Chipping Campden Bulletin April 2021 Issue

GARDEN NOTES FOR APRIL
I’m surprised that you have time to read this at such a busy season outside. Thank
you!
I’ll start this time with a word or two to any new(ish) gardeners. First: did you
know that your local plant centre will sell reasonably priced young plants in
packs of a dozen or so? An alternative to seed-sowing.
By the way, why are some (not most) seeds sold in such crazy quantities? Here is
a catalogue with 99p packets of 500 cabbage seeds, 1,000 parsley, 1,250 lettuce...
You’d use only a tiny fraction of that before the seed is too old to sew. I hate
such waste. Most seed keeps a year or two in the right conditions (cool and dry):
parsnip doesn’t except, perhaps, in the freezer.
Second: don’t be too impatient to plant out. Check: is it ‘hardy’ i.e. survives
frost? Then, some things are more tender or hardy than others. Nights remain
cold until perhaps mid-summer. I read once that basil should not be planted
outside until evenings are warm enough to sit out. Same goes for Morning Glory.
I wonder if this may be why my cucumbers have sometimes failed. Watch: learn
by experience.
Peas and broad beans are best grown early, if you can: less risk of heat or drought
sending them straight from young to too old. Later peas are more liable to peamoth
maggots in the pods.
I quite like cats, which is just as well when so many of them pass through my
garden. I see half-eaten evidence sometimes that they are killing rats and mice.
Good! Not so good is the evidence that they use my garden as a W.C. They seem
especially to favour the asparagus bed just at this season when I start cutting.
Yuck! I did hear or read the suggestion that emptying coffee grounds can be a
deterrent: it was said that they dislike the smell (strange creatures!). I’ve tried
and think it may work, and it costs nothing.
Cardiff cats, when I lived there, loved scratching up my seeds. They go for
freshly cultivated soil, so I learned to cultivate but not sow; wait a few days, then
make good with minimal disturbance and sow, while cultivating a decoy patch
nearby which they’d use instead.
For children, of any age, you want a change from sunflowers? Try peanuts (alias
ground nuts), as I once did with some then very young friends. I can’t remember
all the details, but we did get one or two nuts. Obviously use raw nuts, not roasted,
as sold with shells on for bird food. Remove the shells, then plant in a pot about
as big as you’d use for a fair sized geranium and keep it in a warm place inside: a
sunny windowsill, conservatory or greenhouse. You should get a vaguely bushy
plant with pea-like yellow flowers: as these fade, a sort of stem comes out which
turns downwards and buries itself in the ground to produce your ground nuts.
28
‘Stary Ogrodnik’
“Garden Notes” is sponsored by
Your Local Plant Centre
TOPS Plants
Broadway Road, Mickleton. Open 9am-4pm every day.
Extra copies of the Bulletin
are available from: Campden Information Centre, Peridot/Campden Post Office,
Blockley Shop and TOPS Plants in Mickleton
Postal subscriptions available - please email editor@campdenbulletin.co.uk
MADDY JAMES
COUNSELLING
Anxious? Stressed?
Depressed?
Feelings of hopelessness?
Counselling offers a unique time and
space to be heard and accepted in a
non-judgemental and confidential
place which enables a process of self
reflection and personal growth.
MADELEINE JAMES MBACP DIP COUNSELLING
Tel: 07974 051713
Email: maddy.james@yahoo.co.uk
www.maddyjamescounselling.co.uk
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