• Dorothy Clive Garden Staffordshire, Intimate and formal garden in North Staffordshire with a variety of landscape features, including a woodland garden, an alpine scree, a damp garden and …
  www.dorothyclivegarden.co.uk/
• Abbotsbury Gardens, Dorset. A paradise of subtropical plants, Many Huge trees, including unusual and tender specimens.
• Ness Botanic gardens : Multi-award winning garden with breathtaking views across to the River Dee. Visitor Centre with Four Seasons café, gift shop, plant sales, seasonal events:
• www.nessgardens.org.uk/

• Plant out vegetables grown under cover like Courgettes and Sweetcorn.
• Tie in Sweet Peas and Annual climbers
• If you run short or salad vegetables, sprout some seeds on your windowsill.
• Snap off Tomato side shoots as they appear.
• Continue to remove suckers from Roses, Lilac and other plants before they get too large.
• Stake Gladioli

Plant night scented plants

Vegetables

Peas and Beans should be tied in on canes and watered well in dry weather.

Salad Crops should be sown every 3 weeks to ensure leaves throughout the summer.

Potatoes planted in early march should be ready to harvest, otherwise keep building soil up around the stem (earthing up) to ensure a heavy crop and water well.

Tomatoes should be tied in to Bamboo canes and watered well.

Fertilize all crops with an organic fertiliser ( I use seaweed)

It really is great to finally know that movement is being made to withdraw the use of Peat in our Horticultural supplies, it is a campaign I have believed in from the start with Geoff Hamilton. Geoff  was incredible pioneer in gardening by focusing us all to get back to basics with gardening. Use our general waste household materials in the garden as planters, pots and watering devices. He reused waste water in his garden in Barnsdale and built beautiful structures from waste hard landscape materials that now is so fashionable.Sadly in the 80’s when excess was so in vogue Geoff’s ideas seemed a little strange, but with all good practices they are the ones that stand the test of time. Sadly Geoff cannot be with us today to witness our Green Revolution but he will so proud of us all reusing our toilet roll tubes as planting pots and using old sponges in our pots, hanging baskets and planters to hold on to water.

We at Grobox use an organic planting medium in our GroBoxes that help save our beautiful landscape from the mining of peat.

I have purchased the vegetable box (think it’s the spring ) – pic of radishes and carrots and tomato on front.The instructions are a bit confusing – it says leave lid shut and just push through holes in top, but website says open the lid.Also how deep should it go in the ground?

And finally, will I need to do any transplanting when the veg starts to grow?

Hope you can help!

Thanks

Wonderful to hear from you and thank you for supporting our company. We are sorry it is a little confusing, it was just here in the UK we were having longer wetter Spring and Summer months and we wanted you all to get the most out of your GroBox Garden seedlings.  If you open the lid and fold it underneath prior to planting, cover lightly with compost or soil. When all your little seedlings grow, you can thin them all out by transplanting them in pots, containers, borders and even hanging baskets. Then you are ensured plenty of fresh veggies all over your garden. Just plant your GroBox just under the soil level and cover lightly with compost and water well.

The GroBox is designed with a number of plants that actually fix nitrogen in the soil and provide food for our hungrier vegetables, so you don’t need to feed until the final fruiting stage.

Enjoy your vegetables, herbs and flowers!

So what to do next in our garden as we try to use those precious few hours at weekend.  Mow lawns, cover your borders with chipped bark or a similar organic mulch to try to avoid weeding (I believe there is more to life than weeding, and it is something I do not do). If mulch is not your thing, then use a living ground cover, such as Vinca (a bit rampant) Laminum, Ivy (variegated) Cotoneaster horizontal-is to name a few.

Pots by your door with wonderful scented plants to welcome you home, this year all my hanging baskets are going very low maintenance with grasses as centre pieces and nasturtiums hanging down. So just plant your GroBoxes, and enjoy your gardens by getting out as much as your can, take inspiration from walks, parks and gardens in your local area. Have a wonderful spring.

Ponds are a real worry this time of year especially when we are having a prolonged hard winter. If the entire top of the pond is frozen but it is a very deep pond you should be ok, as the oxygenating plants should give enough oxygen for the fish and other life, do try to melt a little ice at the side of the pond and try to melt the ice under the  football as it will be a little thinner there, so frogs and toads can have an air hole when they climb to the surface. If your pond is small and shallow, try to melt the ice with cold water and place a football on top of the surface and cover with horticultural fleece to protect from prolonged cold. Keep checking your ponds and ensure there is always an air hole for the wildlife.

Enjoy

Jobs in the Gardener’s Calendar

Order seeds
Defrost birdbaths and top up with clean water
Sow  peas, beans, winter cabbage, ruby chard in pots
Grit paths

Looking over the white landscape it really is hard to believe that this week temperatures will plummet to minus 7/8.this cold really does cleanse the garden from pest and disease. The main problem of permafrost in the soil is that the soil water is cut off to the plants, this puts extra stress on the weaker plants in the garden and we can just hope that they will survive. In the horticultural industry soft fruit growers spray their plants with fine mists of water throughout the day and night to protect them from frost. Straw or horticultural fleece can ensure the plant stays insulated and soil warming cables ensure the soil water is available to feed the plants, this is used on allotments and for growers who want to protect their breeding stock.

The frosting of snow really does show our trees and shrubs as wonderful architectural specimens. I always try to take as many photographs of my garden in the winter as it acts as a starting point when I try to redesign my borders. Whilst it is a hard winter in the garden there are still many jobs to be done, paths need regularly gritting, hedges need to be smartened up with a clip and leaves can be collected. The soil can be turned over and if you have any large lumps of clay these exposed to the frost will break up the clay and create lovely soil. Clay soil is one of the most nutrient rich soils for our plants and its great water holding properties allow us to grow a wonderful range of plants.

Remember there is one advantage to all this cleansing, the slug population is diminishing as we blog.

Happy Gardening

• Choose a sheltered, south facing plot. If your soil is poor, make a raised bed with disused timber and fill with topsoil
• Warm the soil before planting with plastic on top.
• Plant hardworking veg, kale, spinach, ruby chard, radishes, beeroot, onions and beans and peas.
• Create a compost heap near to your bed, for disused leaves, roots and shoots.
• Check for pests and diseases and destroy any affected plants.
• Grow Calendula, nasturtiums, tagetes and limnanthes alongside your veg. Enjoy

Gardeners Diary

Start sowing hardy annual bedding plants this month, sow thinly and leave to germinate in a heated propagator, windowsill or seed tray. Transfer in pots when the seedlings are large enough to handle and leave in a warm greenhouse or room.