The weekend past there just gone

I should really write this up earlier shouldn't I ?

Weather - Saturday bright and breezy. Sunday not so bright and a wee bit of drizzle.

Stuff done:

Dug at/over/in improver to the remaining stretch of neighbour's solid border and redistributed piles of earth so that the whole border is pretty much level throwing unearthed rocks and stones in the bath as I went. Then covered the whole lot with various bits of cut up compost bags, black side up and cardboard boxes that I had saved for just the purpose. Underlay the lot with triple layers of newspaper (that was fun in the wind)and used my pile of patio bricks to weigh it all down. Thank goodness no one took me up on my offer to take them away.

Broke up all the polystyrene I had lying around into little chunks to act as drainage in the whisky/wine half barrel. In another moment of blinding inspiration, I cut a big circle of perforated clear plastic to lay over the drainage chunks and up the sides. The purpose for this was twofold. Firstly to stop all the compost mixing with the chunks (which happened last year and was a real bother when I decided to replace the compost, secondly to act as a moisture retainer. I figure it won't need watering quite so often (going to use this trick in the bath too). Then filled the barrel with a bag of JI multi-purpose. Nothing planted it in yet, but it's ready and waiting !

Retrieved two Spur shelving brackets from the OH's mum's loft and put up a shelf in the shed and did a bit of spring cleaning. I can now see the floor and laid another cardboard box carpet down. As this had a shiny printed pattern, I didn't think the worms would enjoy that particular box.

Tidied the g/h, cut off any deed looking leaves and generally cleared away any fallen leave and sowed a row of Italian Salad cut and come again leaves. The calendulars need potting up I reckon so will do that this weekend.

More washing of pots, big and small.

OH blocked in the ends of the path that runs between the garlic and strawberry beds and filled it with a strange mix of compost, leaves, more compost, topsoil. Will leave it to settle and throw in a bag of JI multi-purpose on the top. So now I have one big bed, split into 3 sections.

Dug up one of the JAs planted last weekend and moved it a couple of foot to the right. Had I read Supersprouts instructions carefully before planting, I would have known this ! :-P

Created a border under the privet hedge that runs down the side of the deck, but cutting away the lower part of the hedge and chucked in some of the spare clay from the newly cardboard boxed border. Threw in some spent compost from various pots. Will put some annuals in there. Mr Robin loved me for it and spent a long while hopping about getting bugs.

No. 1 aubergine has germinated ! Still got it in the nursery though.

Nothing yet though from Mr Stripey!

Hyacinths are now stinking out the kitchen. They really are strong and I'm not at all sure I'm all that keen on the perfume now but they do look lovely even if I've had to prop them up with a couple of chop sticks as they are so top heavy and keep toppling over!

This weekend I am definitely looking out the reinforced plastic cover of my very first g/h (that bit the dust a year ago). Going to cut appropriate panels and screw them into the frame of damaged g/h. Not sure how to fix the doors yet, or stop them disappearing down the garden again, but I'm sure we'll think of something.

KG mag dropped through the door so read most of that and in a timely fashion GYO came tonight which brings me up to date and is where I'm off to now.

Night night fellow sowers and growers. Dig well.

How could I forget ?

that I lived in Scotland !!! My good friend and much experienced garden type person Veggie Perrin has just reminded me, so the seed packets are going back in their basket while I drum my fingers for another month.

I'll just have to be patient and watch the 6 Tigerella toms (that I sowed a couple of nights ago) do their best and hope they didn't hear Veggie !

I had a tray of Sparkler 3 radishes cooking on the window sill but I'd obviously not planted them deep enough so they were toppling all over the place. Out came the loo rolls and compost and I spoon fed them all neck deep into their new individual wee homes. Never have radishes been so cossetted. It's a good job there's not much else going on, in a months time, there will be too much on the go to treat them with such tender loving care.

The spare room now resembles a potting shed which reminds me. The elves have been back playing havoc in the shed again. I want shelves NOT elves ! So that might be the job for the weekend along with a bit more digging if the weather holds. (Whispering) have I said it hasn't rained for a couple of days now ? shhhhh!

:-)

Yesterday was better

I managed to fork over everywhere that I'd covered in horse poo last autumn. The top bed (on my side of the garden) was surprisingly workable. I thought it would be solid mud but it appears that the bags and bags of manure/compost/improver/sand that I'd worked in last year is doing it's job. I found lots of nice fat worms as well which pleased me greatly as I thought I might have frightened them off with the wee in the poo (if you get my drift).

The neighbour's borders (where I haven't paid a fortune to improve) are still heavy apart from the one wee stretch which is more or less pure compost and I moved the clay that had come out of the wee stretch to the bed at the side of the house. No mean feat when it was soaking wet. At least neighbour's path is clear now, I feel better for that.

