Rose mounds seem to have originated in China, they are a great way of increasing the available planting space in your garden. My first rose mound was dug as an experiment to see if what I had heard about them would work. I had no intention of growing roses, I needed more space in my garden for crops of all sorts and was interested by the shapes and construction of the mounds.

The mound I made was eight feet long, four feet wide and two feet high at the centre, I followed the diagram and basic instructions found in Robert Harts book Forest Gardening to the letter and was very encouraged with the results.

Years later one of the problems we encountered on moving into our house in France was all of the fruit trees had been left for years and needed very radical trimming. I ended up with very large piles of fruit tree waste.

After leaving the wood rot for a while we started to build three mounds.

Making the rose mound is relatively simple:

Mark out the size of your mound or bed
Cut off and store the turf, you will need it later
Remove some soil, I find just over one spade (14 inches) in depth is just about right
Fill the whole with rotten wood, green wood, garden waste such as leaves, grass cuttings etc, anything to aid the rotting process
Ensure the wood and waste comes up level to the ground
Cover the waste with inverted turf
Cover the inverted turf with compost
Replace the soil on top of the compost
Water well
Leave for a few days and then plant your vegetables


Rose mound just finished and planted

The main benefits of the mounds are:

Increased growing space
Create raised beds to make gardening easier
The buried wood holds moisture
The mound will be slightly warmer so planting gets off to a better start
You get rid of large amounts of garden waste
You do not have to burn your old wood
the mounds when covered with plants look great


Rose mound planted with onions and tomatoes

Pumpkins are great fun, the plants themselves are huge, enormous and grow very quickly, if you plant a pumpkin patch you will be able to see noticeable changes in your patch everyday. Pumpkin plants take up a lot of room often escaping the bed in which you plant them, they send out shoots along the ground that seem to have a will of their own as they explore their surroundings looking for a comfortable section of land to grow their seeds.

The pumbkin female flowers are the ones that produce the huge fruit that we all know and love, the males produce pollen for pollination then die back. My wife has told me over the years that pumpkins need a hand in the pollination process and has shown me how she tears the male flower apart and introduces it to the freshly opened female flower! Pumpkins root their exploring shoots to whatever they find using tendrils that tighten their grip ensuring that the pumpkin plant will not move.

Pumpkins can be planted at the end of spring when the temperature gets above 20 degrees and the nights are frost free, pumpkins love the sun, they would prefer sun all day but must have at least six hours of sunlight. Our pumpkin patch starts of at about two meters by two meters, the pumpkin plants soon outgrow this and start to spread, they can be trained to travel alongside other plants and if looked after behave well.

Pumkins love food and water, if they could speak the first words they would probably be can I have a drink!

Our first pumpkin patch in France 5/07/09
You can just see our first baby pumpkin in the middle hiding under the leaves

Pumpkin history

References to pumpkins date back throughout the centuries, the name pumpkin probably originated from the Greek word for large melon, or pepon. Pepon was nasalized by the French then the British changed it to Pumpion, finally Americans colonists changed the word to pumpkin. Native Americans used pumpkins for matting and food, they would roast pumpkin strips over the open fires and eat them. The origins of pumpkin pie lie with the American colonists, they would cut the top off the pumpkin scoop out the insides and fill them with spices, honey and milk, the pumpkin was then baked.

Pumpkin carving

People have been making Jack-o-lanterns at different times of the year for centuries. The practice originated from an Irish myth focused on Stingy Jack who played tricks on the Devil and was banned from entering heaven. Jack was cursed to walk the earth forever, the devil sent Jack off into the night with only a burning coal to light his way, Jack put the burning coal into a carved out turnip and has been roaming the Earth with it ever since.  

Halloween

Today we celebrate Samhain as a time of death and rebirth. The end of the old year and the dark, tentative and dangerous beginnings of the new. Those that have recently passed on and our ancestral heritage is acknowledged. We are encouraged to reflect on death and the unknown.

In Ireland and Scotland, people began to make their own versions of Jack's lanterns by carving scary faces into turnips or potatoes and placing them into windows or near doors to frighten away Stingy Jack and other wandering evil spirits. In England, large beets were used. Settlers to America brought this tradition with them and soon found that pumpkins, a fruit native to America, make perfect jack o'lanterns.