Month: April 2010

hahaha i feel like a saint, and all because my lovely neighbour came up for a cuppa and a chat and i parted with three of my beloved fledgling lupins, which i grew from seed in my little plastic Lmenu_orderL greenhouse…. aaaaawwww it felt amaaaaazin to share, because Breda has so often given me houseplants (unbeknowns to her i have un/happily killed almost all of them within the shortest timespan, i can admit that here because she’s not on garden.ie, as i said recently, i am from now on not touching houseplants unless they’re succulents and therefore like infrequent watering) and i enjoyed being able to give her some lupins after she telling me she loves them.  have a few more baby lupins and no clue what colour they’re going to turn out to be, think a mixure of colours.  i love the miracle of these fabulous plants materialising out of a seed that’s smaller than the head of a pin, i find it utterly fascinating.

oh and our master-digger-upper of veggiebeds, The Tazz-man, made it back from the vets in Ballinrobe in one piece tonight, even if he is missing some of his manhood.  he was thrilled to be reunited with us, as were we to have him back, and he sat on the backseat in the car beside Ciara, kissing her non-stop the whole 20-minute journey home.  and no, she didn’t have marmite all round her mouth, it was pure heart-felt love for his humans, bless the little blighter, it IS lovely to have him back.  there were CROCODILE TEARS last night when the youngest chicken in this Henn coop realised that her beloved (one-year-old) ‘puppy’ wasn’t at home and that she could not give him nite-nite kisses, oh my word, wish i’d never said a THING about where he was.  anyway, all is well, he’s safely resting in his beddie in the back kitchen, after cannoning off nearly everything with that awful plastic yoke around his neck that prevents him from tampering with his stitches, which, knowing him, he would no doubt be at if he had half the chance.

so all is well with our world.  house is by no means yet completely clean, but the road to Rome was not paved in one day either – at least the few days of rain mean the chance of completing this task.  doglet has survived the anaesthetic.   plants indoors and out are thriving.  time for a cuppa and a few attempted pages in my latest who-done-it scapetta murder mystery…  not even listening to the doom and gloom on the matt cooper show on today.fm could upset me today – it’s just good to make the most of life.  i am grateful for all my wonderful friends, both old and new, and grateful for all the good things in my life.

 

noticed a day or two ago that one of my ‘older’ rhubarb plants is striving to touch the sky.  only ONE of the rhubarb plants i have is doing that, all the others look ‘normal’.  WHY is it doing this?  i am inclined to leave it to see what kind of a flower materialises, or should i be cutting this long central stem off?  where they are situated they are more ornamental than anything, although i suppose if they get too monstrous in size, i’ll be reaping a few stalks for turning into rhubarb compote or pie or something

when these tulips are ‘going over’ they take on the look of a poppy as they flatten out. Still gorgeous though.

Some of the garden enemies we think are on our sides to a certain point.A lot of them are positive allies,helping us defend again the real ground trouble makers.The good insects are not to be harmed.Dont worry,we will get plenty of the enemies but small attacks of minor pests can be avoided.Done by picking them off by hand,caterpillars,minor leaf damage etc.Some you will never see as they appear at night in our defence.Frogs for example,dont just enjoy slugs,they love them like a dinner feast.

Another wonderful day with weather.Will get to spend some time later in the vegetable garden all going well.

early and early main crop spuds have been earthed up at this stage and some of the tomatoes plants have been transplanted on in a bed with some salad planted around them. the rest of the tomatoes and chilli plants will be grown in large pots and grow bags. the pea crop that was sown later last year will be ready for a harvest in a week or 2. brassicas plants have been transplanted inside and outside too. i have sown some pea’s into hanging baskets and plastic 2lt bottles. i have never try this before but i think its worth ago. i have salad sdups planted into large buckets outside.we are harvesting spring onions and spring cabbage this week ans a few young salad leaves. we also have 32 chicks added to our stock and two duckling, two more hens are clocking also. i have lots more done but i would be here all day writing. i hope ypus are all getting on well.

cheers

paul 

Thanks you reminded me that my lawns need cutting 🙂

A change from Tulips

Here is my tray of 24 Rhodochiton seedlings.

