Rectory Garden, January: Compost, Fire and Vegetable Plans

January

Video Journal about life, growing food and flowers plus visits to horticultural shows, allotments and opens gardens. Trying to become fitter and healthier as I approach 50.

#seanjamescameron

[Music] hello welcome back to the garden now about a year ago I bought this gubbins and I’ve never used it but I’m going to use it today because in front of the shed here I’m going to build a fire and this will give me a nice hot capet now I do have the stove in the shed but what you do with the canisters after you finish you can’t just throw them in the bin the gas canisters plus I’m constantly buying gas so this year it’s all about being Frugal and about reducing our outgoings so I thought let’s go back to basics so if I can remember how to do this it is a four pronged uh three-pronged device which you just put into the ground and if you do it correctly then it sort of locks itself in place and then just below it I’ve done a little fire uh Contraption now this is designed for a campfire but what I thought just to be a bit of safety is if I put these bricks and I’ve deliberately done these ones with the hle so that the air will go through it and I’m thinking I can hang the kettle off this hook it’s nice and secure there and I may get a pot in time so I can cook my own food on it as well so when I’m in the garden and I’m finished I can come and have some food but now let’s now you could say just put a grid on top I could but I’d already bought this so both ways would work so now let us get the kettle so this is the kettle that I’ve bought might be a bit too big just for one person but you know gardening is all about having friends over and having a cup of tea to share is what I’m all about I’ve got some fresh water there you go that should be enough for the first experiment got plenty of leaves I could burn but they’re all damp so I think I might get a bit of wood again all this wood is damp so I will have to take some and put them in the shed to dry it but let’s just try it anyway and if this works I could set up a small little kitchen here obviously take the wood into the shed dry some off cuz from what I understand from people who have wood burning stoves dry wood obviously that you’ve seasoned for a few months works a lot better how do you make tea on your plot and I’ve got a bucket of water on standby just in case it gets out of control well we better put the cattle on feels primitive Going Back To Nature I’m sure there’s a lot more experienced people in here than me to doing fires and cooking like this so if you got any tips Tell me in the comments below gratefully accepted thanks [Music] when I used to watch Gardener’s world with Jeff Hamilton back in the ’90s he had this product it’s called COA compost but I haven’t seen it in this method before so there it is that’s your big block of compost but having it in this bag is a bit of a new feature to me and what you do is you just fill it with water and then the compost expands what what compost do you have for your garden do you just go for a multi-purpose do you go for Pete even or do you go for the proper seed sewing composts or do you use something like this this Co compost so we leave it there for a while and then it will expand and fill this bag then once I’ve got a bit of compost I can start sewing a few seeds so I’ve just put it into this tray to make it easier for me to mix it together with the water does seem to need a bit of help to get it on its way trick is not to over waterer it I think I tried something like this about six years ago and I wasn’t that impressed but I thought I’d give it another goal I don’t think it would be suitable for seed sewing maybe cuz it’s still quite fibrous maybe it needs a few more minutes to expand tell me about your experience with this Below in the comments m a very quick update from the garden just because it’s difficult to film today because of the sun I’ve been busy moving the compost bin and it will go in that corner against the fence there I’m really Keen to start putting my fruit in but the ground is just Soden it’s not worth it it uh nothing much going on down this part my water uh the water butt collapsed so I need to get a new base for that and obviously I’ve lost all the water so a very quick update from the garden this week hopefully the weather will improve but I’m pleased that I’ve at least done something and even if that’s just moving the compost bin but it’s been nice to be out and have the robins flying all over the place there he is so there that’s where we are so far a very quick update this week well as you can see I’m in the house I’ve got a nice cup of tea with me beautiful I’ve had a bit of a headache the last few days that I can’t seem to shift and it is freezing last 2 or 3 days the temperature has dropped to about minus 3 and even today it’s the afternoon but they’re still Frost in the garden so I’m not going to uh pop down there today but I thought I would just end this video by talking through a few plans now I’m always the one to put plans onto a computer set up a database draw a plan do it all in Excel and it’s all there it’s then linked to my phone and when I’m in the garden I can put stuff straight onto the spread sheet from my phone and technology has been the way that I’ve always done it but this year I thought let’s go back to basics and I started making a few notes in this book and within a short of time there was quite a lot of detail so I thought this year I think I might put everything on paper so let’s just have