Working off my seasonal excesses, with some time in the garden.

Christmas seems like a long time ago now, then I look at my waistline and realise that the old adage of “a minute on the lips, forever on the hips” could be true!  Well my garden took a battering as 2010 drew to a close; early snows that I wasn’t really prepared for knocked me a little off course and sapped my enthusiasm for the great outdoors for a little while. There’s nothing better than a little gentle labour in the garden to get some fresh air in the lungs and burn off a few excess calories in the process – the garden really needs it.  So it’s on with my boots and to some tasks.

What needs doing in the garden in January.

Coffee in hand I took a stroll around my garden and soon found I had list as long as my arm of things that need attending to, here’s a snippet of things you’ll probably have to be thinking about as well;

• Gently rake your lawn, careful not to rip up the turf too much which can be delicate at this time of year, you want to get some of that leaf fall off the lawn and minimise the chance of bald patches starting, get the leaves in the composter.
• I’ve had a tidy up of the borders and forked between some of the plants, which is good for the earth.
• I’ve had to clear my pathways of some winter berries from a neighbour’s tree that overhangs my fence, took a while, but they were starting to turn rotten and unsightly, this little garden bin is a handy thing for that.
• I need to get my lawnmower serviced, since I value my fingers and am no expert I am taking this to my local repairman for a once over.
• The pond needs a little clearing out too. There’s still a good chance of some cold weather to come, so I’m leaving a soft ball floating in there for the moment as this helps to keep the pond aerated when it’s icy and it also means the ice has something to expand against, rather than fracturing the lining.
• I checked the little greenhouses and had a think about the plants in there – some of them need more ventilation than others, so a little re-arranging can be required.
• I’m thinking about my plans for the patio this Spring so I’ve had a look at a selection of planters.
• I’ve also made a note to replace a couple of brackets for my hanging baskets.
• I’ve tidied up the greenhouse and cleaned my pots now, some varieties will want sowing now if we’re going to get some early flowers.

That kept me busy for a while!

Winter precautions are still in place.

It’s definitely still winter, and there’s still some frost on the odd nights, so it’s worth considering frost proof jackets and small greenhouses for some of your plants, indoor planters for the less hardy.
Don’t forget the birds, it’s been a long and harsh winter for them so far, I’m sure it’s not over yet either, they love a free feed and keep your garden colourful, so do look at our selection of food – they will appreciate it.

Until next month, happy gardening!

We hope you got your plants into the greenhouse

November snow-fall took us all by surprise, I was very happy that I’d got most of my delicate plants in the greenhouse and under cold-frames and our frost-jackets have come in really handy lately – I’ve only lost a chillie plant, the poor thing was something of an orphan, tucked in a sunny corner I’d left it there as it was burgeoning and still flowering in mid-November and the fruits maturing nicely to a very deep red. The chillies are pretty bold and they’ve since been “sun-dried” for a couple of hours on a low heat in the oven – great for adding to marinades, they’ll be as good as fresh come barbecue time, yum!

A few snow precautions for the garden

When the garden is snow bound it’s good fun to get out and build a snow-man or have a little snow-ball fight with the kids – but try and be a bit careful on the lawn, as you can end up with nasty marks and fungal diseases like the cool weather when it all starts to thaw.

It’s worth clearing the snow from your cold-frames and very carefully from greenhouses, as the weight of the snow can leave them warped.  Don’t be tempted to climb a step ladder in this weather, but just get rid of the worse with careful wielding of a broom-handle.

Try to shake snow off the branches on your smaller trees, shrubs and hedges; they won’t like the excess weight caused by snow and can end up damaged, be careful of ice again.

Last month we told you about some of the things that our garden birds like to eat, when the bad weather hits, as it just has, they really feel it the most. Frost and snow can make their search for essential foods really tough; they’ll really appreciate your bird tables and feeders.

Christmas is nearly here

There’s still a little time before Christmas, don’t forget to check out our shopping pages for some great garden deals for the gardeners in your life – a good sturdy pair of boots is just what we all need at this time of year. We still have some Christmas tree stands left, sturdy and attractive they’re just what you need to show your tree at it’s best.

We hope 2010 has been a good year for you all and your gardens and we’ve really appreciated another year of support from you.

Everyone at GardenXtras.com wishes you a joyful festive season and another year of happy gardening in 2011.

RHS Show Cardiff 16th to 20th April 2010

Warm and dry weather in April in Wales! – meant more than 20,000 attended, 15 per cent up from the expected 17,000.

This was a great start to the years events, with all manner of challenges, a green activists’ protest, Icelandic volcano and many exhibitors working their green fingers to the bone to find plants in flower after the coldest winter in 31 years.

