It was raining cats and dogs last night, with really strong winds and I think they're promising frost sometime this week as well. I'd better look at the weather sites and get out an extra layer of fleece, for me as well as the babies.
As I'm peering out of the window, both g/h are still there, and the new fruit trees look vertical. I'm most worried about the gaping holes that are still around the patio doors, you just can't get a renderer these days .... all promises and no show ! I'm thinking of blocking up the holes with scrunched carrier bags.
No doubt the front bed will be a small lake and my shrublets (as yet of no name) will be floating off down the road as the gutter has yet to be fixed.
They're saying the hosepipe ban will stay in place over the winter darn sarf ?? Well if someone wants to make the short journey north, we've got plenty to go around. Doesn't it make you wonder who the master planner is ? Got to be a bloke. :-P
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Can't resist a bargain !
There I was, minding my own business, when someone mentioned that Lidl had fruit trees in at £3.99. One tree I was going to get, just the one. So I unded up with 1 Granny Smith's, 1 Cox's Orange Pippin, 1 Bramley and 1 Cherry Stella, oh and 3 raspberry canes, and 2 gooseberry bushes. :-O
So all weekend, I've been digging and mixing thick clay with all sorts of improvers to plant up the trees and create a bed for my honeysuckle.
Coerced the OH to lay the slab pathway in g/h No. 1 and while I had all the staging out, I draped a layer of scrunched fleece over a length of washing line all down the north side to try and offer a bit of protection against the frst as I just know I'm not going to get any electric heating in there, and I've still to go and find any parrafin for the heater. I was waiting until another two for one bargain came up on an ebay greenhouse site for some bubblewrap, but if I can get away with just having one roll, all the better.
No change in the chillis and pepper, albeit there are more chillies ripening and the peppers are getting fractionally bigger. The radishes have come up, so keeping an eye on them.
Some of the fuschia cuttings seem to have taken, and most of the senecio greyii. The alstroemerias are coming along nicely, and one of the lavender cuttings is growing too big for it's propogator, I'll leave it in there until the rest catch up a bit.
A tray full of calendula officinalis has germinated nicely. Now to see if they can keep going. Out of a tray of Potentilla 'Monarchs Velvet'(Cinquefoil), I've only got two left, but they are struggling along steadily and am looking forward to seeing if they last the winter too.
The solent wight and purple wight garlic went in at last. The solent in it's own bed, the purple had to share with the onions. Still got the elephant to think about.
Man was supposed to come and do wall yesterday, but due to a pretty nasty day and him having a bit of a hard Friday night, we postponed it. Hope it's this week, cos i need to get to the long bed that runs down the centre of the two gardens, and no point doing that til he's built his wall.
The deck is just fabby, but I'm having to watch bird poo off constantly, but it's so easy with the hose. We laid another two paving slabs at the bottom of the steps to the vegetable plot, in the hope that they might stop some of the mud being trodden all across the deck.
I came over all pooped though this afternoon. No-one told my body clock that it should have given me an extra hour in bed this morning. OOh, I can feel a relapse coming on, back to the sofa I go.
So all weekend, I've been digging and mixing thick clay with all sorts of improvers to plant up the trees and create a bed for my honeysuckle.
Coerced the OH to lay the slab pathway in g/h No. 1 and while I had all the staging out, I draped a layer of scrunched fleece over a length of washing line all down the north side to try and offer a bit of protection against the frst as I just know I'm not going to get any electric heating in there, and I've still to go and find any parrafin for the heater. I was waiting until another two for one bargain came up on an ebay greenhouse site for some bubblewrap, but if I can get away with just having one roll, all the better.
No change in the chillis and pepper, albeit there are more chillies ripening and the peppers are getting fractionally bigger. The radishes have come up, so keeping an eye on them.
Some of the fuschia cuttings seem to have taken, and most of the senecio greyii. The alstroemerias are coming along nicely, and one of the lavender cuttings is growing too big for it's propogator, I'll leave it in there until the rest catch up a bit.
A tray full of calendula officinalis has germinated nicely. Now to see if they can keep going. Out of a tray of Potentilla 'Monarchs Velvet'(Cinquefoil), I've only got two left, but they are struggling along steadily and am looking forward to seeing if they last the winter too.
