Gardening with Jeremy in Holzkirchen

Between the slugs and the snow natural harmony in this place isnt easy.

When I was shown this house two years ago three things caught my eye: three ancient apple trees which brought forth dreams of cider, apple juice and bountiful harvests, a trad tile stove which is osed at any slight drop in temperature and is fed chopped up floorboards from the renovated cottage next door "I burnt my neighbour's house down, well his floor at least!"; lastly the sky which is at 700m and near the Alps - a dream for astronomy of which you well know I am passionate about.

The garden is 650m sq of for me paradise. Loads of lawn for the kids to run about, and after a long a dreary winter I am chomping at the bit to get out and cut the lawn in spring and smell fresh cut grass and the whiff of petrol mower. It epitomizes for me rural life that smell. In spring it means the optimism of summer.

This spring saw the intrepid writer here sowing pot after pot of seed and "abstaubing" (scrounging) as many old pots as he could find. Back breaking "double" depth digging two brand new veg beds which were crammed full of new crops
entirtely inspired not by necessity but by telly programmes like "Grow your own Veg". Rainwater was harvested in prospect of drought conditions which you may remember the year before were a legitimate fear. All our rainwater barrels - we have five of them are named "pisspots" after the previous owner who used to drink lots of beer then piss in the barrel to help fertilise his balcony plants!

In the end we were wrong to worry about drought. Quite the opposite. The rains brought out a visitor from Spain! A veritable Armada of slugs! These huge evil munching monsters ate my garden up basically. Weeks of gingerly picking them up and sort of trying to be nice and eco and throwing them in the road brought nothing. I wasdesperate not to use pesticides. Then in the end I gave in and dropped chemical wapons. Within a day explosions of slime appeared on the garden which have never returned. I stood on the lawn in late summe proclaiming "Mission Accomplished." Sound familiar?

The first year my apples fell on the lawn but I simply didnt know what to do with them. They ended up rotting away which was a shame. This year we stored our "Jacoubi" earlies and as we are members of our local Garten bauverein we obtained an apple crusher, a press and a steriliser. At the end of this industrial scale process we realöised we didnt have enough bottles! A call to the local Getranke markt sorted that out now we have six crates of our own juice to sink through the winter. vThe scond apple tree was processed in the mountain village of Lenggries where there are so many cars queuuing up its like a conveyor belt to give in your own apples then receive juice at the other end. So we have this stack of juice to wade through. Some of it was made into cider but the early results are not promising I must say. My plum trees also were turned into wine bit
the result went in the end like sherry. Blew me 'ead orf.

So what after two years has this naive gardener learned?

That its n o use planting stuiff you don't normally eat. I have this "three sisters" bed full of sweetcorn. They never grew that big and I am not a huge fan of them. The other plants of the 2 sisters bed were crap. Thge beans went wild and the pumpkins ended up like and orange. Not huge.

Right I am getting sleepy. Will tell more tomorrow esp the tomato crops which were successful.

Sounds to me that retrospectively, you know both the problems and the solutions, so with the experience you have gained simply need to plan carefully.

Above all, experience makes a gardener. The massive maple tree in the neighbor's yard sucks all the moisture and the nutrients from my soil. Everything starts off just fine and then, wham, they start to shrivel and die. Next year, all my veggies and flowers are going in pots. A shame really, but other than chopping down the tree, there's nothing I can do.

Blauger it seems you need to harvest as much rain as possible. Get loads of "pisspots" and water the garden as much as possible.

One of my fave activities is filling up my trailer with a cubic metre of soil. You can either buy compost or earth for your graden at Vivo our Wertstoffhof compost place. You drive onto a weigh station with the car empty, they radio ahead to a digger your needs then this huge "Bugger" (love that word) comes and empties a cubic metre into your trailer. I have strewn about eight tonnes of the stuff on the garden, much of it for making new lawn. In spring I bought a huge amount and filled up an old compost bin with it. It was used for all my seedlings, all my geranium plants for the vbalcony and also to fill huge pots for my tomato, green peppers and chilis which I harvested recently. The tomatoes were awesome. I tell you once you have tasted your own frown tomatoes superkarket tomatoes are tasteless, esp those watery ones from Holland.