RHS Show Cardiff 2010

So with such a successful start to the season, we were optimistic about exhibiting at…

Malvern Spring Gardening Show 6th to 9th May 2010

And our optimism was rewarded – despite the continuing challenge of volcano ash stopping many flowers from being imported and ready to show, the harsh winter slowing many of our indigenous flowers bloom and the strong winds and overcast skies on the Saturday – the exhibitors achieved a record breaking number of medals, the quality was higher than ever. What really made our show was the huge number of previous customers that visited our stall again.

There was much discussion about what would be showing at Chelsea, what late bloomers would make a different feel and look, would the ash cloud impact on the imaginative displays at…

RHS Chelsea Flower Show 25th to 29th May 2010

We are not exhibitors at this show, just enthusiastic spectators. To us this was as good as ever, there’s always an increased buzz about this show!

You can read much more about what happened on The RHS website

Having a breather and being spectators was a welcome relief and increased our enthusiasm even more for the next event…

BBC Gardeners World Live 16th to 20th June 2010

In the run up to this show we launched a competition to win VIP tickets, a photo competition in fact. We started advertising our competition a bit to close to the show dates and although we did gain some response, mainly friends and relatives, we decided to extend this competition to continue for next year.

We did have a great time at the show and as we have been exhibiting for many years now, met up with customers who are now friends. We had some fantastic run ins with customers who had bought our Trug Trolley over the years, they’d brought them back to use again and transport their new purchases from this years show

On to the next show then…

Hampton Court Palace Flower Show 6th to 11th July 2010

We’re getting used to the BBC cameras by now and we are in full swing.

These events grow (excuse the pun) and evolve every year. There is more to do now and for a much more diverse audience. Apart from the unbelievable gardens or should I call them art and the amazing abundance of Roses – Food and drink caught my eye this year. So even if you are a lover of food only you’d have been in for a treat.

It was also a Trug Trolley fest – are they breeding?

Now we are looking forward to….

RHS Show Tatton Park 21st to 25th July 2010

With every show being different we find we have different reasons for wanting to be there. Tatton Park is one of our favourites, it seems more laid back, maybe it’s because we’ve had so much practice at the previous ones or just the location or summer has really arrived, whatever it is we hope to see you there.

So we decided to try out some outdoor games we have here so that we could create our very own favourite list.

We decided to rate them on three things, how much fun the were to play, how many friends could be involved and which ones gave us the most laughs.

So for our afternoon of work we tested (OK played with) all our games and we were able to come up with our top five favourites;

1. Limbo Set

As long as you are with good friends, or don’t mind making a fool of yourself, this one is a winner. Top for fun to do – the boys like the challenge, the girls loved winning, everybody who wanted to could have a go and any who didn’t could just enjoy the spectacle. Virtually continuous laughing due to interesting limbo dancing attempts and the clever comments inspired by them, so much so it wasn’t just the limbo that caused stomachs to hurt.

Limbo Set

2. Giant Tower

You’ll probably know this better if I mention “Jenga” – a great giant version of it!

We had four of us playing and what felt like hundreds of people advising. At times, as is our nature, just a little too competitive. Everyone there could be invoilved, great to use our brains (what little we have of them) as well as our brilliant coordination! Laughs plentiful, although centred more around mickey take when the unfortunate player removed the brick that causedthe tower fall.

Giant Tower

3. Boules

We loved this. Deciding to play in teams we had a minimum of six friends involved. We were a little serious, mainly due to concentration, yet the six of us played this much longer than the any of the other games. In fact it kept our interest for a significantly longer time. Not much audience participation though and laughs were sporadic.

Boules

4. Hopscotch

Great participation for all, brought back, for some of us, good memories of school days. Great fun to do, especially if like me you need to learn the complicated rules! Many laughs all round for audience and participants alike.

Hopscotch

5. Giant 4 in a row

This crept in to the top five, as I’ve always been good at the indoor version and as I had the casting vote!

Great fun indoors, even better playing this giant outdoor version. Concentration required, audience advice given and welcomed, created excellent banter.

Giant 4 in a row

I have to say the afternoon of testing was one of the funnest I’ve had at work for a long time. I hope you enjoy these games as much as we did.

Thanks for reading

The great thing about keeping and growing your own is that it not only saves you money, it also frees you from the worry of future fluctuating prices!

The cost of our fresh produce has been steadily rising, and just today it was reported that inflation is above it’s target at well over 3% per annum. It looks set that our fruit and veg is to become even more costly.

You can preserve in one way or another any over production, so you can benefit from it all year round.

