Month: March 2010

What a super day for  gardening . Must have spent a good 6 hours in the garden today with only a break to walk the dog on the beach. Planted on some plants into larger pots, did a tidy on the greenhouse,planted soem more seeds  some tidy up on beds and lots of weeding, but as you can see from the Pic it seems everyone was working inc the little bee doing some search  for  nectar

was/nt it a reall spring day. planted 2 spud varieties DESIREE AND QUEENS in would you believe  BAGS. also prepared a small seed bed and  planted sugar snap peas some parsley/chives/dill/and basil. the cucumber / courgette / cosmos/marigold and tomato seeds have germinated and are looking good.

here is a foto of spuds planted earlier

 i sure hope these germinate

cannot believe i have not been on for more than 60 days that is terrible , just like the weather. nothing happening, tulips and daffs just poking through now, they are so far behind !!!!. magpies building there nests so a good sign i believe they are one of the first birds to start building ???. went out last sunday as it was a beautiful day, went out at about 1pm  didnt start gardening till 3 as julie next door stopped me , the wine went down a treat sat sunbathing it was lovely !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. hope you all had a lovely mothers day , i did.as i can,t do any real gardening i have been making all my miniature plants for my 124th french villa, as i make and collect dollshouses in 112th and 124th scale, please check out my pictures.

Blue – a nice primula that I grew from seed. Can you see one flower growing out of the other flower? These anomalies are known as ‘hose-in-hose’ flowers. I love them!

Some of you may remember me sowing seeds of a fruit called a Pomello which I bought in Lanzarote, purely for the seed. I sowed it, germinated it, and then googled it, revealing that it requires pretty high temperatures to keep it going.

On Friday I discovered a shelfless cd rack in the skip in work. I could see its potential. But I couldnt have it for nothing. It cost me a bar of chocolate. Now it sits on top of my radiator in the dining room and is the perfect environment for my Pomello, temperature is 38.1C as we speak. Pity the heating will be going off soon. Once the heating goes off for the summer, I will transfer the Pomello seedlings into the greenhouse for the hotter months.

a pale yellow, with the flowers much closer, making it look a bit like a double

 

 Happy Mothers Day to all my gardening friends!!! I got a beautiful Tree Peony from my eldest !!!! I cant wait to plant it but am holding back as I think the soil may be a bit cold yet. I had found my very first daf in bloom today but as it was such a good day I decided that something had to be done to clean up the deck. It was a mess and covered in green which made it very slippy when it got wet. So we moved everything on to the lawn – swept it down and then got the Power Washer out. It looks so much bettter. Had to peel off my clothes after as I was soaked to the skin!!! And freezing!!! During the big clean up, my one and only daf in bloom got battered by the power hose!!! Sods law!!!!!

 

 

 

I think I went a bit mad buying all the seeds, but I know I am not alone. I did try and curtail the madness by only trying a few of each seeds for the moment as I don’t think I would have a lot of space to keep them all indoors til the weather improves. (I think my dad has this instilled in my head, he doesn’t grow any seeds indoors as he said he has no luck with them).

His words are ringing in my head as I see more and more seeds germinate. My biggest fear is minding the sunflowers indoors for so long, hope they don’t go all leggy, I have put two of them into larger pots already. Next to be repotted are my dahlia seeds, they have nice long leaves so will be easy to seperate them, I tried two per pot.

So far here are what seeds have germinated. I noticed a few more about to break the soil when I moistened them today:

Early Russian (sunflower)

Kong (sunflower)

Ruby Eclipse (sunflower)

Indian Blanket (sunflower) 

Dahlia – cactus flowered

Echinacea Purpurea

Helichrysum – Summer Solstice

Verbascum Chaizii ex Album

Rhodanthe Chlorocephala Rosea

Alcea Rosea Nigra – Black Hollyhock 

Where does everyone keep all these plants til the weather improves?

My front window sill would be ideal but Benji lives on the window seat so that would get very messy. Upstairs bedroom windowsills are being cleared at the moment ………. 

Despite not being on this site for the last few days, I haven’t been idle.  While I did nothing much in the garden today, I did a lot on Friday night.   I planted up my hollyhocks into 2 3/4 inch pots.  I have 24 out of a packet of 50 seeds, which will be more than enough.

I also planted up small pots with vegetable seeds.  I have planted nearly everything now except brussel spouts, carrots and parsnips.  I was over in Rolestown Garden Centre last week and was told that of all the vegetable seed packets, once you open carrots and parsnips seed packets, you must plant them all.  All other vegetables, you can open the packet, sow a few seeds, close over the packet of seeds and store.  So until I get the vegetable bag organised for them, I will not be doing anything with them for the time being.

I had to water the plants that I put into the front garden last Sunday as we haven’t had any rain.  A bit mad, considering the weather we have had.  