So next year we are going to grow lots of more useful things like potatoes. I hope to have a hotbed with horse poo in February. The caulis which I grew thias year but they went brown as I dint fold the leaves ovver the head of the plant. Peas were a waste of effort in relation to the space and work they took up. Runner beans will be on the list next year. Basic crop and supposed to be easy. Everything my neighbour told me about spacing the crops and looking after them was correct but being silly I didnt listen. I have learned my lessons!

Next years big thing for me will be a full flower bed. Any of you watch Titchmarsh "How to be a Gardener?" He showed how to make a full annual flowerbed. That is next spring's task for me. I recently bought some Dahlia tubers from a Pflanzenflohmarkt which I am storing in soil in the cellar. Also one plant I have always wanted is hops. I put some in last Saturday as one day I dream of making beer with them.

Next year should be exciting for us as the vine we planted two years ago should finally reach our pergola which I built then. I have to try to prune it basd on the info in my RHS Encyclopedia of Gardening. Lots to learn but all fascinating stuff and fun.

Gardening is great!

Loads more of this stuff please Jezza, very inspiring it is. I can confirm that runner beans are dead dead easy to grow and will happily take over great chunks of boring walls/fences etc. We have the problem of roots everywhere too, and our garden is afflicted with some kind of timewarp which means that when the neighbour's flowers are already blooming ours are looking around trying to decide whether to put out a bud or two. The soil here is crap as well (2 cm topsoil and then stones, rubble, gravel etc) so we've added lots of soil on top but it will need a lot more work before things start to grow with any semblance of enthusiasm. Except beans, and ivy. And slugs.

just like The Good Life

Thanks Crusoe. Not sure where you live but you need to find local to you somewhere like this.

I am always there either for soil, dumping garden waste (up to a cubic metre its free) or simply buying stuff from the flea market! I got a five man tent a few weeks ago! My garden owes a lot to Vivo either from soil or garden tools or whatever. 

Best advice I can give is to get hold of a trailer then load it up with soil. Cubic metre isnt much btw and doesnt go far. Failing that buy a compost bin and fill her up with everything you have either grass clippings, leaves, kitchen waste. I have a full ready bin ready to spread on the garden now which is two years old. In its place is going a hot bed for next spring.

Half of my dreams turn out disatsters lie the sunflowers and lupins which I carefully tended in spring but got all eaten by the bloody slugs. Next year it is open war on them. I saw on gardeners world you can sprinkle old coffee grounds round veg beds so maybe thats worth trying.

Just watch Tichmarsh's "How to be a Gardener" on the Beeb befoer Gardeners World. If you are cluless like me this progreamme shows loads.

Keep digging!

Neuperlach Süd, no car We have a compost bin maturing away but would need about ten times the quantity to make a significant difference. We keep flinging bags of soil down and things have got a bit better, but way to go.

In Penny last week appeared Rasendünger which is waiting for me to spread on our lawn. Also today I bought Schnellkomposter which should help left pile. Right pile is about to be spread on the garden soon and is two years old.

I've always been full of shit but you can't beat good old shit for fertiliser. Head off out to anywhere near Holzkirchen - I shall rename is Horsekirchen as there seem to be more horses than people (just jolking) then take some plastic sacks and fill em up. I did that and my roses came a treat. Remember to rot it first for other plants.

In Gern where we used to live we did indeed make a lawn from about twenty bags of compost. Dont go far do they?

My new dream next year is a wormery as I want to feed the tomatoes I grow. I had a dozen of them on the south wall this year and they were a a treat. I harvested a load and made Chicken Cacchatore (sp?) out of Delia using local chicken and it was an orgasm in a pan. Everyone can grow tomatoes even on a small balcony. In fact my trailer is now full of the dead plants to take to Vivo. Another flea market "abstaub" coming up! They know me well there.

If you ever grow standing gernaiums like I did this year then use pottery pots scrounged from all over like I am always doing. Plastic pots clog water when it rains and the geraniums hate that. My hanging ones were fantastic this year. Very traditional looking balcony. Maybe I can dig up pics.