Christmas week and scams

With Christmas in the middle of this week we are rushing around selling the last of our Xmas trees and decorations.
Its sad to say that Christmas brings out the worse in some people, and other are of full of good cheer.
We seem to have been the target along with other garden centres of a local scam where people have been posing as a local business then passing fraudulent cheques. They appear to have been targeting the New Forest area and scamming goods to the value of £200. This leads to us having to put further controls on legitimate trade customers just because of a minority section of the public.
Fortunately we have a good security system so at least we can help the police with their investigations.
Anyhow away with the bad the feelings and in with the good.
Last week we were able to help a customer who feel very ill onsite with getting the emergancy services here quickly. We had an ambulance here fairly quickly but more excitiement came when the air ambulance landed on our neighbours front lawn much to their amazement.
It was good to hear that the casulty is now making a speedy recovery having had an operation as soon as he got to the hospital. It is great when people come back and let us know what is going on

Christmas is coming

With only a 14 days left to shop for Christmas we are starting to see the panic look in peoples eyes. Christmas trees are selling well and I have to say this year the quality is exceptional. We have sourced our trees from Scotland this year from plantations that we have visited in the past and this year they are the best trees we have ever had.
Pot plants are pouring into the centre almost daily and interestingly in the gift area as soon as we have gift wrapped items they have been taken off the shelves. We of course do not charge for the gift wrapping service unlike many of the other garden centres, we also make up garden and wildlife hampers for the customers who want to choose.
We are also putting together our promotional calender for 2009 so do keep a check on the web-site to see up and coming events, we have some really good ones planned for next year.
Tonight is our staff dinner and all the staff from our nursery,garden centre and Learning garden are coming to the Hungry gardener Cafe where we will be plying them with good food and drink, so be gentle with them on Friday there may be a few sore heads around.

Nursery website

I have recently been suffering with the dreaded man-flu and have been confined to home. So rather than just mope around feeling sorry for myself I have turned on my Mac and got the nursery website up together. You can now access the nursery website either via the garden centre site or following this link www.fairweathers.co.uk/nursery/
Some of the areas are restricted to trade customers but all the plant information and general details about the nursery are there at your disposal, so do go and have a look. We will be adding more and more as time goes on or if this flu goes on I will keep adding information.
Sad news today to see that the great Norfolk Lavender company is in financial trouble see http://www.lynnnews.co.uk/news/Jobs-go-as-Norfolk-Lavender.4763977.jp we were suppliers to them for many years from our nursery and feel very sorry for them at present.

Christmas trees

We now have all our Christmas Trees stocks in. We have freshly cut needlefast trees from Scotland and locally grown trees that are grwoing in their own pots.
With the drop in VAt these trees are cheaper than they were from us last year so make the most of it.
We also have variuos tree holders, we recommend these as you can keep water in them to keep the tree fresh and with these cold nights the tree is in for a bit of shock when you put it up in your centrally heated warm abode.
Also this year for every tree sold we are pledging a new tree to one of three local charities more details can be found on our web-site http://www.fairweathers.co.uk/?men=1&sub=1

Pledge Day

On Wednesday Beaulieu School came over to the Learning Garden and helped plant the first fruit tree. We planted a pear tree and on this tree the school placed pledges that they made. We are aiming to keep these pledges available for all to see until the spring.
Do come along and read the children's pledge.



This is the start of our fruit tree planting, now that we have about 20 tons of manure on site we can get the ground properly prepared ready for a good establishment of the trees.

Website updates

Working this weekend and suffering from lack of trade due to cold wet weather has at least allowed me time to get up to date with our website, www.fairweathers.co.uk. We are currently working on getting a section on our site for visitors to find out more about local attractions and events along with what else Beaulieu can offer. It is somewhat surprising that the Beaulieu villiage website has not been kept up to speed at least we can fill that gap for visitors and hopefully attract others to the area.
We had a meeting on Saturday with some of the Learning garden team to set out for next year a range of drop-in courses on vegetable gardening. Our intention is to provide simple workshops on a regular basis where visitors can come along and learn some practical advice on grwoing veg in their own garden or allotement. These will consist of about a 10-15min talk followed by practical experience so that the theory can be put into practice.
We will be posting details of the program up opn the website once we have finalised it, places will be however limited and if you wnat to come along we suggest an early booking. These workshops will be FREE but if you want a more detailed and thorough course we are aiming to offer these later in the year. There will a charge for these but we can assure you that your money will be well spent.

