Contents:
- Editor's welcome
- Daisi Daniels
- Rochdale’s ‘gothic masterpiece’ Town Hall is being restored to its full glory
- Broadfield Park
- Sarah Fitchett Woman of Rochdale 2022
- Upperbanks
- Jolly Josh charity opens fully-inclusive centre for disabled children
- ’Thank you’ funds raised for hospital by children
- Highest award for Rochdale soup kitchen
- H Bell & Sons celebrate 110 years of business
- The RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch 2022
- Gardening tips for Summer »
- BES: Delivering industry-leading expertise from Rochdale
- Luxury travel brand eShores turns 15
- This Summer take a holiday from binge boozing
- Permanent eyebrows - what are they all about?
- Guided Walks
- Pineapple upside-down cake and piña colada
- Royal Jubilee recognition for Brad Gartland after setting up local male mental health charity
- Rochdale Lacrosse win David Beesley Cup after unbeaten season
- The earliest days of rugby football in Rochdale
- Highlights of a mayoral year
- Hairdressing trend - Beach Waves
Summer 2022Gardening tips for Summer
ABOUT THE WRITER
Roy Down is an engagement and development worker at Petrus as well as the chairman of Rochdale in Bloom. His role at Petrus is to help improve the mental health and wellbeing of volunteers through gardening, as well as those referred via NHS social prescribing.
Summer is the time when gardens are at their best with lots of beautiful blooms and bright colours to cheer up those days when the sun doesn’t shine.
Despite the fact that Rochdale gets its fair share of rainfall, newly planted flowers are prone to drying out at this time of year. Water conservation and capturing water is really important. If you have room, consider installing a water butt to collect excess rainwater - much better for your plants than tap water too. If a water butt isn’t an option, a bucket left out to collect rainwater will do just as well - every drop counts.
Your vegetables and plants will need feeding to encourage growth, meaning more flowers for your display, or fruits and vegetables for your table.
Organic fertilisers (such as seaweed feed) work well for a general weekly feed of flower beds. In the vegetable patch, tomatoes and peppers will need a high potassium fertiliser every week to encourage flowers and fruit to develop and to help keep pests and diseases at bay.
As the soil continues to warm up and veg and flowers grow stronger, so do the weeds. Keep them at bay by hoeing weedlings as they germinate. Tackling them at this stage will be easier and less time consuming than letting them dominate your vegetable and flower beds.
If you have limited growing space, think about growing some herbs in a container by the back door or on a windowsill. There are lots of herbs to choose from and many have attractive foliage and scent.
They make a wonderful display that’s lovely to look at, and useful to cook with too.
At Petrus PIER, our favourite herbs right now include chocolate mint, oregano and coriander. Do watch out for herbs like mint, which can take over a container and dominate the display. It is better to grow these separately or plant them in their own pot within the container to control their growth.
Whatever you do this summer, make sure you take a moment to enjoy and take solace in the green spaces you have access to, and feel free to head down to Petrus PIER to see what we have got ‘growing’ on.