THE DEUX-SÉVRES MONTHLY
THE AMATEUR GARDENER
by Vanda Lawrence
As I write this in mid-‐February we are having a rare (so far) sunny day, but the catkins are showing in the hedgerows and we have snowdrops blooming in the garden. It's a start! I expect all you vegetable gardeners will already have started digging over the plot and maybe covering the soil with plastic sheeting to warm it up a bit ready for planting seeds in due course. Your early potatoes can be planted now but main crop don't go in for another month or so. Rows should be 2ft apart for earlies and about 30" apart for main crop. If you've been cutting back trees and shrubs and had a bonfire it's worth digging the ash into the soil or adding it to your compost heap. Ash from untreated wood has a slight liming action on the soil and is useful for vegetable gardens but wood which has been treated with preservatives is to be avoided. Rhododendrons and Azaleas like acid soil so wood ash is no good for them, nor for fruits which also perform best in an acid soil. Ash from a coal fire is no good at all for the soil but is excellent when used as a slug and snail barrier. On the other hand, if you keep chickens slugs and snails will not worry you. Chickens eat many garden pests: slugs, snails, woodlice, leatherjackets, caterpillars, beetles, ants & their eggs. If your chickens don't have the freedom of the whole garden it's still good to let them out to range freely for about an hour before dusk each day -‐ gives them the chance to have a clear up of all these pests. Chicken's droppings make great fertilizer too -‐ just add to your compost heap as an activator. Anyone planning a conifer hedge should be getting down to it now. Chamaecyparis lawsoniana plants are suitable for a hedge 5'-‐6' tall. Space the conifers 2' apart. Keep well watered for the first two years until the roots are well established, then as the hedge grows trim twice a year to keep tidy and under control. Don't forget, if planting on a shared boundary, to plant the conifers 1 metre in from your boundary line to give you access to the back of the hedge for trimming and to avoid encroaching on your neighbour's land. Bulbs and Dahlia tubers are available in the supermarkets and garden centres now so get them planted on a nice sunny afternoon. If the Dahlia foliage is produced before risk of frost is over you can protect them by mulching or with a cloche. Sweet Peas can be sown directly into their flowering positions now ready for a lovely fragrant display and cut flowers for your vase. Cosmos seeds can be sown in pots now. Pinch out the tips after a month and then plant in the garden at the end of April. Stake the plants as they grow tall enough and dead-‐head regularly and you will have flowers until the first frosts. Having mentioned chickens earlier I'll finish with a tale to make you smile -‐ some friends of ours have always kept chickens since they moved to France and each day used to give them the vegetable peelings from the kitchen. One day they were bottling their first attempt at Strawberry Eau de Vie and after they strained the strawberries out of the liquid automatically took it out to the chickens for a treat. Later that day they went outside to find Banjo, their beautiful cockrel and my particular favourite, lying on his back with his legs in the air! Whatever has happened? They then realised that Banjo had had more than his fair share of the strawberries and was drunk! They propped him up on his perch in the chicken run and by next morning he was fine but they never gave the chickens any more of their eau de vie makings!! Keep smiling ..... Above: Banjo
Page 21