Plan for this week:

Sow seeds of the following:

  1. Goji berry

  2. Lillies

  3. Dahlia 

Plant up rhubharb into a container

Clean the patio 

Set up vegetable bag for carrots and parsnips

 

I wonder how many of these I get done as my plans seem to disappear out the window!  

 

I had sown a selection of the flower seeds that we got from the secret seed site last month, and they are all starting to show now through the compost, the first to show were the Digitalis and the Campanulas about 10 days ago, but now every variety is starting to show, they are, Isoplexis Canariensis, Digitalis Grandiflora, Verbascum chaixii ex Album, Campanula Persilifolia, Gaillardia Aristata, Aquilegia William Guinness and Petronia, plan to grow these on in pots and plant in our new garden when we move……… 

Just looking at the daffodils and wondering is it my eyesight or age that to me the stems seem to be shorter this year than previously. I know they are not fully out but just wondering has anybody else noticed.

Just thinking back on the last few weeks in the garden. So much has been done, and so much more TO BE done. Now that the season for sitting on our backsides pondering and contemplating is over, it’s time to get out and be active once more. Don’t you just love it? Things are definitely on the ‘up’.

Whatever the weather, enjoy your garden.

Into a lovely dry week we all hope for getting some more gardening jobs worked on.Just one slight shower yesterday,but apart from that it was a nich day.This weeks plans will be to move out some more seed trays to the tunnel and greenhouse,but undercovering at nighttime.Some more will be started off in the seed room along with others needing moving on [pricking out].Outdoor jobs in the garden are still on hold for this week at least,apart from having a walk around the vegetable garden and taking some notes. 

This is where I am at with my new steps, at the moment work is very slow as I still have to do everything in slow motion but I am improving slowly another three weeks and I should be back to normal.

If you’ve ever wondered where wasps hide in the wintertime, I think I now know at least one answer.

There was a large one yesterday morning up in our bathroom window.  I opened up the window and wished it good luck out in the big wide world and then wondered if there were more somewhere inside the house.

Later on I was clearing up in my conservatory ( not attached to the house ) and admiring the camellia which has been in bloom for several weeks. I picked up some fallen flowers and there nestled in one of the the blooms, looking cosy, was a wasp…..very dozy but alive because I poked it and it wasn’t amused.

A week ago I entered a flower competition using camellias, and  the arrangement  had been sitting on the kitchen counter…….I believe the warmth in the kitchen had woken up a hibernating wasp from its pretty home.

SO….don’t go sticking your fingers or nose into the flower heads!

Despite planting about 50 of these bulbs I have not seen one single flower. Then again I am not sure where I planted them but I have checked the garden over the weekend and not seen any. Maybe they are in the mystery tub of bulbs I found in a pot in the shed, but these have only produced an Irish so far……………………

 

Does anyone else have these in flower yet ?? I did notice one in Rachel’s March album.

Well, I was going to post a pic of the lovely indoor Campanula that my hubby gave me for Mothers’ Day, but I forgot to take one…… so instead I’ll post a picture of my newly finished strawberry bank @ the end of the veg garden which we completed on Saturday……….mission "tidy up" almost complete! thanks to Martin & Setanta**

J

planted tulips in pots last autumn for the first time , was working weekend and when i opened back door today they are in flower really lit up my day…

It was a great weekend for working in the garden. Finished off the new vegetable bed, organised for a delivery of manure from a neighbour. He inquired if we wanted fresh or old manure, we said not too fresh. He replied that he had every variety of cow manure available, lets see what arrives.

Our soil is really poor and sandy so lots of manure is required. Due to the sand it is exceptionally well drained which is great if you want to dig it after rain, no excuses about the weather! The downside is that nutrients are always in short supply, it is a hungry soil. So plenty of dung is the answer, not only will it help hold the nutrients, and supply some it will help hold available water for the plants. Hopefully this ill be very important this summer, we are due a scorcher!

 

We also cleared a new area of grass sod and transplanted shrubs, planted some herbaceous plants that we propagated last year and divided and transplanted some snowdrops. We found time to admire some of the hellebore seedlings too. Although late this year, they are always very welcome. 

At long last first of my daffodils have opened. It’s such a welcome site. However I’m not quite sure how they did end up there as I only planted tall ones for naturalising.Mum must ‘ve found spare bulbs lying around and planted them for me. No complaints about that as tall daffs are at least a week away yet.

Hope the weather holds up for tomorrow as we need to get the onion sets in! we have about 600 sets to go into the Allotment and the space that would create in the greenhouse would be very welcome! 

Escaped to the peace and quiet of the garden for a few minutes, the house is in a sta

te of chaos and I had to step over workmen to get out, and the noise!!!

I will put up some pics  please note the Acacia delbeata and let me know what you think , I am reluctant to get it cut down  just in case.Also found one dead Tamarisk and laburnum

Pat mentioned the daffodils in his journal as being shorter than usual and I have to agree, not only that  loads of them are blind.

Hopefully the house will soon be sorted and I can get dowm to some serious gardening!