They are quite hardy, being in the greenhouse for a few weeks now.

They seem to be very slow growing but they did start off as tiny seeds/seedlings so I suppose they’ll catch up in the end.

Lovely red colour!

 

Sarracenia leucophylla about to open…

 

Some of my Cobaea untangled and awaiting staking.

I am going to plant 3 of these in the greenhouse border this year to provide some shade.

I got 3 white plants and the rest are purple.

Some of my Nepenthes have turned a striking red as a result of the sun.

Apparently it is nothing to worry about as the plants are thriving and making new pitchers.

I prefer the red colour to the normal green.

 

I am very sorry to say that I have not done well with the Sensitive Plant. I guess it was too sensitive for me.

I had a full tray of 24 seedlings but one by one they shrivelled and died. I’m not sure what it was as it didn’t look like dampening but I think it must have been something fungal. I did think I was over watering at one stage but I really don’t think that was it.

I did actually see one of my seedlings react to touch but generally I think the ‘shrinking on touch’ must be something that the plant develops later. If you can get it to live that long.

I have one lone seedling left, which I transferred to a clay pot today to ensure maximum drainage. I am not holding out much hope but i would love if I could grow this for my son as he originally mentioned the plant from biology in school.

Very sorry, Linda, I don’t have a seedling for you but if this one survives then you must bring Nicole around to see how it reacts.

 

I love these cute little seedlings.

I have about 3 1/2 trays of Coleus so far (lost about 1/2 a tray due to incineration when there was too much sun in the greenhouse).

 

I spent quite a frustrating day doing horticultural housekeeping.

I rationalised in the greenhouse and brought 2 of the sets of Aldi staging out from the kitchen to the greenhouse. I lifted plants from the floor and swept. For one brief minute, the greenhouse was manageable and navigable.

But, of course,all the plants that had come off the Aldi staging in the kitchen, had to go somewhere. And a lot of them ended up in the greenhouse!!! Oh well, there goes the floor space again.

Inside I did some treating for greenfly and quarantining of plants (very hard). The tray of Petunias, which was munched by slugs, has a bad greenfly infestation.I am very tempted to just discard it at this stage. I also have greenfly on the chillis in the boys’ room.

So I spent the day doing loads of bits and pieces but never got to weeding, sowing more seed or even planting my tomatoes in the greenhouse border. Putting up some new photos in the April, Houseplants and Greenhouse albums now.

Got another few bits finished in the new garden today! the roof of the fruit cage was finally put on and the cage is now finished, will plant it up on Monday, leveled the area where the raised veg beds will go in, ordered the timber for the beds and the slabs for the path, the new greenhouse was delivered and hopefully Denis will make a start on the frame tomorrow, compost bins in place, so Part 2 of the garden is now complete! Roll on tomorrow and the start of Part 3!!

I didn’t do an album of the garden when I started on the site as I hadn’t discovered how to upload photos so here it is belatedly. Have put up album now.

Took this picture of my little Almond tree this morning! It is about 18 ins height! -if that!  Myrtle was given it as a sucker by a lady whose garden we were visiting about 5 years ago. Myrtle didnt think she had space enough for it (!) so gave it to me!  Each year something has eaten it, I think a hare, and so it made little progress. For the past 2 years I have surrounded it with netting-wire and at last it looks like it might survive! If it does it will be well worth the nursing as it is such a beautiful blossom.

No gardening done all week but managed to get a couple of hours this evening and spent most of it clearing brambles that were encrouching from the field! Garden is in great colour and Rhododendrons coming out too.

ok its mad but i need some rain….. fed up wasting my time watering.. never thought it going to take so long…and with my clay soil everything looks like in Sahara…on the good side- weeds stopped growing too..

i did my beans today. nearly all day was making supports, sowing my runner, french dwarf (white and creamy colour) and my chinese tiny beans. lets see cause i did not have enough room in my polly so i sowed them direct to the ground. i guess frosts passed. and tomorrow its my sweet corn day….hope after then we all get some rain.

happy gardening to you all.