Weekend weather change

Saturday and the weather has changed. Why is it when the weekend comes along and people can get out into the garden the weather does a change for the worse. This morning in the garden centre it started to sleet. We are setting out our Christmas tree area for the first trees are due in from Scotland on Wednesday, we are expecting them to be covered with snow, how very festive.

Sort fruit training

Having got our fruit posts up in the learning garden we have now started putting the wire up. As we have said before we are going to demonstrate various ways of training the fruit.
Fortunately the manure has now been delivered and we have got Beaulieu school to help get this spread over the fruit tree area. The children just had great fun on Wednesday spreading the manure, they love the physical aspects of gardening.

One day fine another wet

Today (Thursday) what a day, you could have fired a shotgun through the garden centre at 11am and not hit anybody. It certainly is not conducive to gardening, but then yesterday was glorious. Oh the vagaries of English weather.
Yesterday was our last reward card holders Christmas evening and what a great time. thank you to evrybody who came over the two days making it a very pleasant and successful time.
We got through 80+ bottles of champagne and 450 mince pies and kilos of sausages, nothing like a drink and a few home cooked goodies to liven up the evening. For those of you who couldn't make it we are celebrating a traditional Christmas in Beaulieu on Saturday 13th December so why not come along to that as the whole villiage will be participating.

Sowing now

Even though the weather has taken a turn for the worse, night temperatures here have fallen to a chilly -2C, and believe you and me that feels cold to us soft southerners, and even to the point that last Monday we had a hail storm that coated the ground white for a while, there are plenty of jobs to get done in the garden.
In the learning garden we are planting out garlic and red onion sets along with sowing a nice early crop of Aquadulce broad beans.
Clearing off the dead foliage of crops like pumpkins and marrows etc that have succumbed to the ravages of cold nights has opened up great areas of bare soil just waiting to be dug over and restocked with manure ready for the next crops.

Strulch

Products are coming in thick and fast to us and not all Christmas stock.
We have just started to stock Strulch a mineralised straw mulch for Organic gardening. This has been used extensively at the Eden project and at the RHS garden Wisley.
According the Strulch it is light and easy to use and is made from wheat straw. A patented process is used to preserve the straw so it lasts for up to 2 years and gives an earthy brown colour. Each 100ltr bag will cover 3 sq metres making it very economical. We are selling it for £6.99 for a bog of 100ltrs.
More details can be found on their web-site www.strulch.co.uk

Birds of Prey Weekend

Thanks to the Wessex Birds of Prey rescue centre we are having a great display. They have temporarily lost one of the owls up in one of the Lawson trees in the car-park but have tempted it down with a chick for its lunch.
If you have been at the garden center this weekend we would love you to reply to this post with your best picture as a lot of people have been taking images.
Who knows we may even be able to rustle up a prize for the best image.
lets see your best shots!

I am back

22nd October
After a long absence I am back to keep you up to date with what is going on.
Christmas is happening and our gift ladies are working long hours to set our Christmas display out for you to come and spend all your heating money on it.
We opened our lighting section last weekend and you will notice we have gone down the route of LED lights as these are extremely efficient to run, costing a lot less per day to have on.
We are frantically clearing our plant area for a birds of prey weekend this weekend. We have the Wessex Birds of Prey rescue organization bring a collection of their birds along. If the weather is kind to us, and lets be honest every event we have organised this year it has rained so far, they are hoping to fly the birds around the Garden Centre plant area. At least this should keep the vermin under control.
Why not come along and have a chat to us this weekend and watch the birdies

The Sunday telegraph

Interestingly this weekend the Sunday Telegraph gave an excellent article on the growing of Salad leaves, they were stating that there is still time to sow a crop of salad leaves that will crop through the winter.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/index.jhtml

Autumn weekend

Following on from our Autumn weekend which was unfortunately depleted by having really wet and windy weather, we have great range of autumn foliage plants. It would look as if the season is providing great colour, lets hope we do not get too much wet and windy weather otherwise it will be short lived.
The nights are now getting cold, to extend the fruiting season in the veg garden do not be afraid to cover your beans with fleece, this could make all the difference of continuing to harvets them well into October or looking at a black mush.

Free daff bulbs

This weekend saw the end of our give away of a bag of free daffodil bulbs to our garden reward card holders.
This has been very successful and measuring the volume of bulbs we have given away this part of the south coast should look great next spring. Give away rewards are great for us , we love doing them, but we need more applicants for our reward card, so why not sign up. its free and we just love giving you things.

