Plodding Along

At this time of the year I find that I hit a wall, its when I have lots of plants in pots that need to be planted out and are becoming dangerously pot bound, yet some how I can not find or sustain the motivation needed to get them all into their optimal growing conditions. This normally means by the end of June I have way to many plants going into the compost heap.

So far I have been able to work through this mental barrier of sorts and have just about kept up with what needs to be done but it is a struggle and I find that although I'm getting things done, I'm still not accomplishing as much as I could be on a day to day basis.

Well before this becomes one of the most depressing posts I have ever written, let me fill you in on what I have accomplished over the last two days.

Sunday - dawned very hot and sunny but I spent the early half of the day on mummy duty and took my youngest to the swimming pool as a treat because her older sister and playmate was away for the weekend on a sleepover.

When I returned and got out into the garden I started sifting a mound of soil removing any large stones and weed roots and begun filling some containers to finally begin planting out the oca and ulluca which have all definitely out grown their 3" pots.

This was extremely hot work and my energy was soon sapped. So after filling and planting two of the containers I stopped and moved to a cooler part of the garden and proceeded to plant out the last lot of sweet peas I was growing, these I planted out by the picket fence bordering the lawn area. I had six plants but found three of them to have some sort of stem rot at the base, these ended up in the compost bin.

With the heat up watering was a other task that got done.

Oh and look what has begun to flower, fresh peas aren't far away now :)

Monday (today) - was a holiday so I had my mum home she and a friend of hers proceeded to completely weed all the remaining footpaths around the vege beds that needed weeding YEAH!!!! thanks a bunch guys.

The weather was very hazy to start with so I returned to the boring task of sifting the mound of soil I started yesterday. I got another four done before stopping for lunch, the sun by this time had broken through the cloud cover and was beating down so after lunch I spent a lovely hour or so nattering with my neighbours. After we had righted the world of its problems I went back to the mind numbing task and got another two containers filled and planted.

The heap was now exhausted and I moved on to removing some soil from the front of the compost bins. This does need to be done anyway to level the ground in preparation for laying down some paving slabs. While doing this the heavens began to open slowly with great rumbles of thunder in the distance, so I put away the sieve and simply shovelled up the soil and placed it into a very large plant pot, covered it to keep out the rain, to be sorted out tomorrow hopefully if the weather is favourable.

After securing the soil I tidied up and retreated inside to let the thunder storm get on with it.

Wildlife up date - On Sunday five orange butterflies showed up in the neighbour's and my garden. They returned on today in much larger number and I counted eight in all. My neighbour helped me id them as Painted Lady butterflies. They hung around for hours in the mid afternoon sunshine visiting a wide variety of flowers; chives, nigella, flowering purple sprouting broccoli, pansies and flowering shrubs next door, etc. The were quite placid at times and with the aid of a butterfly net my older daughter was able to catch two quite easily.

Having so many butterflies in the garden was magical and reminded me of what it use to be like when I was small before the use of pesticides had make an impact on the environment insect population, in the West Indies there is also a terrible reduction in the number of butterflies, etc due to these poisons.

Sunday into Monday was also very noisy with the influx of starling fledglings screaming and begging their parents to keep on feeding them, the sky was busy with their flight. Other fledglings I saw were song thrushes, see picture.

Do you remember the exquisite water aven flower I showed you about a week back well its developed its seed head check it out now.

Monday on the aphid infested living willow bench I observed some hoverfly larva enjoying the feast and there were two ladybugs yeah!!

A toss up between a UK 13 spot ladybird / a Succinea Harlequin ladybird.

A UK pine ladybird.

Nice beetle not sure what it is I'm awaiting correct id from a entomologist.

Whats blossoming -

Bladder wort

The water lily is getting there:

and I'm sorry our computers don't let us smell, as these roses have the most divine scent.

The Planting Out Continues

I'll just start shall I......

Thursday - with my rickety hot/ greenhouse still standing I decided it was time to plant out the sweet peppers and aubergines in their new home. Gave one of the aubergines to my neighbour with the strict instructions not to actually grow an aubergine if I didn't succeed :) I interplanted them with french marigolds to repel greenfly, a red curly basil, pot marigolds and coriander.

I also planted out the two cucumber plants and sowed two more seeds in situ. The plants weren't properly hardened off and I have been wrapping them in a fleece blanket each night but they are beginning to show signs of cold damage. I hope they pull through and that the seeds germinate, might even sow a couple more in the greenhouse as back up.