a quick look and I’ll talk you through what I’ve got in my pad so far so first of all I started off by making a list of everything that I like to eat with the exception of globe AR chalks I’ve never tried a globe AR chalk but I like to grow them for for the for the flowers for the bees so I’ve put that in and kale I’ve put a tick by the side but I’ve also put a question mark because I find with kale it’s one of those things that when you take back to the kitchen you find this covered in white fly and about the time you’ve cleaned it you’re exhausted and then you just can’t be bothered with it so I’ve got a question mark I might not end up doing kale anyway but this is my list of things so these are all the foods that like I’m also in doubt about asparagus I do love asparagus but I’m thinking 3 years if I put a new Crown in I’ll start harvesting in 3 years and I don’t know if I’m going to be here in 3 years I don’t know if I’m going to be still in London or somewhere else so I don’t know what would you do would you still plant the asparagus on the off chance or would you not bother so I’ve got all the firm favorites runny beans French beans broccoli beetroot up until a few years ago I couldn’t stand beetroot and then I had it in in a cake I think it was and I’ve adored it since uh sweet purpose they’ll be done in the greenhouse but a lot of this will be outside uh cucumbers will be in the greenhouse as well only one cette I’m doing this year uh shot par nips please potatoes I think I’ve ordered a bit too many potatoes this year they should be turning up soon so I’ll talk about them when the time comes and two new things I’m trying this year are salsify and scores an error and if you watch the Victorian kitchen Garden you will know that I uh like that series and I’m going to try and grow these two things which Harry Dodson grew he also grew a lettuce called bloody Warrior and I’ve managed to get hold of some of those seeds so we’ll be putting them in pretty soon uh finishing off then spinach sweet sweet corn and winter squash so that means I need six beds three beds each side of the garden I’ve then put them into categories so these are all the brasas again the kale I’m not too sure whether I’m going to do it legumes so your peas and your beans onions now I prefer the the red ones but I will do some of the white ones and so I’m doing onions red onions white shots leaks I’m also doing the what you call them the spring onions as we call them in Worlds [Applause] Gibbons potato family uh potatoes and sweet peppers but like I said the sweet peppers will be in the greenhouse and then we got the roots I do love roots beetroot carrot all the old [Applause] favorit and then the last bed is sweet corn and corette now this is what is in the permanent bed will be the asparagus but like I said I’m a bit unsure about whether I’m going to do it and then in the greenhouse will be cucumbers corn salad lettuce and sweet peppers so that’s a rough little plan so if I no just show it this way so we’re looking back at the Garden so the greenhouse and the shed come out there’s a flower bed then a pond I may put a small little fence with the gate in I don’t know yet cuz I do like to divide my veg from everything else so this is the crop rotation for this year which is roots potatoes brasas onions others and legumes and then in preceding years they will move around the the garden so that every section will grow the same thing over the next few years then I put might put another fence there with a gate and then this is all my fruit section and there will also be down here another seating uh section amongst the fruit so a seating section there seating section by the side of the shed where the where the water butt is now and in this little bit here is going to be a sort of utility space where I’m going to put a Belfast sink against the shed so I can wash my pots and things and we have that little campfire there for me to do my tea and I’m going to develop this corner here as a little store room for storing the wood for the little campfire then what I’ve done is I’ve done indiv individual Pages then for everything that I’m going to grow so that I can put notes down on these Pages whether the varieties uh when I’ve sewn them whether they’ve been affected by pests and diseases so hopefully by the end of this year if I manage to keep this up then see there’s still plenty of more to put some other things in as well so hopefully by the end of the year I’ll have a nice book full of information about when I sew things maybe when the first uh Harvest was taken how much that Harvest weighed all this information can go into this book and it feels good to have a an actual physical item that I can hold rather than having it on a computer well i’ be interested to find out if you take notes of your garden or are you a bit like me many years ago when I just used to turn a bit of soil over and throw it in like I said this year trying to be a bit more organized about the whole thing well a short video this week like I said the weather’s not playing ball and my prediction I’m going to call that we’re going to get an early spring this year cuz we don’t use usually get weather as harsh as this until February and we’ve got it early this time and I’ve already noticed the daffodils are up quite a height so I’m calling it now we’re going to have an early spring in 2022 well I’ll catch up with you next week when hopefully I will be be sewing the first seeds I’m not going to tell you what they are I’ll see you next Friday so for me until then bye for now [Music]