Sunny weekend

At long last we have had a sunny weekend.
Gardeners have been out in force this weekend and what is encouraging are the number of first time gardeners who want to grow fruit and veg.
We had families coming in who were encouraging their children to try and sow and grow, this is great news as the skills of gardening need to be transferred. It was a pleasure to help advise and encourage these people. Long may this last.

Out comes the sun

Yippee out comes the sun and fortunately out come the customers and gardeners. This is what we have been waiting for. We are having better weather now than we did in August. Even the plants look brighter when the sun shines. At least there is still time to enjoy the garden, rip out that tired old bedding and put in some of the really colourful primroses and polyanthus. Pansies and violas now come in so many colours you can match them to suit any pot or garden position.

GLEE exhibiton

This week the team has been to Glee (Garden, Leisure and Pet industry show) to see whats new and fresh for 2009. The general theme at the show which many of the trade stands were picking up on was ' Grow your Own'. A massive push in the retail trade towards growing your our fruit and vegetables in your own garden on on the patio. There was a distinct feel of the 70's self sufficiency about it but this time with a more than subtle hint of fashion about it.
We identified quite a few unusual and very useful ideas and gizmos so look out for these in our shop in the New Year. One thing that was very prevalent was a significant price increase on the horizon on many of the products we currently take for granted. Fertilisers, compost and wooden furniture look as if they will be increasing significantly in 2009.

Garlic

We currently have Garlic bulbs in stock ready for planting. This year for the first time we can offer the Isle of Wight Garlic ' Solent Wight'. This form has a strong flavour but I can vouch for its storage ability. Of all the garlic that I have grown this one stores by far the best. We also have other varieties available such as Germidour for a mild flavour and Marco for another strong flavoured form

Update from Chris Packham

Ive been working hard to come up with the most appropriate nick name for my pumpkin . The contenders have included ; Titan , Pumpzilla , Bertha ( after the big gun ) , El Massivo and Big Boy . However , weve settled on . . . JUPITER on account of its planetary proportions ! My confidence is swelling in tune with its own girth . Parking has become a bit of a problem and there have been more complaints from the CAA as they claim it is becoming a danger to low flying aircraft .People in Marchwood are saying that it seems to be getting darker earlier than normal as the sun is eclipsed by 'an unatural object in the west' . Its becoming a thing of great beauty , and I shall be marketing postcards soon ' .

Disaster happens

The wet weather we have been experiencing has done its worst and we have lost one of our giant pumpkins. We do not appear to be alone. The Paton boys have lost 4 of their 6 giants.
Our remaining giant is not looking too good either, there is signs of rotting at one end. We need sunshine, urgently.

Vegetable plants update

Today we received a new supply of vegetable plants for sale in the garden centre. We now have stocks of leeks, spring onion, purple broccoli, sprouting broccoli, spinach, Chinese salad and glasshouse lettuce. All of these should be planted out now to provide a good supply of vegetables for the autumn and spring.

Flea beetle

Now that the pressure from flea beetle has passed we have sown more rocket and oriental mixed leaves. Flea beetle causes holes in the leaves, heavy attacks can kill seedlings and will check the growth of older plants.
Sowing in late summer will avoid the beetle also it is always best to sow when the weather and soil conditions will allow rapid growth and germination.

Pumpkin Update

As I said last week I thought it would be fun to just see how fast the mother of all pumpkins is growing so we started to measure its circumference. So far we have recorded the following measurements:
15th 67cm
17th 70cm
19th 76cm
It is incredible the rate of growth in just six days.
Julian is ensuring each day he cuts off any flowers that are forming to put all the energy into the main fruit, along with feeding it at least twice a week nature is doing the rest.

August seed sowing

To make use of space available in the garden we are currently sowing direct into the ground a range of quick crops:
Carrots Nantes2, Land cress variegated American, various mixed leaf lettuce such as French and Italian mix, Oriental mustards, flat-leaved parsley and a quick crop of radish.
In our raised beds we are sowing various overwintering crops which, when they have grown we will transplant out into the garden. Some of these crops are: Spring cabbage, Chicory, endive, fennel, Pak Choi, spinach and Swiss chard.