And now there is more space emerging in the greenhouse I have finally potted on my ochroes and moved them into the greenhouse (ignore the mess I'll sort it out, I promise). They were potted into a mixture of compost, rotted rabbit droppings and bedding with a generous dose of blood fish and bones. Then today I remembered I had a special mixture of rotted rabbit droppings and bedding rotting down further with some lawn clippings which I was to use to pot up the ochro, duh, haven't really got anywhere else to use it so it will have to be thrown back on the compost heap.

Friday was a dud day - zilch in the garden done.

Saturday (today) - I walked into my greenhouse and the ochro was sulking even though I was mindful to open the door before the sun became to intense. The plants were visibly suffering from the heat in the greenhouse so I pulled my finger out and sewed together the two net curtains I purchased in a charity house approx two weeks ago, leaving a gap for the window to go through which will allow me to open it easily. Then I draped it over the house and what a difference it has made, in the autumn it will simply go in the wash.

When that was done I sorted out any watering that needed doing and then cracked on with planting out or potting on of plants. So the remainder of annual salvia were planted out among the three brassicus beds. I also planted some borage and pot marigolds in and around the beans bed and pot marigold at the edge of the globe artichoke bed and brassicus bed.

I really hope vege plot should look pretty this year as I really stuck to my plan to get lots of flowers into and around the beds. I have also left most of the selfsown poppies, calendulas, nigella, fever few and others to just get on and do what they do best, that is look pretty.

The young globe artichoke plant was planted out in its final position. I prepared the soil with more rotted rabbit dropping and bedding with a another generous helping of BFB (really wish I had remembered about the forgotten bagged stuff) anyway hope it grows away beautifully.

At the edge of one of the beds which has perpetual spinach, chard, lettuce and spring onions already in it, I planted the five young red orach plants that grew from the ten seeds I sowed. These plants selfseed really well I'm told so I want them to do so into the brick path where in the future I could leave them to grow in the corners to look pretty as well as to have lazy grown food :)

Some coriander seedlings were also planted out into the corner of the tomato bed, again to encourage the seeds to fall into the brick footpath for easy/ lazy growing of the herb.

The sweetcorn experiment is off to a flying start with two seedlings emerging hopeful more will appear soon.

In between all the planting I got some weeding done and potted up the last of the brassicus seedlings which I'll plant out either tomorrow or Monday and I gave my surplus plants to my neighbour.

All in all got most things I wanted to do done and enjoyed being outdoors in the lovely sunny weather.

Take a look at what started to bloom today and the bees have already found it but I wasn't fast enough with the camera.

A Ricketty Greenhouse????

Another warm sunny day, oh lovely.

I got the all my beans planted out today; the runners, the dwarf and climbing french beans and the borlotti. The dwarf beans were planted in the tomato bed and won't need harvesting till the pods are ripe ad dry, so as to reduce the risk of them getting wet and remaining damp nearer harvest time I thought it would be a good idea to grow them under the same cover.

I also planted out the chard seedlings and my second set of lettuce. Now I need to sow the third batch.

I have lots of flowering plants to plant out as companion plants, today it was some more sunflowers and some of the salvia that were planted out, both went into the bean bed and a couple were planted in the asparagus beds edge and the edge of the swiss chard row.

The last thing I got done was to build and erect a mini 'hot/ green house' which I plan to grow my aubergines and sweet peppers in. I'll plant those out tomorrow. The sweet peppers already have flowers and I have been pollinating them with a paint brush (think they are suppose to be self pollinating but I thought it wouldn't hurt to help them along as they are not being visited by any pollinators inside). Both of sets of plants may also be a little pot bound so I hope they grow away once I plant them out.

Check out what's in flower:

A Couple More tasks Done!!

Another windy day greeted me on waking but things needed to be planted so I took the plunge, at least the sun was shining warmly.

The sweet corn I put to chit a few days ago were ready so after I removed the plastic and marked out the planting spaces I planted the chitted seeds (see the dark spots in the photo - I got thirty five in the 5ft x 6ft bed), watered and recovered the bed to keep the warmth in and any night chills out.

The other job done involved the tomato bed. I finished the digging and filling the last two holes with rotted rabbit droppings and bedding, erected the last two poles then started to plant out the twelve tomato plants all different varieties.

The varieties I'm growing this year are:

Vintage wine,

Gardeners delight,

Golden Sunrise,

Black Triffid,

Ailsa Craig,

Oh dear I can't remember the rest off hand I'll update the list later......

