I’m a list maker. Not as bad as my mum who writes everything down on Post-it notes, which are stuck all over the house but a list maker non the less. Last year, however I didn’t have enough lists. It was my first year with an allotment and I spent most of my time feeling overwhelmed by the jobs to do. I always felt I was playing catchup. I would pick up a book or magazine and read that I should have pruned my gooseberries months ago or given my roses their high potash feed. It’s not that I’m short of information, far from it, my bookcase groans under the weight of gardening books offering tips and advice. The problem is finding the relevant bit when needed and having to wade through lots that I just don’t need for my own garden. So this year I decided to draw up month by month lists of tasks to do that were relevant to my own garden and allotment.
2012 will be the year my roses are pruned and fed at the right times, the year I don’t forget to sow the Antirrhinums in early March and the year I achieve some sort of successive sowing. Well that’s the theory anyway.
Confined indoors over the last week or so by the cold weather I went through my gardening books and created a tailor made to do list. I now have 2 sowing lists, one for the veg and the other for the cut flowers and a list of tasks to do, such as pruning and feeding. Suddenly everything seemed clearer and less daunting. Would it be taking it too far to get them laminated? Mmmm probably, although it won’t be long before they’re covered in muddy finger prints and water stains.
Buoyed by my feeling of organisation and the relatively mild weather I tackled the first job on my list for February, feeding fruit. Now is the time to give your blackcurrants, gooseberries, raspberries and strawberries a sprinkling of a balanced fertiliser. I use one from the Organic Gardening Catalogue.
Then it was time to prune the autumn fruiting raspberries cutting last year’s growth down to the ground. I can already see new growth at the base of the plants that will become this year’s stems and hopefully by August they will be groaning under the weight of fruit.
Back at home I filled a seed tray with 50:50 multipurpose compost and vermiculite and sowed some celeriac and Verbena bonariensis. You could use a special seed compost but I don’t really have the space to have different types of compost. I find a good quality multipurpose compost such as New Horizon mixed with some vermiculite works well for me. I haven’t grown Verbena from seed before, I normally buy them as small plants and once in the garden they do self seed but I find the plants you get from these seedlings are often quite spindly and never really bulk up like the ones that have been raised under cover. I collected some seed at the end of last year so I thought I’d see if I could get some earlier plants from starting them off indoors. I just used one half tray for both seed types. Dividing the tray in half and being careful where I sowed I find this works when space is limited. I only want 9 celeriac plants for the allotment and although I sowed more than 9 seeds in case some don’t germinate I couldn’t devote a whole tray, even a half tray to just celeriac.
Celeriac is another new addition to the allotment this year. Apparently I have to be patient because it is slow to germinate, up to 4 weeks I’ve read. Not really my kind of seed, I like French beans and courgettes which can be up within days of sowing but I love celeriac mashed in Bubble and Squeak so wanted to give growing it a try. It’s strange to think that I am already planning for this autumn by sowing seed for such long growing plants as celeriac but a whole spring and summer will have passed before I come to eat it.
I have verbena and celeriac seeds here so will do the same. Last year I cut half my Autumn Bliss raspberries down to the ground and the other half to 50cms. The latter started fruiting in August and the rest in September and both went on into October. I have just defrosted the last of them and it’s enough for raspberry crumble for ten (it’s half term).
I’m a list maker too. I’m getting better at remembering jobs to do but I still need to follow something that I’ve set out as a plan. Of course, the weather doesn’t always play ball and lists can quickly become useless. Everything seems to thrive regardless!
Help! I haven’t even started my list yet. I think I’m still hibernating :-D
But, seriously, can’t wait to get started, now that holidays are over and hopefully snow is too.
Beautiful blog, thank you.
BW,
Lesley
I’m not a list maker, but I usually sort my seeds in to months to be sown and go from there. I’m a bit more relaxed about things and everything gets done when it gets done. Probably not the ideal way to go about things but it makes me less stressed.
Usually, I’m a great list maker, but unfortunately not where gardening is concerned, I feel it all depends on the weather. This means of course that sometimes jobs just don’t get done, never mind, there’s always next year!
I do better if I have a list, so when I get far behind I sit down and make one. I need to start one now – I’m very far behind in starting my seeds for this year! Good luck with your celeriac!
I make lists for all sorts of tasks in fits and starts and then sometimes deviate from them anyway :) What I try do though is make lists every time I finish an allotment session as to what I will do on my next visit, what I need to take with me, what I might need to research etc. This gives me some sort of structure to each session and makes sure that I don’t forget essentials. I don’t drive so nipping back home for something is not a practical option. I also try to organise my seeds into sowing order.
Ah! successive sowing, something I dream of doing properly one year. I have promised myself to at least sow enough beans but in shorter rows; it has always been rather feast or famine in the past. I’m a list maker too; I think I do it for the satisfaction of ticking jobs done!
I was going to write that I’m overawed by your list making and attention to detail and then I realised that I already have laminated sowing lists pinned up in the shed…
I’m a list maker too, though I tend to then lose the relevant list and forget things anyway – hope you manage better! Good luck with the celeriac, it is a wonderful taste, I lost most of my seedlings last year through under watering them – they are apparently really thirsty plants, once they have their heads up and a few leaves on them. I’m not growing any this year because hopefully I will be settling in to a new garden by the time I could be thinking of harvesting them.
Lists are OK, but they fill up. So I then have two or three different ‘themed’ lists. And then four or five. Then I lose the first one, and have to start all over again. There is a simple pleasure in ticking off itmes on a list, isn’t there?
I’m generally fairly organised but I do also have a general list and a day to day one. I’m planning on successive sowing as well! xx
I am a combination of a list maker (although not on your scale which makes me weak with envy) and a disorganised, organised person. For example, I knew I had a lovely neat list of my snowdrop count, and surely snowdrop counting is the most anal activity ever, but it took me a while to find it because I had three different garden journals going. For this year I find I have bought two lovely books to record what is going on and have another which was a present. I clearly haven’t worked it out as you have!
Hi Elizabeth, I know what you mean about being disorganised/organised. I’ve got several garden books on the go and I’m forever writing notes on pieces of scrap paper and then losing them. Life is generally trying to be organised but not always achieving it.