22 February 2011
In a few days/weeks time the blossom will be bursting out on the Cherry Plum trees and similar plum varieties around Cambridge. These flower earlier than Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa, Sloe) and will be laden with small yellow or red plums in August.
Some good locations: Barnwell Road, Coldhams Common (Newmarket Road end between the Barnwell lake/railway line and Cambridge Utd’s Abbey Stadium.
Cherry plum in flower, Coldham's Common near Newmarket Road
19 February 2011 – many signs of spring
A grotty wet, dull February day but there are plenty of signs of spring including:
catkins on both Common and Turkish Hazels in the Romsey area of Cambridge, small but very-scented flowers on winter-flowering honeysuckle (e.g. Romsey Rec), viburnum and Daphne odora (a sweet-smelling spring shrub).
Tues 15th Feb.
A good number of people attended the Grow Your Own session at Ross Street Community Centre, Cambridge. This is part of Cambridge Carbon Footprint’s programme to help people reduce their consumption of energy and other resources (and in turn carbon dioxide production). We covered gardening jobs to do now (as the new season gets into gear), looked at soil types and pH, composts, pruning fruit trees, storing fruit and veg, etc. Tips and ideas were swapped in preparation for the new season. The people who attended included those with a small back yard to those with a full sized allotment. However, the challenges remain the same – lack of time, the weather, pests and diseases!
The next session is on Tuesday 5th April 2011.
13th February
The winter gardens at Anglesey Abbey (National Trust) were looking great – lots of varieties of snowdrops and shrubs in ful flower and the Himalayan Birches were looking as white as ever on a dull day. It’s a great place to get inspiration for your own garden.
The group of birches at Anglesey Abbey
10 February 2011
Welcome to this new blog, to feature
• Events in Cambridge about growing your own produce
• Gardening tips
• Allotments in Cambridge
• Seasonal notes about local trees and wildlife in the Cambridge area
• Tree and wildlife walks I organise in parts of Cambridge
Keith Jordan
Romsey Garden Club talks:
7.30pm in the main hall at Ross Street Community Centre, Ross Street near the St Philip’s Road junction
8 March 2011 Keith Jordan ‘A personal view of Fruit and Vegetable Gardening’
Keith has gardened since he was ‘knee-high to a grasshopper’ – starting on ‘all fours’ on his dad’s allotment in Huntingdon and a back garden, a stone’s throw from where ‘Huntingdon Codlin’ Apple was bred. His gardening interests took him from the walled gardens of Madingley Hall, a greenhouse 3 floors up on the roof of a Cambridge University laboratory and 2 allotments in Cambridge. Keith shares his allotment site with countless toads, foxes and hard ‘Burnside clods’.
A selection of home-grown vegetables
12 April 2011 Mike Petty ‘Pickwick’s Cambridge Scrapbook 1838 – The Gardening Stories’
The well-known local historian and journalist will give an entertaining talk with a gardening theme.
http://www.cambridgeshirehistory.com/MikePetty/
10 May 2011 Twigs Way ‘The History of the Cottage Garden’
Twigs is a garden historian and writer who last year gave a talk to the club about the history of allotments. She opens up her beautiful back garden in Abbey, Cambridge most years where ‘rescue rabbits’, ducks and other animals feature.
http://www.calh.org.uk/documents/w.TwigsWay1.pdf
More details from Cutlacks store, Mill Road, Cambridge or the website: http://sites.google.com/site/romseygardenclub/