The solent wight and purple wight garlic went in at last. The solent in it's own bed, the purple had to share with the onions. Still got the elephant to think about.
Man was supposed to come and do wall yesterday, but due to a pretty nasty day and him having a bit of a hard Friday night, we postponed it. Hope it's this week, cos i need to get to the long bed that runs down the centre of the two gardens, and no point doing that til he's built his wall.
The deck is just fabby, but I'm having to watch bird poo off constantly, but it's so easy with the hose. We laid another two paving slabs at the bottom of the steps to the vegetable plot, in the hope that they might stop some of the mud being trodden all across the deck.
I came over all pooped though this afternoon. No-one told my body clock that it should have given me an extra hour in bed this morning. OOh, I can feel a relapse coming on, back to the sofa I go.
Saturday, October 21, 2006
42 days is all it took
Hi there people, sorry for the break in transmission. I blame the onset of autumn.
8 September was when I had my deck brainwave. Yesterday it was built ! The money arrived on Tuesday, big congrats to the Nationwide, lovely people. So I rang Mr Window man who duly rang his decking mate and they came to measure/discuss on Thursday night. Yesterday morning I got an early call saying because the weather was likely to be rubbish over the weekend could I leave the keys out for them to start yesterday. By the time I got back from work last night, this is what I walked out onto.
I was totally overawed. It's just as wonderful as I wanted, even more impressive than I could ever have thought. No apologies to the pureists, I'm in love. 
As I walked out onto it, I actually laughed out loud. It was HUGE! I'm thrilled with the ballustrade, all I said to the chap was "keep it simple", and he's achieved that but with strength, and robustness (?). They didn't start until gone 9am yesterday and phoned me at 3.20pm to say they were knocking off for the day, but would be back to finish up today. I can almost forgive them trampling on some of the onions, which I'm sure will recover.
We sat out there till well after dark, just giggling. I don't want to over cram it, so will have to carefully consider how many pots I'm going to have dotted around and how I'm going to stop the chimnea throwing sparks all over it. But it does make me feel as if I'm on holiday.
Now back to the growing thingies ....... I found a ladybird in g/h No. 2 ! Obviously feeding up for winter on the Little Gem greenflies. I moved the ladybird house into the g/h and left her sitting under the fleece to munch away before she retired. She was the first one I'd seen all season, obviously the thought of a big gorge was too much for her to ignore.
The calendula officianalis for overwintering have germinated and I've slung in another trough of radishes. As a result of the deck, next door has acquired a nice size bed (which I will maintain obviously), and that will become home to the honeysuckle and some other nice smelly things so that when I walk up the steps I'll get a lovely fragrant waft.
Here are the peppers and chillis .....
Cayenne
Numex Twilight
Unknown
Yellow Pepper !
(Still getting to grips with pic layout and labelling, sorry)
Despite it being very damp, I've got the doors wide open and am listening to the birdies waking up. I shall now go and stand on my balcony with my cuppa and soak them up before the day really starts.
More pics to follow ..... obviously. :-)
8 September was when I had my deck brainwave. Yesterday it was built ! The money arrived on Tuesday, big congrats to the Nationwide, lovely people. So I rang Mr Window man who duly rang his decking mate and they came to measure/discuss on Thursday night. Yesterday morning I got an early call saying because the weather was likely to be rubbish over the weekend could I leave the keys out for them to start yesterday. By the time I got back from work last night, this is what I walked out onto.
I was totally overawed. It's just as wonderful as I wanted, even more impressive than I could ever have thought. No apologies to the pureists, I'm in love. 
As I walked out onto it, I actually laughed out loud. It was HUGE! I'm thrilled with the ballustrade, all I said to the chap was "keep it simple", and he's achieved that but with strength, and robustness (?). They didn't start until gone 9am yesterday and phoned me at 3.20pm to say they were knocking off for the day, but would be back to finish up today. I can almost forgive them trampling on some of the onions, which I'm sure will recover. We sat out there till well after dark, just giggling. I don't want to over cram it, so will have to carefully consider how many pots I'm going to have dotted around and how I'm going to stop the chimnea throwing sparks all over it. But it does make me feel as if I'm on holiday.
