Flooding- How Permacuture Design can help
Category: Gardening techniques
I know, February – it’s so cold and grey.
There appears to be mud and bare branches every where. But don’t despair. Below are 20 plants you can sow from seed in February that will make you feel like Spring is here now.
February is actually a really good month to begin setting your garden, patio, and balcony up ready for the new growing season. So ignore the wind, the rain and snow (what snow!), and instead gather your tools.
February is a month when all seeds bought/saved need to be sown indoors only.
It’s not warm enough outside to leave the little seeds fighting for warmth when there isn’t a lot going around. Instead you can start your garden off indoors and once the plants have germinated and grown they can be moved and planted outside.
By sowing a month early (assuming you take March to be the month…
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Using pallets and other recycled materials to create useful garden equipment and features seems to have really taken off in the last year- at least the posts I’ve made to Old School Garden during that time are among my most popular.
My own exploits to date have been limited to a set of vertical planters, shortly to be used as mini raised beds for some young children at my local primary school. Following a bit of a reorganisation of outside stores here at the Old School, I have a redundant wooden bicycle rack which looks perfect as the base for a ‘plant theatre’ so I might get round to doing that as the days lengthen and (hopefully) the air warms up. In the meantime here’s the latest batch of ideas I’ve gleaned from Facebook sites like 1001 pallets, urban gardens, container gardening and the like. Enjoy!
First some sheds, shacks and greenhouses….
Recycled windows greenhouse 
Stylish pallet shed (or hobbit home?) 
Shack from reclaimed wood 
Pallet play hut 
Airy (?) pallet shed
Recycled windows greenhouse
Stylish pallet shed (or hobbit home?)
Shack from reclaimed wood
Pallet play hut
Airy (?) pallet shed
Next a few planters…..
Upright pallet box planters
Pallet wall frame for pots
Pallet vertical case for pots
Pallet planters in the shade
A patio pallet planter- herbs for instance?
‘A’ frame planters from, you guessed it…pallets
And now some serious outdoor building work…..
A new balcony frame
Fencing
An outside shower
Beautiful patio surface from recycled wood
Finally a few odds and ends…..
Ahoy there!!
Wonderful ‘musical’ play frame
A natty garden shelf/table
Designer seat from pallets
A pallet rocker
Ahoy there again! – arbour from an old boat
Old School Gardener
Cabbage beds at Villandry, France
Old School Gardener
Green wall in Mexico City
How to build a Cold Frame
‘Spring is around the corner and it will soon be time to start sowing seeds.
For those of us who haven’t got a greenhouse, (especially a nice warm one like our editor Maddy’s, who has been using her hot bin composter to keep her greenhouse above freezing all winter), the unpredictable weather can have a huge impact on when we start our seeds. With the possibility of late frosts, seeds can be easily damaged, right through to April and May.
So making a cold frame is a great way to start off your seeds in a warmer and more protected environment, until they are strong enough to be planted out in the unpredictable weather……’
Great idea from Permaculture Magazine – click on the title link for further information and other useful links
Old School Gardener
It’s that time of year to get some seeds sown and new growth underway- but how do you ensure your new babies stand the best chance of survival? Here are some ideas for your ‘transfer window’- turning your newly born into successful seedlings…
1. Right pricking out time
For seeds sown in trays or small modules, once the seeds have germinated and you can see growth above the soil, keep a close eye on their leaves. Once the first ‘true’ leaves have formed (these will look more like the final leaf of the plant and follow on from the ‘seed leaves’ that are simpler in shape, like those in the picture above) it’s time to prick out these little seedlings and transplant them, usually into pots or larger modules. If you leave the plants longer they risk becoming spindly and overcrowded as they fight for what little nutrients are left in the seed compost.
2. Right tool
You need some sort of thin implement to tease out the seedlings – I find a chop stick or wooden BBQ skewer is useful. Or use a dibber or pencil – but these might be a bit too thick for some smaller seedlings. Gently prise the individual plants out of the compost so that they bring their roots and possibly a little compost with them.
3. Right handling
Gently take hold of the leaves of the seedling to help it on its way – don’t hold it by the delicate stem as crushing this will deprive the plant of its main channel for water and nutrients. Place your plant into a hole big enough to take the roots comfortably, settle the plant slightly deeper than it was in the original seed tray/module.
- Watering in the transplants
4. Right Pot
Use clean pots and in general a smallish pot (3″ diameter) or modular tray is probably OK for this stage. A guide is that the pot should be about twice as wide as the roots of the plants you’re dealing with. If you want to avoid several potting on stages and you have the room, then go for a bigger size pot/modular tray. Make sure that you clearly label the plants and possibly keep a note of when you transplanted them.
5. Right compost mix
The compost mix you use for potting up needs to have the nutrients the plant is looking for and the right consistency to allow drainage and air around the developing roots. You can opt for a particular mix for the plants you’re growing but for most I find a general purpose peat free compost (e.g. ‘New Horizon’) is nice and ‘open’. But it can be improved by sieving (to remove bigger bits of organic material), and adding some horticultural grit or ‘perlite’ in the ratio of 1 part grit to 3 parts compost. Or you can make up your own mix. If you keep your transplants in the same pot for a few weeks you might need to apply some liquid fertiliser to make up for the nutrients that are gradually depleted from the compost.
