GreenFriends™ UK

Gardening Corner: August 2010

"In reality, Nature is nothing but God's visible form which we can behold and experience through our senses. Indeed, by loving and serving Nature, we are worshipping God himself." From Man and Nature by Amma

Birds Working Together

From this time of year until the spring, when birds look for territories, a kind of truce is called in the bird world. During this time, you can often find many individuals of several species of small birds foraging together in woods, hedgerows, parks and gardens. These groups are commonly called tit flocks, as different species of tit can dominate them, but they can be formed from other kinds of birds as well. The other day in a wood in Derbyshire, Richard saw a tit flock composed of lots of long-tailed tits, young blue tit, young coal tit, chaffinch, blackcap warbler, garden warbler (not 100% sure of that one, maybe 80% sure), and goldcrest. The young blue and coal tits are identified because they are alot more yellowy then the adults. They were all merrily flitting their way through a wood cheeping to each other as they went. One of the advantages of forming a flock in this way includes more eyes to look for danger. However, in order for this to work, they all have to understand all the other species alarm calls (meaning the calls they make when there is danger). And apparently according to research they do understand! Also, it means that they explore all the nooks and crannies where there may be food. These tit flocks are a really good example of animals working together in partnership for their common good. Amma tells us that we can learn important lessons from nature, and this may be such a lesson.

Allotment Diary

We had an unexpected crop from the swedes we sowed a while ago. After thinning by cutting them with secatuers as there were far too many, we decided to have a nibble on a leaf and found to our surprise that they were lovely. A little peppery, not unlike salad rocket (if you are familiar with that), but very nice. So we have been having them often with salads over the last week.

The strawberry crop has been unexpectedly phenomenal. From 12 plants we have eaten 10 pounds. This is a big surprise for us. We had no idea how much we would get. It took a while to get the hang of picking them ripe (red and a little soft), but then they just kept on coming. We don't think we have had a more luxurious dessert then freshly picked home grown strawberries and cream eaten 10 minutes after picking. Wow!

Another new recipe we have found has worked well with the broad beans. Pick them when the pods are a little more than thumb width. Take out the beans and mix with yoghurt and a little mint. Leave for a few hours in the fridge for the mint flavour to pervade the yoghurt. Gorgeous!

All of the crops in the greenhouse have fruits that are slowly growing and ripening (as in tomatoes, aubergines, chillis, peppers and cucumbers). We are feeding them once a week with a liquid feed of comfrey and nettle juice, which we also give to the beans, peas, courgettes, pumpkins and squash. The feed is made by putting the leaves of nettles and comfrey into a container of water and leaving them to break down. You end up with a smelly, slimy liquid which lots of plants love. It gives them extra nutrients, especially potassium and phosphorus. It also makes the greenhouse smell like a wet farmyard as our friend puts it! You don't have to do this! But an organic fertiliser is very good for plants which produce lots of fruit, such as the ones mentioned.

We have also transplanted perpetual spinach seedlings and kale seedlings from pots, and self seeded plants in case of the kale. They are now in their permanent home, a bit late, and will hopefully give us a green leafy crop autumn, through the winter and next spring. They have been surrounded by plastic pots,which guards against slugs and the kale has been netted, as the cabbage white butterfly will otherwise lay eggs on them for her babies, ie caterpillars to munch.

However, not everything goes well! We never seem to have much luck with lettuces. Slugs it seems conspire against our lettuces, especially when we grow them on the ground. Well, they don't really, they are just hungry like everything else, and our lettuces make a tasty snack. Or a tasty banquet even! So to avoid this we grow them in containers, but we have found they don't like the compost we give them. Amma says that we should not give up in the face of adversity, but keep trying, like a toddler learning to walk falls and gets up again. So we will keep trying, and maybe one day (or one year) we will be able to tell you of a wonderful lettuce crop!

Having said that we still get an amazing amount of produce for our efforts. Here is a typical days produce this time of year, its just at the start of the harvest: courgette, french beans, runner beans, salad rocket, swede tops and the end of the strawberries.

Happy gardening and see you all next month.

- Richard and Kaivalya

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