Hows my baby

I know it seems to be pumpkins, pumpkins, pumpkins but look at the baby growing. We are going to start recording its girth every couple of days from now on just to quantify the rate of growth.

Spring bulbs are here

Its just into August and the seasons are changing. The spring bulbs are now in stock. The shop is filling out with Daffodils and Tulips plus many other great spring bulbs. It does seem early but it is the correct time to start to plan and purchase the bulbs before they run out. If you are not intending to plant them, keep them in the cool and dark until you need them

Autumn Bedding

Where has the summer gone, we are now stocking the first of the autumn bedding, great packs of cyclamen and some wonderful outdoor chrysanthemum for some real impact of colours. These chrysanthemums are great value and can be grown in tubs as well as in borders and come in a range of colours. We are also able to supply smaller plants that can be used in tubs and patio pots, all for 8.99 for the big pots and 8.99 for a 4 pack.
The cyclamen are 5.29 for a six pack.

Vegetable plants are back in

We currently have more winter cabbage and cauliflower plants back in stock at the garden centre. These have all been grown on our nursery and are the same varieties we are currently planting in our learning garden.

Fairweathers Pumpkin update

We cannot be out done by Mr Packham. Look at our baby!

Update from Chris Packham

'The behemoth liveth ! Look at my triffid ! I know its just the start , just a few leaves , but it seems to be prospering under my loving care . Whatever , my confidence is currently high . I wonder how long it will be before its visable from space ? '




'Here it is - the first picture of my baby monster . I now know how a proud parent feels with one of those scans ! I fertilized it two days ago using pollen from the male flower and I reckon its begining to swell already . And if one of the badgers that visit my garden even looks at it . . .

Bird feeders and cabbage whites

When Chris Packham came on our wildlife day he put 3 bird feeders up into an Oak tree on the site.
It has taken 2 weeks for the birds to get used to these feeder but now they have found them they are emptying them out in a couple of days. The most important thing is to keep them filled up as now they have found them we want to keep them interested in the site as they can be great predators and with the amount of cabbage white butterflies about we will need their help and assistance in controlling the caterpillars that are about to invade us.

Weeds galore

With the rain that we have had followed by a good period of warm weather we have had a greening of the site with weeds. As we are trying to be organic in our production it was a case of sharpening up the hoes and getting out there when the sun was really shining. There is no way about it hoeing is not only very satisfying to do but also very effective. In a matter of just one day a big improvement has been made.

Oh no our baby has gone

Bad news. The pumpkin that had set last week has been chomped by slugs. The little devils sneaked in under the cover of darkness and chewed off our first set pumpkin.
Good news however the second pumpkin has set a little baby now, but the task is to keep the predators away from this one. Unfortunately it is still so very cold these plants are not growing as fast as they should be. This July is not a great squash month.

Our first baby

Great news our pumpkin has set fruit and we have our first baby pumpkin on the plant.

There is bad news however the stem has split !!!!!
I do not think this is too much of a problem however as it is already showing signs of callous forming to heal itself, this could have been due to irregular waterings. Having spoken to Chris Packham at the weekend his too has split, but still no fruit on his.

Conifer Aphids

We have had a customer in today with a conifer hedge where great sections of it had died and on touching it the leaves have dropped off. There are other areas where the growth is perfectly ok.
The problem is due to Conifer aphids and the one that manly cause the problem is Cinara species. Fortunately there is help at hand and a couple of good doses of Scotts 'Bug Clear' will get rid of the pest, but you must spray at first signs otherwise it can be difficult to control.

Big bug attacks Garden centre

We had a infestation of a big bug today at the garden centre, it seems even the bugs have heard about our Gardening with wildlife day on Saturday

Fairweathers Pumpkin

At long last it looks like our pumpkin is starting to grow, it is now sending out a leader but it is looking a bit sick, this could be due to the still rather cold nights we are getting.

Chris Packhams Giant Pumpkin

I received this e-mail from Chris today who is really getting excited about our pumpkin challenge and he has every right to be excited it is a real whopper:
Chris Packham says:

" I was worried to start with as there seemed little progress from my seedling . . . but now its off to a flying start . Ive been pretty fastidious with the watering and giving it a little root food to get it started . I feed my Badgers about 2 metres away from where its planted and Im begining to wonder if this was such a good idea given their very cosmopolitan diet ! We shall see . Theres still a long way to go but my confidence is growing as fast as my potential giant ! "

Chris

How is yours growing? let us know by adding to this post.