The french marigolds were already planted on the perimeter about ten days ago, so I added some sweet basil as well but I covered them with 2L bottles to keep them snug against the cold wind especially since they weren't hardened off and came straight from the warm conservatory.

Then I had to stop and cook dinner, so I cut two large bunches of mizuna (the first to be harvested) to contribute to the vege side of the meal. I have never grown these before and will definitely be growing them again, YUM!!

After I ate dinner I went back outside in the fading light to erect the cover that I used last year over my tomatoes. The plan is to keep the worst of the summer rains off the tomatoes, which should then make them less likely to get blight or at least slow down the disease.

Last year it was an experiment based on something I had seen a couple years ago on Gardener's World (in the last two months while rereading my old kitchen garden magazines I came across an article of an Italian gentleman who grows all his outdoor tomatoes in this way on his allotment, with great success, so it has been done before). Well the experiment in a very wet summer of last year was a resounding success, my tomatoes got blight a whole ten days later than my neighbours outdoor crop and when they did get it, it was easy to control with the early removal of the lower leaves IE stopping them from drooping and staying in contact with any wet/ damp soil and following regimented inspections twice to three times a day (yep I'm a stay home mom), I promptly removed any infected foliage and or fruit of which I only lost no more than ten might of been even less tomatoes. And where as my neighbour's crop succumbed to the blight in less than two weeks, I was still harvesting in the last week of October.

So with a successful experiment under my belt I proceeded to attach the anchors to the cover then rope my mum and OH into helping me place it on top the 1"+ thick bamboo poles (thankfully the wind has died down, so it was a quick operation). The anchors made of basic garden twine was then tied to some horse shoe nails which I hammered into the side of the raised bed, done and dusted by 21:37. The flash in the picture make it look completely dark but I assure you there was just a little hint of light left :)

I didn't really have time to admire the flowers etc, but did notice the water aven plants had one flower in particular that was quite exquisite, so please enjoy.

Sacrificial Curcubits?????

Woke to a very wet garden and more rain teeming down, all this was finished though by 08:30 am and was replaced by gusty winds up to forty plus.

Today I attempted to build a mini greenhouse to enclose my sweet peppers and aubergines but the forty plus winds showed me the structure needs tweaking.

So onto job number two; decided to plant out my winter squash, pumpkins and courgettes they simply could not be left in their pots any more. So with my heart in my mouth I planted them out in the gusts, I feel as though I am sacrificing them to the wind gods. At least tonight the gusts will be dieing down but are forecasted to return tomorrow evening to last through out tomorrow night, I do hope I do not end up with egg on my face and I'm afraid it gets worse as the tomorrow the tomatoes will be sharing their faith.

Finally I got round to potting up some herbs that have grown out of their pots, some lime basil and Vietnamese coriander.

Oh and here are few flowers that were in bloom today, hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

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.

I'm Tuckered Out

So I've been at it now for a good couple of months and I think its caught up with me. I took myself to bed early last night and the night before and woke up this morning knackered. I mean I have no energy whatsoever to dedicate to the garden/ vege patch.

So I did a little crafting instead, I have been meaning to make a little sign to hang on the front door when I'm out back mainly for the post/ delivery man re packages, etc. The piccy on the left is what I normally used and the piccy underneath is what I worked on today and I'm quite pleased with the results.

Well after lunch I still dragged myself to the greenhouse and spent an hour pricking out lettuce and Chinese cabbage seedlings, I also watered a couple of stuff and well that's it for the day. Hopefully I'll have a little bit more energy and will be all gong ho!! tomorrow.

I'll just fill you in on what I did get up to the last two days.

Tuesday, well my abdomen is still killing me from the holes I dug on Monday and the Sunday, so I wimped out and transplanted my spring onions which involved sifting some homemade compost and adding it to the bed I planted the spring onions in. The french marigolds were also planted out into heir final spot on the edge of the tomato bed. I still had a half hour to kill so I bit the bullet and dug two holes for the cucumbers, OUCH!!!! Washboard tummy here I come.

Wednesday found me filling the holes I dug for the cucumbers and erecting their support, a rose arch. The area under the arch was prepared with more sifted compost and I then planted out my onion seedlings.

After the afternoon school run I proceeded to dig and full four more holes, these are for my squashes and pumpkins.

Overall I have 10 more holes to dig for the above plants plus 4 more for the tomatoes and another 4 for the summer squashes and courgettes combined.

Well that's it for now, here are a few photos I took over the last three days, hope you enjoy them.