Time To Get Of My Laurels and Get Cracking.

I have finally started to plant out my brassicus plants yesterday. After building the last frame for netting I planted out my romenesco x 4, cabbages x 3, cauliflower x 3 in the smaller bed which will be interplanted with Chinese leaves plants when they are a little better and can handle a slug attack. In that bed I also planted a nasturtium, calendula, borage and a cornflower.

In the larger bed which already has my early pak choi and mizuna plants flourishing, I began to plant out the kale and early purple sprouting broccoli. I also planted out a nasturtium plant into that bed, when I was done the netting went over both beds to protect them against the cabbage white butterflies.

Yesterday I saw my first native ladybug for the season it was a 14 spot (I know it looks dead but it was only playing dead because I moved it out of the way of danger from my garden fork, it soon toddled off).

I also found when I was sieving the compost to add to the beds a very large wireworm which went to the birds.

Hee hee!! and check out this bumblebee who was enjoying the water aven flowers.

Today I woke up to a fairly wet landscape but the light rain stopped at about 08.00 leaving behind some sunshine and moderate winds.

I have decided as of today to forgo starting my sweet corn in pots and plan to sow them into the bed dedicated to them after they have chitted (I don't normally chit these seeds but thought it would work better if I put them into the soil once germination had started). So after soaking them for a few hours I then placed them onto some damp paper towel in a covered tray and left them in a warm place to begin germination. In the mean time I have prepared the bed they will be going into by mixing in some compost an BFB and covering with some plastic to keep the soil warm. As soon as the seeds begin to chit I will plant them out but will leave the plastic in place as a cloche till June month. Why have I decided to go down this way instead of the preferred method of 3" pot for three weeks then plant out first week of June, simple answer really: I'm tired of faffing with pots.

I would have like to have gotten some more done but life and the weekly washing got I the way ;) I hope to get a lot of jobs done tomorrow but more high winds are forecasted so I'll see if I could risk planting out the cold sensitive plants tomorrow.

Body Ache

What a week! I didn't plan to go all week without posting but in all honesty I was to knackered to post before Thursday and so decided to leave it till tonight.

Starting on Monday I decided to enlist the help of my mom in erecting the picket fencing I received from a freecycle member last summer. The fencing is to surround the vege bed area , not only would it look nice but it will stop accidents like balls being kicked into the beds and when we finally get round to getting the girls a pet dog it will hopefully keep the dog out or at least enforce a sense of boundaries.

So Monday after we spent hours of trying to figure out the best way to erect it we finally got started first with the cutting of the posts and then pounding said posts into the ground hence the title 'Body Ache' and just before dark got the first two largest panels up.

The only other gardening I got done on Monday was watering of plants. Then just as I was putting everything away for the night I dropped a seed tray full of nasturtiums and my onion seedlings. I was able to pot up and save the nasturtiums but sadly I lost all the onion seedlings :(.

PS the courgettes have begun to germinate on Sunday 29/03/09 and the yardlong beans started on the 30/03/09 and my first small cabbage white butterfly was also spotted thankfully it was on it own. Will have to start netting early this year I think against their caterpillars.

I also had my first sigting of a hoverfly for the season.

Tuesday started with me potting up tomato and squash plants which didn't get done last week as I ran out of compost, so I was glad to get that job done. I finally got round to watering some overwintered plants and composted the ones that didn't make it.

Worked some more on the picket fencing and got a further two panels up.

Wednesday I did some more potting up, this time basil, cabbage and ochro. I resowed my onions and planted out the torsha plant into a pot with its wigwam in place, it will remain in the conservatory for now till the night time temperatures remain consistently at ten degrees Celsius or more, then it will be moved into the greenhouse.

The remaining panel was put in place and the rest will have to wait till I dismantle the wooden pallets I have been collecting for this project, what do you think so far?

