Claytonia sibirica, Pink Purslane, an unusual salad plant that loves dappled shade
It is finally raining, and both the garden and I are sighing with relief, but for some plants the long days of relentless sun have proved fatal. Every year there are casualties in the garden – drought, pests, a complete lack of sunshine, diseases – and that is an inevitable part of being a gardener. But there is often guilt that life and a lack of time spent in the garden means we have allowed plants to die that could have been saved.
I love being in my garden and I wouldn’t want to replace it with a ‘low maintenance’ horror that meant I had nothing to do outside except sit, but I am useless in hot weather and even watering is sometimes beyond me – so I have come up with a new garden plan for next year.
The idea is to have a productive garden which is never overwhelming, but still holds plenty of interest for me and our occasional visitors. I would like to cut down on the work during the busy seasons – sowing less seeds during the spring would mean less potting up and planting out later on. I would like the garden to need less watering in the summer and to avoid common pest and disease problems like the blackfly which attached themselves to my broad beans and have now spread to the oca.
And so the new garden plan for 2011 (which I am currently putting into effect out in the garden) is as follows:
- Concentrate on perennials, self-seeding annuals and biennials and ‘easy’ crops that give a good yield for minimum effort.
- Cut down on the number of plants in containers, particularly small containers
- Limit the number of plants that require TLC due to being marginal in my climate
- Look into different ways or places for growing plants that need TLC to cut down on the amount they need
- Split the load. Many plants (particularly flowers) can be sown in autumn rather than spring; other crops can be sown outside of the busy spring sowing period
- Experiment with unusual edibles that are easy to grow
So, that’s the new plan. I have already made a few changes, and bought a few new plants, and I will talk about those in coming posts. I also have a to do list of things to get around to once the weather cools down :)