Two Jerusalem Artichokes went in, sowed some more Peas Twinkle, Sugar Snap peas, a tray of Campanula Cashmeriana (which is now in the main bedroom "nursery"), put my Red Baron onion sets in modules as some were starting to sprout, and two bare rooted Geranium Versicolor (y no u ?) in the front border.

Had a bit of a weed in the front border as lots of grass was poking through and I spotted my first snowdrop in one of the back tubs !

I removed the plastic bags off the rosemary, white flower bush, and willow cuttings I grabbed from Mamalion and had a bit of a sort out in the g/h of things that obviously weren't doing well.

So I was quite pleased with myself. I was going to sow some toms, then decided against it reading that it was probably much too early, but then read that some other impatient soul had sowed FIVE TRAYS worth ! So I'm going to sort through the packs this morning and look for the earliest and at least get a few sown. What I'd do if all 5 trays worth came up I don't know. So it will be half a dozen seeds of a couple of varieties just in case they all germinate !

No wind to speak of as I look out of the window this morning, but wet again (no ? really ???) and last night all the cars were covered in hail so I guess it's pretty nippy out there. The heater is keeping the g/h to a nice 50o or thereabouts but I was shocked to find the max temp had risen to about 80o at least once recently. I'm not very good at keeping a daily eye on it as it's dark when I leave in the morning and dark when I get back, so I only manage to have a good old inspection at the weekend. I can't leave anything open lest the door takes off and panes fall out, so I'm trying to keep an eye on bugs and mouldy things.

Bessie mate brought round a big bag of old pop bottles and some cardboard boxes and polystyrene that was on the way to the dump, so I'll be able to give the shed a new carpet and tidy up later. Oh and I had another good wash up of pots and trays. Doesn't matter how often you do it, there's always more washing up to be done eh ?

Right, off to research toms !

I've been so lazy

The lack of a broadband connection has really kept me away from saying much on here recently but as the wind and rain persist outside, I've told myself off and here I am!

Word of warning, if you've got a UK Online broadband account, don't ever try and upgrade or ask for anything to be changed on it. They have you offline for weeks. They missed their own timeslot for switching us over to 8mb and then couldn't even guarantee to have us connected by 30th January ! They blame BT, BT blames them. So now we've converted to Orange with a promise of a connection by the 28th! We'll see if they are as good as their word. Dial-up is just soooooooo tedious.

The "weather" has been driving us all barmy just recently. Reading everyone else's disasters in the garden, makes me thankful that my own are relatively minimal. The wee g/h took a direct hit at New Year but apart from that (touch wood) we've been lucky in this last round of gales/wind/snow.

Outside the Aquadulce broadies are looking like the slugs have been having a good munch. Despite taking proper precautions, they've still been shredded. I'll be sowing some Green Windsor's when I can get to do something meaningful.

Inbetween showers this morning (whilst re-erecting the bird table and retrieving the feeders from the onion bed) I dug around in the parsnip pot and pulled half a dozen babies. Will have those tonight to make me feel better.

The onions are looking slightly flattened and sorry for themselves but the garlic is standing straight and proud. The soil in the raised strawberry bed is sinking, I guess the worms are doing their job on the leaves that I stuck in the bottom of the bed !

In the (still standing) greenhouse, the sweet-peas got a bit nibbled by Mr Slug so I resorted to some pellets. They've left the actual peas alone though - bonus ! The calendula and altroemeria seedlings are still coming along nicely and all the fuschia cuttings appear healthy.

Mum gave me some Bear's Breeches (Acanthus Mollis) seeds and they are cooking nicely. She also nicked some hollihock seeds out of one of her neighbours gardens and I had them in loo rolls. The tubes went all mouldy so I buried them up to their necks in a large pot so I couldn't see the soot !

I've still got some pepper type of things in the g/h. One is actually turning red now. Lack of proper labelling means it will be guess work as to how hot (or not) it is when I harvest it !

Inside, I succumbed to sowing something last weekend and now have 3 aubergine pots in the leccie propogator on the spare room windowsill. I left it far too late last year and whilst I had fine plants, the fruits just didn't come to anything. I can always so a few more in a wee while.

I also did a tray full of Sparkler 3 radishes in an unheated propogator in the office. Just so I could see something germinating which they have done. Probably a bit lanky really but no real waste if they come to nowt.

My Peace Lily (Spathiphyllum) donated by Mum last year is producing new leaves at a rate of knots ! Don't think anyone has told it that it's supposed to be sleeping !

OH has just come home with a wireless router to play with, so I'm going to let him on while I brave the winds. I'm sure something else will get sown today. The sun has just poked it's head through, so all might not be lost !!