There was lots of butterfly activity as well, I saw the resident peacock butterfly (resident because it always comes back to the same location to sun itself) also saw my first ever yellow brimstone (sorry flew by to fast to take a picture) and my first comma butterfly (enjoy the photo) for the season. The tadpoles in my pond have finally broken free of their spawn nest and have migrated to different areas of the pond and the first pond skater of the year made an appearance.

The morning glory has began to germinate.

Thursday I was finally able to start transplanting some of the young greenhouse seedlings/ plants. I should have harden them off first but time is of the essence as I plan to be away for six days and to put things simply I do not trust mummy and Anthony to not kill me seedlings, so I figure they would be safer in the ground so the most ready plants will be planted out over the next two days and I will provide some cover to help protect them from nighttime drops in temperature. So the first ones out were the turnips.

More potting up of plants was done as well. The melons appeared to already be out growing their tin can pots so I prepared three large pots with a mixture of garden soil, compost and some blood, fish and bone slow release fertiliser and planted the young plants into them, I still have one more to pot on which I will do when its bigger.

Today Friday I aimed to get all my transplanting done but didn't >:( life sometimes just get in the way. I got the mangetout peas, lettuce and chitted parsnips in all under cover except the peas which I netted to protect them from marauding pigeons.

I also was able to fit in some sowing of annual and a couple of perennial flowering plants;

The annuals were - poppies x three varieties, calendula, California poppy and cornflowers.

The perennials were - heartease and white violas both of the same family.

The weather over the week following a crisp frost on Monday morning started strong with lots of hot sunshine all day but ended with cool foggy mornings (Thursday and Friday) and warm sunny afternoons.

Took lots of photos of the spring flowers, so please enjoy;

I Got Everything Done!!

Everything I planned to do today in the garden got done, along with the washing, school runs and after school activities, woo hoo result!! Don't you just love when it all goes to plan.

Well today I planted the last of my potatoes in an old compost bag which I turned inside out. they were my maincrop potatoes variety Desiree. My first carrot seeds were also sown variety Nantes'2. I had planned to sow some cut and come again salad greens but will have to wait till Sunday when I will have more compost as I plan to sow them in a window box or a hanging basket.

The second bean trench was filled in and a third was dug and lined with shredded paper and is now ready for kitchen scraps.

Now I have been advised by the good members of A4A that overwintered garlic benefits from a dose of potash at this time of the year, so as you can see I liberally applied some of last year's bonfire ash (which is one way to get potash) to the garlic bed it will also add organic matter which will help improve the soils structure.

Last year I grew two scotch bonnet chili plants and attempted to overwinter them in the conservatory which remained unheated for most of the winter months. Around early January the both plants lost all their leaves and though the peppers which were on them didn't drop off nor did the stems become dry I kinda thought the plants were dieing, plus a two weeks or so before the lost their leaves they became infested with aphids and all watering of the plants were stopped from Christmas Eve. Well anyway about three weeks ago I noticed both plants were resprouting new healthy leaves, so today I pruned the plants back to six inches removed them from the pots and washed the pots inside and out with soapy water to get rid of any aphids, their eggs and sticky residue. the plant stems were also washed with the soapy water, all the leaf litter and loose surface soil was removed and the top of the soil and the clean plant stem was sprayed with my homemade rhubarb insecticide to kill off any lingering bugs the soapy water might have missed. I then mixed some spent compost with a slow releasing natural fertiliser Blood, Fish and Bone and used this mixture in repotting the plants. They were then watered with warm tap water and placed back in the conservatory to get on with growing some new branches. the picture shows what they looked like before and after.

Signs of germination in the mini wildlife meadow area have been observed, I think I can spot seedlings of cornflower but there are a few others that I am not yet able to identify, so it will be a wait and see project.

Today the self sown heartese plants were flowering their socks off and yesterday the garden was visited by a crow, although they patrol and nest in the oak trees to the back and the front of the property this is only the second time I have ever seen them come into the garden. so please enjoy these beautiful pictures.