Dicolouration and Pigeons

There seems to be lots going on in the garden at present. We have been thinning out our lettuce and transplanting them and then feeding some of the ones that are maturing as they are showing signs of deficiency, going too yellow. We haven given them a good feed of chicken pellets as this provide nutrition over a longer period and is organic. We have also given the runner beans a good feed as these too are not a great colour and a growing very slowly at present.
The first crops of turnips are now being harvested and we are already half way through the crop. Our follow on crop is suffering, the retched pigeons are getting there before we are. We are going to net this crop as well. It does seem that our number one pest at present are pigeons









This week we have also started sowing more cut flowers a row of Amaranthus and a row of Sweet William 'Sooty' have been planted which should give us great cut flowers in late summer.
More vegetables have been sown, Pak choy and giant mustard which should give us a great late season crop.
We have also encountered a new problem with runner beans, runner bean rust, this causes blister like holes in the leaves with what can only be described a a coral like growth on the under where the holes are, The RHS advice on treatment is to leave alone and the plant will recover there is no treatment at present and is unlikely to effect yield or the growth of the plant.

Pumpkin update

This week the pumpkin does not to appear to have moved on much, but it is still alive and growing all be it very slowly. We have not had very warm days or nights this last week so we have not had the growth that we would normally had expected for late June.

Getting tidy for grand opening

Friday morning 20th June and we were rushing around to get the site clean and tidy ready for the grand opening that afternoon. The weather forecast was grim, looking like heavy rain.
Chris Pack and Steve Trotter are the guest speakers. We have also been given an Hampshire heritage apple tree 'Beauty of Hants' to plant from Sparsholt College.
In the end it turned out fine and dry and about 100 guests turned up.
Many children who first came to garden back in April also came along and a good time was had by all.




We thought as something different we would get Chris to pull a beetroot instead of cutting a ribbon, we felt this was too ordinary.
We are now official, so lets get more people into the garden and teach them how to grow their own fruit and veg.
Thanks to everybody who helped on the day, it was a great success.

How big is your Pumpkin ?

After a weeks growing we feel our pumpkins are getting established. We lavished plenty of water onto them over the last week even though there has been a threat of rain, unfortunately the rain we received did not really get well into the soil so Julian has been giving these a good soaking each day. How are yours getting on?

Julians environmental commute

Julian ( our head gardener) lives in Bournemouth but commutes to the garden via train and bicycle, very environmentally friendly. He always makes sure his attire is well seen while cycling, note the shoes !

Turnip delight

Having only planted our turnips 8 weeks ago in our raised beds we are delighted to now be harvesting delightful baby turnips. This really shows the benefits and advantages a raised bed can bring.

Recycle old pallets

Today we have started to build our compost bins from re-cycled pallets, our method of build does not involve digging or fixing posts into the ground, not ground breaking just a lazy mans way of construction. It won't be long before we have filled these bins up as we will be putting all our green waste from the Garden centre, coffee shop and garden. The work now begins on making great compost, plenty of aeration and turning of the materials.

Giant Pumpkins

It would appear our Giant Pumpkin competition is really getting going, we have sold quite a few over the weekend in the Garden Centre.
Having only just planted ours out in the Learning Garden last week we are making sure they do not get any checks at the moment so we are applying plenty of water so they do not dry out while they are making their roots.

Eel worm attack

It looks like we have discovered the first signs of eel-worm in our Chinese radish today.
Planting out Borlotto beans that have been raised in our nursery poly-tunnels.
More courgettes and sweet corn being planted today again all raised under-cover to be in the perfect condition for planting.

Pumkins are go

We are planting out all our pumpkins and gourds today (11th June 2008) including one of our special Giant Pumpkins. Remember we have posted a fact sheet on how to grow pumpkins on our site at Fact sheets here we are giving away some of the trade secrets on how to achieve a whopper.

Hellebores last longer

Viagra makes flowers last longer in a vase
If only I had some to test on my Hellebores
However pinching the stem while underwater and cutting the pinched section to release an air lock does help.
Cheaper too

Clay glorious clay

What a dilemma when you clear a green field site with a plan to create an educational garden and discover that the top soil is limited to max 30cms and the sub soil is solid clay.
But we want to build a cob wall around the field - yippeee we have more clay than we are likely to need.
But how should we approach soil improvement when we want to grow some delicious vegetables this year?
I am planning well rotted manure but what about the weeds if its not been well composted