Practical Magic

Cheshire's answer to Hogwarts?

I suppose I shouldn't have been too surprised that my previous post received an unusually high number of hits; potatoes of vaguely obscene shapes are clearly more interesting to my readers than money-saving recycling tips or aesthetically pleasing planting schemes!

But sadly, people, that's all the kinky spuds for this year; the ones still being lifted are very ordinary shapes, though infested with a new pest in some cases, identified with the invaluable assistance of Harry Delany at Reaseheath College as millipedes rather than tiny worms.  I must treat myself to a hand lens...

Wriggling pests - tiny millipedes, not worms.

Hopefully, the triumph of the creepy-crawlies will be short lived, now I am back at Reaseheath and three weeks in to the RHS Level 2 Practical Course which, should I complete it successfully, converts my RHS Certificate to a Diploma.  You've got to admit, that sounds dead clever, doesn't it? 

It's a course in which you get your hands dirty; literally.  Last week we were testing soil samples, a process familiar to most four-year-olds as essentially it's about making mud pies and then trying to roll pieces into balls and sausages.  The squishiness of the outcome and the time it takes to swarfega the residue off your hands tells you whether you're dealing with a sand, silt or clay soil.  How accurate it is I couldn't say, but it was fun!  We also tried our hands at some proper science with pH testing kits and got some quite dramatic results from a variety of soils, though myself and a fellow student using the same soils samples produced results a good 0.5 apart, suggesting some dodgy testing solution was to blame.



Colourful results



pH test - shaken not stirred!

This week it was the fine art of filling seed trays, properly, and sowing seeds of various sizes economically and evenly.  It's only when you watch someone doing it properly (and that won't be on 'Gardener's World' according to our Harry!) that you realise it's not just a matter of bundling some compost into a tray and flattening the top off. 

Here's one we did earlier...

We'll know whether we got it right next week when our efforts emerge from the germination room

All that, and the challenge of learning to identify twenty-seven different pests, diseases and disorders ready for testing next week.  I managed a clean sheet on my previous 'ident' test getting all 20 of  the perennial plants, but will I be able to tell my 'capsid bug' from my 'two-spotted spider mite', my 'bitter pit' from my 'apple scab'?  I bet the suspence is killing you!