

 

Gardening

A post originally written in April 2020

Gardening is an interest I’ve neglected over the past few years. This has been partly as I’ve felt less able to do things but mainly that with spending a big portion of time in our Whitby flat we are not around for all jobs necessary. Annette is particularly keen on gardening in pots. This is fine and is reasonably successful. However in the dry summer months pots need daily watering and if we are not around plants die. A subsidiary reason is that I only like to grow things I can eat and shop bought fruit and vegetables seem cheap and hassle free.

Faced with isolation in the coronavirus emergency we were casting around for things to do. Annette initially suggested some gardening as a worthwhile pastime. This has now expanded to become more ambitious. Our thinking is that fresh fruit and vegetables may well become rather limited when the recovery we hope for starts. This recovery is likely to be slowish as production ramps up after what has been a crash stop.

The recent bout of fine weather has helped enormously.( written spring 2020 ) It has been pleasant to be outside for a part of the day. Having been relatively keen in the past we have the tools and equipment. We would have liked to buy some growbags for use in our greenhouse but we are just too late. At this stage we are taking isolation completely seriously and a trip out to a garden centre is not to be contemplated.

Fortunately we have lots of garden compost as we haven’t used much in the past couple of years. We also have ground available that we can bring back into use. Some is inside our fruit cage which has mainly shielded raspberries plus a couple of redberry bushes. Our mini orchard has been rather neglected and one of the original  trees is now smothered in ivy and another is rather diseased. These were large trees which I imagine were planted many years ago without the benefit of dwarfing rootstocks. Our modern apple trees aren’t in bad shape. I have found that they need dramatic fruit thinning as the natural “drop” is insufficient.

One disappointment will be blackberries. I like blackberries and I don’t mind the thorny process of picking them. Unfortunately my prize clump has been nearly wiped out by a tree falling from  next door. The top fell on the bush and clearing it has proven a long job which is still incomplete.. The bush will regenerate but not this year.

I have one big plum tree. All my other efforts with plums have failed miserably to the extent I’ve dug them up. I’m hoping for a good crop. I made plum jam last year and, even though I say so myself, it’s delicious.

The hard work of cultivating is being done by our friendly gardener. Social distancing is proving a bit odd but the sessions have gone OK. We have arranged benches on the patio so that we can still have a coffee and a chat while keeping 2m apart.

So far I have been trying to get organised so haven’t had much time to just wonder round and look at buds forming. We’ve had a gorgeous crop of primroses, a lot self set, but they have certainly brightened the garden.

One relic we have rescued after being neglected for years is a strawberry tub. We never had any joy growing strawberries in it so we plan to try French beans. I still have a very large strawberry tub but we don’t have any plans for it.- in fact it has never been used except for storage in all the time we lived here.

Our big problem is rabbits. We border on open country and they have been a major problem- in fact one reason for growing in tubs. We will probably fall back on home made cloches used more for protection than warmth. That will  be dependent on finding the glass stored away several years ago.