Keep safe with this awful weather people.

Cheeriebye!

Don't want to

go back to work! But I suppose I must !

Bought another 100 Red Baron sets yesterday just in case the 100 I planted the day before don't work and I succumbed to 3 Delft Blue hyacinth's in a tub.

A fair bit colder this morning, so on goes the bonnet as I go out the door.

Adios amigos.

Christmas has come all over again

Armed with my vouchers and Christmas cash, I toddled up to B&Q yesterday and got my g/h vent and louvres, some seed compost and found a big pile of onion sets to buy.

Now this confuses me, we all placed our orders or onion sets way back and my Radar and Swift have been in the ground for a good 6 weeks or more (did I note the date in my diary ? did I heck as like and it's far too dark to go out and read the labels atm) so what was the rush back then ? and what makes these sets any different ?

I restrained myself and bought one bag of 100 x Red Baron and I'm planning on planting them in between the Solent Wight garlic as there seems to be plenty of room.

Another thing that I'm wondering about is the strawberries. I prepared and planted out the strawbs back in the autumn as I thought that was the thing to do. Then I read in the Feb edition of GYO that you shouldn't put them out until after the frosts have passed. Well there's a whole bed of them, so i'm not likely to be potting them up and bringing them indoors and as soon as the frosts start, I'll chuck a cover over them, but all this conflicting advice leaves me scratching my head !

Anyone see Carol Klein on BBC2 last night ? How lucky are her mates ? Perfect growing soil with NO work. I think if I continued to dig for the rest of my days, my soil wouldn't look like theirs ! The OH has taped it for me so I can watch the reruns when I'm up at silly o'clock twiddling my thumbs, like now !

Bird feed barometer indicates low wind, so with a bit of luck I'll get the Red Barons in today.

Toodle pip!

We need more allotments !

I've borrowed this entry from Ziggiwigs blog. Perhaps if there were more allotments available we could encourage the neds to do something useful rather than trash them !

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to provide more land for allotments for people to grow their own vegetables

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/allotments/

This will do the following:

1. Allow people to save money.
2. Provide an area for abundant wildlife.
3. Help to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
4. Help to cut the amount of carbon dioxide in the world's atmosphere: people grow their own food instead of buying it all thus reducing 'air miles' (and shipping and lorry pollution).
5. Provide people with a community group to belong to and enjoy.
6. Provide people with a space to exercise while doing something worthwhile - it will benefit them in two different ways at the same time.

There simply aren't enough allotments around and waiting lists are ridiculously long in some areas.

Belated Happy New Year

Hi all. Safely back home after spending a fabulous week and a bit darn sarf with family and friends. We were due back up here for Hogmany but when we read the weather reports, we thought stuff that, don't fancy driving in 80mph winds, so we stayed.

Darling daughter has just moved to a lovely bungalow with a superb garden that needs some tlc, so we're going back down in March armed with secateurs, shears and I hope to have found her a cheap compost bin by then. I think her other half is more interested than she is though, but we can always try !

Got home to find roof slates all over the deck, one g/h took a major hit and needed some rebuilding yesterday, and the toughened glass one had lost a few panes, which thankfully were still intact.

Still can't get into the swing of things though and have taken the rest of the week off to get my head and the house back together.

Got loads of brilliant stuff for Christmas: Joy Larcom's Grow Your Own Vegetables, Botanica, subscriptions to Gardeners World and Kitchen Garden, new planting diary for 2007, funky purple gardening gloves, vouchers for my g/h vent and louvres and vouchers for compost. It pays to make a list !!

Also brought back with me four volumes of a complete gardening partwork magazine set that mum had found in the garage and a tray of rosemary cuttings and some other cuttings from Mamalion's back garden. Have also brought back lupin, poppy, garlic, and Spanish Palm (should be interesting) seeds.

Despite our dozy mate heating the wrong g/h, everything apart from one or two calendula seedlings have survived the cold and being bashed about by the wind. Will have a closer inspection out there today. Garlic is still doing well, onions don't look that healthy but am giving them positive vibes ! Numex twilight is still going great guns - how very odd ! Loads of spring bulbs popping their wee heads through.

Today I've got some odd jobs to do around here, and then tomorrow am going to spring clean the shed (again) !! I don't know how it got so messy. Those wee shed elves up to their usual tricks I think ! I found a good article on how to make a shelf that can be pulleyed up into the shed rafters, so I think I might get the OH working on that one. It would be so nice to have some shelf space to put all my gear.

Hope everyone had a good festive season, can't say I'm too thrilled to be back up north, especially in this weather, but once I'm back in the swing of things, no doubt I'll be fine !