GARDENING BLOG

Week fifty two December 23rd - December 30th

2003

Sunday the 28th December 2003.

The day was sunny yet cool - perfect for digging and planting out shallots.

I have planted the first of my shallots in the ground where I grew new potatoes this year and runner beans last year. It is a stretch of ground next to half a row of refugee cordon apple trees that were banished from the back garden. It is a land that has been invaded by bindweed that has crept into the apples trees in the last few years and having once got established is moving out from there. Originally the bindweed crept in from the neighboring plot - but as that plot is now under my management - the weed has to be eliminated.

In fact I have been trying to clear it out of the neighboring plot for the last two years and have been having some success. I started under the big apple tree from whence it first came and having hoed and forked and hoed now stand a good chance of forking out the last few pieces that emerge next year and should have that piece of land entirely clean for the first time for years.

2004 is going to have to be another 'beat the weed' year and I will have to focus on digging out the white fleshy roots of the greater bind weed (Convolvulus) wherever it appears.

Thompson & Morgan - Online Catalogues and Gardening Information