Fed up with ignorant people just dumping packs of bedding on top of each other when they EVENTUALLY decide they don’t want it. So much stuff has been damaged in the last few days, and it is done by people who are NON-GARDENERS! Why don’t they just stay inside the shop!!!! Knackered after a gruelling day of so many trolleys that came in, both yesterday when it was my day off, and loads more today. When I clocked out at 5, there were still 6 trolleys of stock in the garden centre. I have tightened up everything as much as possible. Can do no more. My legs felt like lead going up to the canteen for lunch.  I didn’t even get a chance to take my 15minute break (I normally take that in the afternoon).

I bought a gorgeous pot today for all the lily bulbs I bought the other day. Got home and filled the pot. Emptied out all 30 lilies to plant them up. Every one of them were rotten. It’s impossible to tell the quality while in their packs as they are also filled with sawdust. Absolutely disgusted with that. I was really looking forward to that splash of colour. Will return them tomorrow and get my money back. So I used this pot for my new hostas, and actually they look terrific in them. I also used 2 of the Long Toms (thats what they are called) to plant a different type of hosta. And I used the copper tape around them. Hopefully they won’t touch them. If they do, they will get scrunched underfoot. Not in the mood for any crap.

Planted out the last of my corn. I noticed that some of it that had been planted last week have disappeared. I can only presume that they were eaten by slugs. Tied up Mangetout, and Rat-tailed Radishes. Watered tomatoes in greenhouse and everything else. Not in good mood as my washing line has broken, and I will be working for the next seven days in a row!!!!

 

Thank you for all your good wishes for John they are most kind . we have been working in the greenhouse potting on bedding plants, the last of Johns Chrysanths have rooted now so they are ready to be planted in the Chrysanths house. The flowering cherry came out today shame they don`t last very long. this afternoon was spent cutting the lawns.

Well i guess ann bailed out of most things these past few days, had the big black dog i am afraid and jaded with Lupus flare.

 Funny day really, mega depression but some good things.  twin and i walked a bit of the prom in Dun Laoghaire, with the Teddy’s ice cream – ooh, tis a long time since i had one of em.

Sea was glassy calm, guy doing a strange sort of canoeing standing up on a stranger sort of yellow platform.

Twin and i with our sticks wondered if the legs were getting any exercise at all, so the debate over the work of his muscle parts there!

some family too shared a teddy’s with a dumpy gorgeous very non thoroughbred.

I got the camera out for the first time in a while and took some nice shots.

Twin doing well in her garden and all.

I swung on the swingseat for some time this evening but then got a bolt of i dont know what, maybe guilt, but i canno let things living die so i staked all the sunflowers, looking good and healthy, i always manage to get them to a fair stage i have to say.

the strawberry plants look great too and they were rescued from the raised bed last year.

the red current bush is wonderful, taken from Louisa, so pleased with that.

I potted up some bedding plants, being a beginner never know how much space to leave per plant.

finally potted the sweat pea, if you see the pics on the albums, these are going to be ‘danglers’ for the top of the shed, i hope it works, donno if i should put them straight up there now.  I guess so, as the sun has not gathered great heat yet so it wont burn them away – will it?

everything got its fluids in as well so thats good for their bodies, and mine is wrecked.

the chis are sleeping, the solar lights have come on and all is well with the world, as well as anyone can hope.

not to throw the clanger in here, anyone notice the petrol price upped?  what did they put on the litre?

xxann 

Loads of room for flowers! the existing extension will be replaced by a new one the same size! all the grass will come up and a courtyard built with raised beds and a pergola, total area for this is 40ft x 30ft !

Last Saturday, I was filling the mixed seed bird feeder. Some of the seed spilt on the tray holding my second lot of mangtout. Thought nothing of it. This evening I spotted that some of seeds have germinated. Think some it may be sweetcorn, have two sunflowers also. All this in six days.

These are the small plants I got in Lild for €5.40. They were two small to plant alone, so put them together. They have grown so well, I will have to seperate them later this year. Really pleased with these.

Was so delighted today when I discovered what was on the delivery. Bought myself Exochorda macrantha ‘The Bride’. And a different Aquilegia ‘Black Barlow’, and a yellow Alstromeria which I think is called ‘Felicia’. Too dark outside now and my boots are off. It can wait until the morning.