Now back to the growing thingies ....... I found a ladybird in g/h No. 2 ! Obviously feeding up for winter on the Little Gem greenflies. I moved the ladybird house into the g/h and left her sitting under the fleece to munch away before she retired. She was the first one I'd seen all season, obviously the thought of a big gorge was too much for her to ignore.
The calendula officianalis for overwintering have germinated and I've slung in another trough of radishes. As a result of the deck, next door has acquired a nice size bed (which I will maintain obviously), and that will become home to the honeysuckle and some other nice smelly things so that when I walk up the steps I'll get a lovely fragrant waft.
Here are the peppers and chillis .....
Cayenne
Numex Twilight
Unknown
Yellow Pepper !
(Still getting to grips with pic layout and labelling, sorry)
Despite it being very damp, I've got the doors wide open and am listening to the birdies waking up. I shall now go and stand on my balcony with my cuppa and soak them up before the day really starts.
More pics to follow ..... obviously. :-)
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
I hate winter
There's still so much to do outside, but too dark in the mornings to do anything useful before work apart from open the greenhouses. Evenings aren't much better, as we seem to have had "things on" after work most of this week which meant allotmenteering has taken a back seat.
Things to report:
Onion sets are poking through. Need to raise the fleece a tad, or to create two separate fleece tunnels to give both varieties their own space.
Planting the garlic and elephant garlic. That can wait a bit though. The bed is ready just got to get out the ruler and see how much space I have/n't got !
Leeks still in pots. The big ones look a bit damp on the outside, but once you peel off a couple of layers, they look just fine. The small ones really don't seem to be getting any bigger. I guess they could double as spring onions !
Chillis still going mad in the g/h. Cayennes are ripening nicely now, so every couple of days, I pick a few more and sling them in the freezer. I had thought about doing some in oil as well. Chilli oil - yum. Numex Twilight are struggling on. Plenty of fruit struggling to ripen and still plenty of flowers, but must admit to being a bit handy with the scissors and chopping most of them off in an effort to get the fruit to a usable state.
Peppers still seem to be growing although there's no way they're going to get huge. I'll have to take a pic one of these fine days before they all drop off.
Got two trays of fuchsia cuttings on the go, one tray of my Prince of Denmark and
the others lifted from grandad's garden last week to keep undercover over the winter for him (and obviously to nick a few for myself). A chappy in work is going to be showing fuschias next year so he can have a few of both as well. Any idea of the name of grandad's one ??
My home saved sweetpeas have done buggar all, but a pot of Floral Tribute Mixed are reaching for the sky in g/h No. 2. I guess I should pinch them out before they get too much taller !
Senecio greyii cuttings (ooooh get you with your botanical names) are still alive ! Some are in the g/h, some are inside. I'll see which do better. If everything goes to plan and I get to keep some of upstairs flower beds to play with next year, I was thinking of doing the whole of their front border with this stuff. I nicked the original cutting from work and it has grown pretty well over the summer. It looks pretty impressive and requires no maintenance, so even upstairs can manage that !
Little Gem lettuces beginning to actually look like lettuces now. Had to pick off loads of greenfly the other night though. I've still got them in the plastic water cups that they were sown in. If I put them in the ground the slugs will get them.
Transplanted my rosemary bush from a pot to a border last week. It looks as though it's enjoying the freedom.
Still working out where to put some early peas and broadies ! Have I mentioned that I only have a two year crop rotation atm ? Legumes and onions.
Roll on that lottie !
Things to report:
Onion sets are poking through. Need to raise the fleece a tad, or to create two separate fleece tunnels to give both varieties their own space.
Planting the garlic and elephant garlic. That can wait a bit though. The bed is ready just got to get out the ruler and see how much space I have/n't got !
Leeks still in pots. The big ones look a bit damp on the outside, but once you peel off a couple of layers, they look just fine. The small ones really don't seem to be getting any bigger. I guess they could double as spring onions !
Chillis still going mad in the g/h. Cayennes are ripening nicely now, so every couple of days, I pick a few more and sling them in the freezer. I had thought about doing some in oil as well. Chilli oil - yum. Numex Twilight are struggling on. Plenty of fruit struggling to ripen and still plenty of flowers, but must admit to being a bit handy with the scissors and chopping most of them off in an effort to get the fruit to a usable state.