- A portable greenhouse like this one can be used to grow on seedlings
6. Right environment
Different plants will have different environmental requirements, but in general they need to be thoroughly watered in to their new pots/modules and moved into a light, cooler place than they were in for germination – but avoiding drafts and direct sunlight. For the first few days, the plants might benefit from covering with plastic to lessen the ‘transplant shock’ they experience. Make sure you keep the plants watered so that the compost is just moist – avoid over watering as this can lead to diseases. Gently brushing the tops of your transplants with your hand or a wooden stick will help control their height and increase stockiness. Ideal transplants are as wide as they are high. Gradually acclimatise the plants to outside conditions – a cold frame or greenhouse after being in the house, for example. Then give them a couple of hours in the outside each day (as long as it’s not too cold or windy) before they are fully ‘hardened off’.
7. Right potting – on time
Keep an eye on your new fledglings and occasionally look underneath the pots – when you see roots emerging from the bottom it’s probably time to ‘pot them on’ into larger pots. This is broadly the same procedure as for ‘potting up’ and may mean that some plants are transplanted two or three times before they are finally placed in the garden. ‘Keep them moving’ and don’t allow them to become pot bound.
Further information:
Capel Manor College video on pricking out
Garden of Eaden video etc.
Old School Gardener
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Well here it is, my plan for the kitchen garden here at the Old School. I’ve reviewed last year’s results and have tried to rotate crops as well as introducing more variety and greater successional cropping. This approach will, I hope, help me to avoid gluts, reduce the overall level of food and waste, while at the same time increasing the range and the ornamental value of the area through introducing more perennial and annual flowers.
I’m also going for some ‘heritage’ varieties- squash, cauliflower, leek, pea, runner beans and beetroot.
What do you think?
Old School Gardener
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A ‘sub shrub’- Hypericum calycinum
As spring approaches it’s around now that some shrubs should be pruned. This week’s question, from Celia MacKnyff of Cutaway in Yorkshire, asks:
‘What is a sub shrub and should I treat it differently to an ordinary shrub?’
Celia, a sub shrub is a plant that is woody at the base but has annual stems like those of a herbaceous plant. These stems die back most years to the older woody growth. The ‘Rose of Sharon’ (‘Great St. John’s Wort’ or Hypericum calycinum) is a good example. The stems should be cut back every spring, not to ground level, but to the new shoots on the woodier stems at the bottom. I’ve been out in Old School Garden doing some pruning of these and other shrubs in the last few days and, not surprisingly as we’ve had such a mild winter to date, many of these stems look pretty healthy and are still carrying lots of green leaves. Nevertheless, if you want to benefit from fresh new growth, now’s the time to prune them.
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Lavenders are also treated like sub shrubs
Small, low shrubs such as Lavender, Periwinkle and Thyme, and many members of the family Ericaceae, such as Cranberries and small species of Erica, are often classed as sub shrubs. As far as pruning Lavender is concerned there are perhaps two schools of thought on this – either prune back the flowered shoots in autumn or spring. Doing this in the autumn is good in that there’s till time for new growth to be put on before winter, which helps maintain a nice compact shape to the plants over the colder months. However, if the weather is really cold you may suffer from some die back, so some people leave pruning until the spring. Nevertheless, small amounts of frosted growth can be tackled by further light pruning in the spring so that new vibrant growth is stimulated. Take your pick! In both cases pruning should be limited to the sappy top growth and should avoid cutting into the older woody stems.
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It’s important to get the right pruning cut to avoid damaging shrubs and/or letting in disease
Whilst we’re talking about pruning sub shrubs it’s also worth remembering when to prune different flowering shrubs. There are two basic groups, one which flowers in summer and autumn (‘late flowerers’) on the tips of shoots that grew earlier the same season. This group includes Buddlejas, large flowered and cluster flowered Roses, Caryopteris and some later flowering Clematis hybrids (as well as sub shrubs like Hypericum). These should be pruned back hard to new buds in spring as they appear, so as to encourage development of these into strong new flowering shoots. I’ve tended to prune my Buddlejas a little later than the Hypericum, as late frosts may do damage to the new buds and therefore it’s a good insurance policy to wait until you can see healthy, strong buds to cut back to and the risk of really cold weather has passed. I’ll probaly prune mine later this month or in early March at the same time as I prune back my Dogwoods to encourage new stems that create great winter colour.
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Buddlejas are ‘Late flowerers’ and need hard pruning in the spring
The second group (‘Early flowerers’), includes plants that flower in spring on shoots which grew the previous season and includes Philadelphus (‘Mock Orange’), Forsythias, flowering Currants (Ribes), Weigelas and the ‘Beauty Bush’ (Kolkwitzia). Though its is perhaps less important to prune these, it can be done to tidy up the shrub immediately after flowering, by removing the branches that carried the flowers. This also encourages new growth to be put on alongside other shoots that have already grown but not flowered – these shoots must be left unpruned and will carry the flowers next season.
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‘Early flowerers’ like Weigela, should be pruned after flowering
Old School Gardener
An unusual ‘themed threesome’ of garden/outdoor projects – fancy a cuppa something?
Potty greenhouse/shed/garden feature….
Your very own terrarium…
Bird Feeder from a cup and saucer
Old School Garden 