Thursday, February 01, 2007

Knees, Oranges & The Veg Patch!!

I'm a bit tee'd of today!! I am having awful problems with my knees! I used to suffer quite badly with my knees aching etc, which I could understand, but surely now I have lost two and half stone I shouldn't be having these problems!! I've only really noticed it since I've upped the exercise!! I don't know if its not one thing its another!! Do I let it stop me? Do I flip!!!

So look what I got in Devizes market for £1


Over 3lbs of Seville Oranges!!! Oh! I know I bought some the other day, but with the mincer I bought off Ebay for £10 including postage, winging its way to me as we speak, and they where alot cheaper than the other lot I bought!!

I also bought some 4ply wool so I can have a go at another Japenese Amigurumi Little animal, whilst I sit down this afternoon to rest my knees and watch the DVD Kathryn left behind!!!

Before all of that I decided to start digging over some of the veg patches....



I had the onions in this bed last year and I plan to grow my root veg in here this year! Thats why I haven't put any compost or chicken manure on. I found loads of worms in here. All done!



This bed had my salads and garlic in



I thought I would put the onions in here this year but look what I found..



2 lovely parsnips. This was a surprise because although I planted some last year, I had used old seed! I've since found out this is not a good idea and explains why I thought none had come up!!!

Anyway I stopped here becuase of my poor old knees. But I have a 2 slight problems that I'm hoping all my lovely blog readers may be able to help me solve......



I have put the bird feeder in the middle of this bed! If you look on the ground you can see two different colours, one is the aubiose from the chicken run and the other is the scattered bird food, I did used to have this feeder in the gravel but you can imagine the mess, so where do I put it or what can I put under it!! I don't really want to move it further down the garden because we won't be able to see the birdies and we do have some beautiful ones come to visit! But we do need to get it out of the veg bed!!!

Problem 2
I plan to really sort this bed out but first I need to see if I can sort this problem out





In the first picture you can see some buddleia and the second a ceanothus, can you see how they lean out? To some extent I understand becuase my neighbour on the left not only has a large apple tree in the middle of her 12ft wide garden, but also her lefthand boundary consists of enormous silver birch trees. This is a very sunny border, I am facing south in the first picture with the camera. Any suggestions please as to what to do, what may grow, you can see she has loads growing in her garden and the roots sucker off into my garden I'm forever trying to grow my own plants and not her suckers!!!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

You have done a brilliant job - it looks gorgeous - just love the veggie patches.

Bird feeder on veggie patches - you are right - not a good idea, because of all the seeds that the birds drop tend to grow!

Anywhere on grass you can stick it in?

It is a fantastic feeder = where did you buy it? I would love one of those!

What a bargain with the oranges - they will be great for making marmalade for Christmas hampers. I make whiskey marmalade for Christmas and can never make enough!

Know what you mean about suckers! I get brambles coming into my garden - and nightmare.

Just shallow rooted flowers or shrubs really - is all I can suggest.

RUTH said...

Hi Libby; first in case you dont see it in my comment box....don't worry about not soaking the sweet pea seeds. I don't bother normally; it was only because it was such old seed I wanted to make sure I wasn't wasting my time.
The bird table feeder (lovely one)I don't know your house layout...can it go in the front garden???...would you still see it. It's difficult when you want to be able to see the birds but the seed scatters and germinates. Would you be willing to use only bread, fruit or peanuts in this as then it would drop but not germinate...though it may cut down on the range of birds???
The buddlia you can hack back as much as you want and maybe by being low growing will bush more and not lean. Perhaps some ground cover plants like low growing sedums (have a look through some garden catalogues for other ideas) at least if its low growing the suckers will come above it and you can keep chopping them off.
Hope your knees feel better soon; have a nice soak with some Radox or natural herbs.

Shammickite said...

I am so envious of your Seville oranges, the shops here still have not managed to stock any on their shelves, I think it will have to be lime and lemon marmalade instead this year.

Women on the Verge said...

I have an idea for your bird feeder... how about hanging some kind of basket beneath it and line it with a fine mesh screen so that it traps the seed. Then you don't have unwanted plants from the seed, and you can re-use what the birds knock into the basket. We've done it and it works quite well...