Peppers still seem to be growing although there's no way they're going to get huge. I'll have to take a pic one of these fine days before they all drop off.
Got two trays of fuchsia cuttings on the go, one tray of my Prince of Denmark and
the others lifted from grandad's garden last week to keep undercover over the winter for him (and obviously to nick a few for myself). A chappy in work is going to be showing fuschias next year so he can have a few of both as well. Any idea of the name of grandad's one ??My home saved sweetpeas have done buggar all, but a pot of Floral Tribute Mixed are reaching for the sky in g/h No. 2. I guess I should pinch them out before they get too much taller !
Senecio greyii cuttings (ooooh get you with your botanical names) are still alive ! Some are in the g/h, some are inside. I'll see which do better. If everything goes to plan and I get to keep some of upstairs flower beds to play with next year, I was thinking of doing the whole of their front border with this stuff. I nicked the original cutting from work and it has grown pretty well over the summer. It looks pretty impressive and requires no maintenance, so even upstairs can manage that !
Little Gem lettuces beginning to actually look like lettuces now. Had to pick off loads of greenfly the other night though. I've still got them in the plastic water cups that they were sown in. If I put them in the ground the slugs will get them.
Transplanted my rosemary bush from a pot to a border last week. It looks as though it's enjoying the freedom.
Still working out where to put some early peas and broadies ! Have I mentioned that I only have a two year crop rotation atm ? Legumes and onions.
Roll on that lottie !
Monday, October 02, 2006
Back to work
The evil day finally came and back to the office I went . HI HO!!!!!!!!!!!!
Not too bad a day all in all, but I'd rather have been in the garden, pouring rain n aw !
Since putting the gravel down in the g/h the wee sparras have been hopping in and out playing with the stones. Turns out they may well be searching for the salts ! Wonder if they like it on their chips with vinegar ! So I've put another tray of water down for them nearer the door just incase they get thirsty.
The front border/bank is gradually filling up with spring bulbs - daffs, narcissi, chionodoxa, snowdrops, bluebells and I've put in some evening primrose that weren't getting anywhere in their pot. Maybe with the chance to spread their roots a bit, I'll actually get some blooms next year. I've covered each area with bark to mark out what's still vacant. Mum's given me some "almost" Canterbury Bells "but not quite". Mum's technical terms are just so funny. It will be a matter of sow them, see what comes up, and THEN put a name to them. She also gave me some holihocks and I think once the guttering is fixed, I'll put them in the bed underneath the main bedroom window. They will get only get early morning sun there (sun ? what's that?) so I'll check before I plant whether they will need it a bit hotter.
Lish is giving me her elephant garlic "runt" so see if i can coax a trunk out of it!
That's what I love about this gardening malarky, it's all swap, pass on and share. Just the way the world should go round.
Not too bad a day all in all, but I'd rather have been in the garden, pouring rain n aw !
Since putting the gravel down in the g/h the wee sparras have been hopping in and out playing with the stones. Turns out they may well be searching for the salts ! Wonder if they like it on their chips with vinegar ! So I've put another tray of water down for them nearer the door just incase they get thirsty.
The front border/bank is gradually filling up with spring bulbs - daffs, narcissi, chionodoxa, snowdrops, bluebells and I've put in some evening primrose that weren't getting anywhere in their pot. Maybe with the chance to spread their roots a bit, I'll actually get some blooms next year. I've covered each area with bark to mark out what's still vacant. Mum's given me some "almost" Canterbury Bells "but not quite". Mum's technical terms are just so funny. It will be a matter of sow them, see what comes up, and THEN put a name to them. She also gave me some holihocks and I think once the guttering is fixed, I'll put them in the bed underneath the main bedroom window. They will get only get early morning sun there (sun ? what's that?) so I'll check before I plant whether they will need it a bit hotter.
Lish is giving me her elephant garlic "runt" so see if i can coax a trunk out of it!
That's what I love about this gardening malarky, it's all swap, pass on and share. Just the way the world should go round.
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