Physically

You’ll reduce the chemicals you consume, increase your intake of nutritions (vitamins and minerals) and improve your fitness

You are the one with the quality control and can choose to and afford to eat organic, after all you’ll be in charge of the pesticide. There are plenty of natural alternatives to chemical pesticides, I’ll list the ones I know in a future article.

You’ll be able eat much fresher and riper produce. Store bought produce is often picked before it is ripe so that it has the best chance to end up on the shelf unspoiled and undamaged. It is a well known that picking produce before it is ripe reduces its nutritional value.

You’ll definitely get exercise when growing your own, theres always something that needs doing.

Emotionally

Relaxing satisfying and a sense of achievement

There’s something about being out in the garden, is it some inner sense of communing with nature, or is it just that you’ve left your mobile inside whichever it does feel good.

…and in the end you do get something for your efforts, great value, great tasting food (possible not great looking though!)

What you could plan now for your vegetable garden

Broccoli, French Beans and Runner Beans can be planted now, you may even get away with planting carrots still as it has been colder than usual, up until now that is.

Remember to erect your poles for runners, make sure the ground is well manured, weed free and even now it"s worth protecting seedlings from frost (using fleece if need be)

Your tomatoes can go in your grow bags now – keep them watered, protected from frost and make sure you add feed every now and again

Enjoy

The right action at the right time leads to your ideal garden. So we’ve started this new blog and will, over this year, create a comprehensive calendar every month for you to use.

Spring has finally sprung and all the ideas and thoughts about what you’ve wanted to do in your Garden can now be actioned.

Celebrating your Garden

To celebrate the start of the outdoor season we’re launching a competition which we hope you will join in and have fun with.

All you need to do to win is take photo’s of products you’ve purchased from us in their working situation.

It doesn’t matter how big or small the product was, it could be a full set of garden furniture or just a pair of wellies. You may have recently bought a planter and are waiting for your flowers to bloom. Don’t worry you have plenty of time to take your photo.

What we are looking for is what you think are great photo’s

We’ll be judging which ones we love, which ones make us smile, well any that just have something about them…so send in as many as you like. If you’d like to add a few words as a caption that sums up your photo – even better. We look forward to seeing them all.

Please email your photo’s, colectively or individually, to competition2010@gardenxtras.com remembering to give us a contact telephone number. The winners will be announced on 01 June 2010.

The winner will receive 2 tickets to BBC Gardeners’ World live at the NEC Birmingham 16 – 20 June 2010 and £50 to spend with us. The runner up will receive 2 tickets to this show. There are 10 prizes in all and you can read our terms and conditions here

Good luck

For gardening, we have plant supports, garden planters and home & garden accessories.  The wide range of plant supports we have includes conical supports, support stems, grow through supports, grow bag supports, support hoops, circle supports, support stakes, etc. For garden planters we have arches & obelisks, patio planters, wall & balcony planters, pot caddies, pot holders & stands. For wall or balcony planters we have hanging bracket stands and hanging basket stands.  We also sell a good range of Wellington boot rack, Wellington boot stand, Boot Scrapers, Funky Wellies and garden shoes supplied from our Sussex warehouse in UK and can be used in indoors as well as outside.  We provide grow bags and small green houses to help your seeds, plants and shrubs  grow well.  We also provide compost bags in all sizes for creating compost from garden and household waste and made to a quality construction to withstand long term usage.

Other garden accessories include barrels, trugs & Trug Trolley™, Willow, Folding Bin, Arches & Obelisks, Lanterns, Torches, Garden Stakes, Pot Caddies, Holders & Stands, Outdoor Beanbags, Greenhouses, Grow Bags, etc.

A garden always looks incomplete without birds. So for your birds in the garden we provide bird care products such as bird feeders, bird seed, bird seed mix, black sunflower seeds, straight bird seed, bird nesting boxes and cat repellers.   For Christmas we supply Christmas tree stands, the Christmas tree sleigh and decorative cast iron tree stand which are always in demand at our shop.  Apart from garden products, we also stock picnic equipment like Hawaii Family Cool Bag, Luxury 4 Person Hamper, Padded Chair with High Back, Padded Lounger, Telescopic Adults Chair with arms, Telescopic Table, Tote Cooler Bag.   For the garden we also supply some interesting garden games. Please have look to them.

As we have good experience in selling garden furniture and garden accessories, our stock keeps changing frequently. If you are looking for any particular thing for garden and cannot find it, then please let us know. We can often obtain them for you.

Visit our online shop anytime or call us or visit our factory outlet to view our wide range of garden accessories and garden furniture.

Make your garden look very special.