Meet Apprentice Matt
Sowing the seeds of Spring
139 views - 10months ago
Parsnip Patties
71 views - 10months ago
The Wassail Ceremony
137 views - 13months ago
Live feeds
9months ago, 9:08AM
Sad to be filming our last video today diary today :(
9months ago, 6:14PM
Been studying garden pests, diseases and disorders today. Amazing what's out there! The parasitised aphids have to be the find of the day.
9months ago, 10:34PM
Trying to resist the urge to plant out those tender vegetables too early. Maybe next week...
Hi, I'm Matt...
I'm 26, from Leamington Spa. I enjoy photography, I surf whenever I can, and I enjoy all aspects of gardening, particularly propagation.
I applied to become an apprentice for the chance to work in organic horticulture together with the prospect of sharing my passion through social media, which is very exciting.
Matt's Blog
Posted: 7:06PM 14 July 2011
Rain and Redevelopment
Gardeners everywhere have been getting funny looks recently. We’ve had a month of lovely weather, two four-day weekends with lots of sun, and even a royal wedding, yet mostly what the gardeners have been saying is “We really need some rain”. Cue the funny looks. Well, we got what we asked for. But now we’ve had a good downpour, if we could go back to the nice sunny weather, that’d be great. Please?
I’ve previously blogged about the redevelopments that have been happening over the winter at Ryton Gardens, and now a year on from Helen, Claire and myself starting, it’s amazing to see parts of the same gardens looking so different. Other parts are still the same though – the Judas tree is flowering, which it was doing when we started, and it’s a reminder that we only have a few weeks left. It’s been a brilliant year, and I have learned so much just from being around such good gardeners. The highlight for me though has definitely been making the videos each month. I’ve really enjoyed the whole process, from filming through editing to the finished piece, and hopefully they’ve been informative in some small way. Who knows, maybe I’ll keep doing them! Anyway, I’ll definitely be back to Ryton Gardens to see how the gardens and the people are getting on.
Posted: 5:25PM 26 April 2011
Sowing Summer Seeds
Things are in full swing now in the gardens. The winter is gone, the evenings are lighter, and everything is growing! I’ve been busy sowing seed, I’m nearly half way through, and I’m preparing the beds for planting out. I just finished preparing the cold frames in the Vegetable Inspirations garden for the first planting of lettuce, by taking the doors off and giving them a dose of our compost. Everyone is sowing now, and I think that we’re going to be fighting for space in the glasshouse and polytunnels soon – we start a lot of plants off early under heated glass, things like squash, tomatoes, chillies, basil and in my case mouse melons. Basically, things that like the warm and dislike the cold. Doing this means by the time the weather’s warm enough for them to be planted out we already have nice sized plants, and they will begin to crop sooner and therefore longer, meaning more food for us.
For Helen, Claire and myself diploma assessments have been a frequent occurrence as we near the end of our time here. We’re being assessed on all sorts of things, from sowing seed to watering to correctly applying nutrients to plants. We also have a more theoretical side to the diploma, in the form of test questions to answer. I now know that yellowing of young leaves, particularly of acid loving plants, indicates an iron deficiency. And now, so do you!
Coming soon. . .