Garden Propagators
A heated propagator is of great help to the gardener and if one is available it is possible to do without heat in the greenhouse. Warmed propagators can be used for germinating seeds, rooting cuttings, starting bulbs and tubers, bringing on tender plants and forcing strawberries.
A modern propagator will consist of a container such as a wooden or plastic seed tray or box with a clear plastic domed cover to keep in warmth and humidity. The simplest form of heating is a metal plate warmed by electricity on which the containers are placed.
There are also propagators which are heated by electric air or soil warming cables, an electric light bulb or paraffin. A thermostat will stop the temperature rising to baking point on warm sunny days.
Cloches And Tunnels
Cloches are a kind of miniature portable greenhouse. Properly used they can be of great help in increasing and improving edible crops and in helping to grow ornamentals especially the tender ones.
Although small their mobility gives them an advantage over frames and with a carefully planned programme they can be in use over successive crops all year round.
They can be used to mautre crops early, to keep plants cropping longer in autumn and for ripening sub tropical crops such as melons, grapes, vines, peppers and so on. For taller crops they can be used standing on end, two round a plant.
Soil can be dried and warmed before sowing outdoors by putting them over the seed bed some weeks beforehand. Cloched strawberries will ripen at least three weeks earlier than uncloched ones.
Slightly tender herbaceous plants can be protected through winter: sweet peas, gladioli, bedding plants and half hardy annuals can be planted early and cloched and so on.
There are many types of cloches - The chase barn cloche was one of the first and there are now wire reinforced glass cloches, opaque white or clear plastic cloches and plastic sheet tunnels on wire hoops. Cloches can be barn shaped, round, flat topped or triangular.
As with greenhouses the glazing should be kept clean unless shading is applied in summer.
The Compost Heap
Mystery surrounds the compost heap but its really just a simple means of making your own manure. Every garden should have two.
Make them side by side. Two post and wire enclosures 3 or 4 feet square mean that while one is full and rotting the other is being filled. With just one heap the whole business becomes confusing and messy.
Make both fronts removable so that the finished compost can be easily extracted.
What Goes In
All annual weeds, vegetable waste, lawn mowings, cabbage leaves, potato peelings, tea leaves, coffee grounds, pea pods, crushed egg shells and soft prunings.
What Stays Out
Thick rooted perennial weeds and woody stems. Household food (because there is the risk of encouraging rats and mice).
So far, so good, but how do you make it all turn brown? The answer is to mix all your ingredients together so that theres no concentration of one thing in one place. Firm the heap regularly by trampling. Turn a hose on it at the first sign of dryness and throw a piece of old carpet or sacking over the top to keep moisture in.
Over every 9 inch layer add a sprinkling of garden soil and a couple of handfuls of sulphate of ammonia or a propriety compost accelerator. Theres no need to turn the heap at intervals provided everything is mixed up when its put in.
Three to six months later (the cooler the weather the slower the rotting) you will be able to dig out brown and crumbly goodness and dig it in or spread it on your soil. You will notice the difference in plant growth.
Gardeners Almanac - January
- Send off your seed order.
- Keep off lawns in frosty weather.
- Plant rose bushes, trees and shrubs.
- Prune fruit trees and bushes.
- Spray fruit trees with a tar oil winter wash to kill pests.
- Put rabbit guards around stems of young trees if necessary.
- Sow exhibition onions in a greenhouse.
- Lay turf if weather is mild and dry.
- Firm back plants lifted by frost.
- Dig over the vegetable plot.
- Put plastic netting over winter brassicas to keep off pidgeons.
- Plant three potatoes in a large flower pot in the greenhouse for an early crop.
- Prune wisteria.
- Knock snow off evergreens.
- Feed birds in cold and frosty weather.
- Prune summer flowering deciduous shrubs.
- Melt ice on frozen pools to let fish breathe.
