Yoinks, it has been aaaaaages since I had anything to report! It has been incredibly hot and dry all summer, so I haven't even had the opportunity to turn over the manured sections - I've been waiting for a good dousing of rain to flush it through and loosen the hard soil up.
I've also been away for 2 weeks and have only been back a week meaning I haven't had much opportunity to do anything at all.
So anyway, I made it to the plot yesterday having been up to the local garden centre to buy 300 litres of compost and some glyphosate weedkiller (just for the weeds growing in the paths)
I wanted to see where the weeds grew back after my initial clear up and to blast them with something which attacks the root. As mentioned before we have dandelion and bindweed aplenty up here.
£31 for a pump action spray and 5L and Tracy my lovely lady assistant was happily blasting the hell out of those pesky beggars.
During this time I got the opportunity to finally clear out the crap from the blue barrel sections in preparation for planting some pre-bonsai material. My good friend Mark is moving out of the country and is shifting most of his considerable collection of young and older trees. I snapped up a number of nice bits in development, which should take me at least ten years to get anywhere near a pot.
Due to the fact that it's not the optimal time to be planting out, I didn't do any root work at all, I just slightly loosened the rootball and effectively just slip potted them into the new soil. I'll take them out at the correct times next year for rootwork
A nice beech with terrifically short internodes and tiny leaves
Mugo Pine
Trident Maple (just a sapling)
European Larch, with loads of lovely low branching
Scots Pine
This is a great start bonsai material wise; I wanted pines to work with, and I've always wanted to have a crack at developing Larch as they are reputedly very forgiving and fast growing. Also the beech is a really cracking bit of material. This has a major flaw at the bottom, but I have plans for it which I'll explore in more detail over on dj-bonsai.blogspot.com. Finally, I've always wanted to have a go at a classically styled sumo Trident.
Bing!
We also took advice that the strawberries which were growing in the raised beds have sent out runners all over the shop. I was told that now is a solid time to plant some of these runners out, for fruiting next year so we conditioned the soil, and set about finding 20 or so that looked suitable to plant out.
As neither Tracy or I have the faintest idea what constitutes a decent one to take a cutting then plant, we opted for the ones which were throwing out the most root. We made finger sized holes and planted them firmly in new compost, spaced around 6-8" apart. We then watered carefully around the bases. My rationale is that if they are still alive in 2 weeks, we've successfully accomplished out mission. If not, we have tons more to choose from in the raised beds. If they do survive I can then get to work clearing the raised beds in preparation for planting tomatoes and hopefully onions next season. Tracy then finally put down loads more woodchip to clean up the appearance of the plot.
Here's our very first planted stuff!
Finally I turned over the whole plot with a fork, which took around an hour or so, mixing in that manure and compost. it's well mixed now but little sign of rotting. I'm sure winter will assist me in that regard!
