Month: September 2009

Hope to make a start on the Autumn seed sowing tomorrow (today!) have a few packs of seed from secret seeds that need to be sown now, its still a bit early to plant the garlic will hold off till the middle of October, there are one or two plants/shrubs in the garden that i would like to propagate and i will need to check if the time is right for that! still a bit early for root cuttings from the oriental poppies, that has been very successful for me in the past, still a good bit of tidying to be done in the garden and the shed!! tender plants to be brought in, bulbs to be planted, pots to be washed and stored, beds to be weeded, and still time to put in some more winter stock into the veg beds! pack up the seed that i have been drying and store it for next year, in fact i hope there will be enough daylight for all this!!! 

Have been searching for butterflies to snap for Gismo over the weekend but they seem much sparcer now, after seeing them everywhere a few weeks ago. I found one though! Only shot I managed was on the rusty wheelbarrow…you would have laughed to see me stalking it with the camera, as it didn’t like me getting too close!

Kitchen garden has undergone a transformation, and I haven’t lifted a finger!  Himself has toiled for hours, spreading hardcore over the paths, and I now can walk to it and around it without having to go on the mud! Paths look great, and much wider somehow now they are uniform. I will take photos, but camera work is having to be at the weekend now with the darker mornings and evenings coming in.

 I am still having fun with my first season’s modest harvest. Have managed to get a few tomatoes that were healthy (Gardeners Delight…very tasty), and also picked some hazelnuts thanks to James Kelly’s suggestion. Once picked, I realised we didn’t have a nutcracker! Thought the hammer might be overkill, but then discovered the garlic press did a pretty good job! Going to pick some swiss chard tomorrow….

Tuesday is my long day at work – the children go off to the grandparents and I get to do a full uninterrupted day.  I worked right through lunch but I got finished what I was doing so I hopped into the car and headed off.  I needed a solar shed light for the playhouse, affectionately called "the tree house".  When we are out gardening, I am invited into the tree house for tea.  What crack we have in there, getting a cup of tea!  But with the light fading, we decided that some light was required.  For the last few days, we have used those battery operated tea-lights which made the playhouse magical.  But heads got bumped off the worktop so a better light was required.

I also wanted a white flowering cyclamen.  I planted a white flowering anemone with a white flowering trumpet flower with flamingo fantasy tulips below.  I got 3 white cyclamen and 3 red one. I planted up only 1 white one in the container – 3 just didn’t look right.  While I was in the garden centre, my eyes spotted Phoenix Canariensis and as I am re-vamping the front garden this winter, I purchased that too. 

I ordered a book in the library and I collected it – "The Gardener’s Book of Pests and Diseases".  It’s a very good book as it is divided into plants first and then as sub-sections, the different pests and diseases which effect those plants.

I made up the vine weevil killer insecticide – Bug Clear Ultra Vine Weevil Killer is what I used.  After that, as it was another mild night, I sat in the garden and tried to think what if I moved various plants from a to b.  Wouldn’t it be handy if you could take photos and then cut and paste so that before you start doing the work, you would know what it would look like? 

When I got in, one of my sisters had sent me an email re. gray mouldy type of aphids on her cabbages.  After a quick read of the book, I sent off an answer to her.

I then really got into the book and went to bed, feeling a load of creepy crawlies all over me – yuck.

 

Well the sunflowers are well and truly gone at this stage and only one hollyhock remained out the front, it was all a bit sad looking. So I took into it, chopped down the sunflower stalks and staked up the hollyhock. I have planted some