Greetings Campers,
Useful afternoon outside in the sunshine & I'm starting to feel I'm actually in danger of catching up! All it took was a bit more motivation, kicking the lergy into touch & some slight semblance of a plan!
Borders starting to green up now & the soil is warming. This means it's both planting-time & decidedly grubby cat time, as Albert Whiskers likes nothing better than rolling around on sun-baked soil. If he comes anywhere near me this evening, he's in danger of being set about with a Value Pet-Wipe......not exactly a dignified experience for him!
Well, with the soil warming up nicely, the Chief Potato Grower decided to get the seed potatoes in. They've been chitting for weeks.
We bought an 8kg bag of Sarpo Mira & they've filled a couple of beds in the veggie garden. Sarpo Mira are our preferred spud these days because our area does seem to get badly affected by blight. One summer, when we lost most of our crop for the 2nd or 3rd time, we noticed our village garden centre displaying a poster from a local allotment which showed how great their potatoes were doing in late summer, despite it being a really crappy year for blight. The variety was Sarpo Mira. We bought some to try the next year & they were fab. No blight, good crops & very versatile. They made good chips, mash, the bigger ones baked well & the smaller ones were good boiled or cold in potato salad, etc. So pleased we discovered them, as the CPG was getting distinctly peed off with seeing his hard work disappear in a tragic tangle of smelly black haulms. If you are in a blighty area, give them a go.
Have to admit the CPG has put in more labour than me today, as he's also cut the lawn & flame-gunned the weeds on the front drive (& he hasn't flame-gunned a hole in the front door this time.......), but I haven't been idle. I've potted up my outdoor tomatoes & put them in situe, although they will still go back in the greenhouse at night for another 10 days or so. I've planted my usual row of pot marigolds in front of them as these seem to attract pollinators. Saved seed, so will be a mixture. Such cheery flowers. I can almost smell those warm buttered marigold scones already :-)
More cheeriness.....an orange-tip butterfly in the garden today. Used to be such frequent late spring visitors but hadn't seen one for the last couple of years. Also a holly blue butterfly. We do have some holly, but another of their food plants is apparently ivy, & we do have lots of that. Pretty little things. Maybe it's going to be a fab year for butterflies. Hope so!
Oooh, here comes my coffee.
Cheers all,
C x
Morning Friday People,
Our fabulous swifts usually return in the first week of May. Had a look yesterday morning, no sign of them, none in the afternoon, then just as I was shutting up the greenhouse for the evening, I looked up & there they were! Five of them, so only the advance party. Swifts are a declining species & I feel privileged that they nest in our eaves every year. Swifts not only make their way all the way back to the UK from Africa, they come to the same nest site! I can barely get my head around migration, let alone that some of those little birds are setting off from Africa with our very own roof in mind!
And another piece of birdy info - we've got a blackbird nest! As feathered real estate goes, this isn't the brainiest of choices. It's deep in our hedge (a mixture of privet & fire thorn) but it's very close to the conservatory & my 'cafetiere & good book' sitting out corner. More worryingly, it is right above Albert Whiskers' self-appointed area for...er....more sizeable ablutions. If I can hear the chicks bibbling away, & I really can, then he'll definitely be able to, with his radar tabholes. Oh well, have moved my chair away & will keep putting out bird food. Hope they make it!
The garden's looking happier for the bit of sun we had yesterday. Love this colour combination....pale yellow from the primroses & bright magenta honesty. Both self-sown. Free plants - my best kind!
Greenhouse also looking better for the warmth. The tomatoes I set out in pot rings the other day have settled in well.......
......& you can see I've got a sneaky row of lettuces in there, to make use of the space for a bit of extra food before the tomatoes take over. I didn't buy the official pot rings for growing tomatoes. They were silly money for rings of plastic. I showed them to my Resident Grunt-work Operative in the garden centre & he said if I found him some big pots from the shed, he'd punch the bottoms out. These are now on about their 6th year, & just help with that little bit more soil-depth for hungry roots.
Pleased to see my courgettes & squashes (scallopini) coming through this morning. The only ones not doing anything are the yellow 'Sunstripe' courgettes & to be fair, that was old seed. They can be a bit arsey about growing too, so I'll give them a bit more time.
Coriander looking lush this morning. Will definitely cut a bunch to sprinkle over our lamb curry tonight. I usually get about 3 good cuts from a pot this size.....more if I've grown the 'Calypso' variety, which this isn't, as it was a cheapo free packet I had from somewhere or other. Intend to make another sowing this afternoon, also of radishes, to keep the good stuff coming.
Albert Whiskers thinks 'Sod the veg, when's me dinner coming out?' Strongly suspect he's been out all night (cat turf wars on our street, Big Grey Fluffy has been waddling his way up our end upsetting the applecart in local cat relations). Albert Whiskers appeared at breakfast time absolutely ravenous, wolfed his pouch in one while barely coming up for air, then laid into his biscuits. At 7.47a.m precisely, he started asking for his dinner. No chance yet, Matey!
OK, well I'm off down the greenhouse with those seeds.
Cheers Friends,
C x
Afternoon Campers,
I feel soooo behind with the garden this year. I'm putting it down to a number of things.....two lergies, Easter weekend, birthday weekend...which due to Lergy 2 rolled into the bank holiday, & most of all, the icy nights we've been experiencing until very recently, which has put the brakes on much of my veggie-growing activity. Must try to do more regular blog posts to motivate me into making progress.
These are funky little tulips, aren't they? They're called 'Lilac wonder'. They close up when it's shady & open right out into pinky-purple stars with poached egg middles when the sun comes out. They've been flowering for ages - a welcome pop of colour on our dark courtyard (way too dank to call it a patio!)
I've started livening it up today. I want it to look lighter, more airy, more welcoming....more anything, really, it's such a big bloody black hole, but the key thing is that I don't intend to spend any money on it. Well, maybe £5. OK, £6 at a push. I'm going for a vintage theme, & intend to re-purpose stuff & use clobber I've already got. Had a general tidy-up & sweep today. Removed 3 tubs of daffodils. No joy in looking at dead flowers. Have replanted them to fill gaps in my big borders for next Spring. Went round wafting the secateurs in the direction of anything looking dead, wilty or just generally crappy. Funny how once I'd done that, I started noticing new green things coming into their own.
The witch-hazel is pushing out Spring leaves........it will enjoy a month or two of perfection before the leaf cutter bees move in on it, chewing out halos of greenery & rolling it up under their wing before taking it off for their nests.
Well, I felt quite inspired once I'd started clearing away the crud. I brought my pelagoniums & agapanthus out for a short back & sides, & have left them in situe to start hardening off.
Whooo-hooo! Am flying now! Fetched Possibly The Most Pot-Bound Bay Tree In The World & set about re-potting it into the lush pot I received as a birthday present at the weekend. It's been a gorgeous sunny day here & the warm roots smelled amazing.......a little like the leaves, but more like a Bay & Lime fragrance the Big Hairy Half of the Relationship used to wear. Any neighbours looking out probably thought "OMG, she's actually INHALING PLANT ROOTS now!" But hey, these are grim times, horrible divisive Tory government, levels of inequality going backwards.......a girl has to take whatever zen moments she can!
Then scrubbed out the foetid bird bath.......it's beyond me what had been going on in there. It was a rainbow of sludge, all of it clinging to the sides like grim death. There may have been new penicillin strains in there, all of it now dumped around roots of cherry tree in the hope of amazing nutrient content. So that's the start of my £6 courtyard tart-up. The best thing is that it looks way better already. The next best thing is that I haven't spent any of the £6 yet!
Think I need to focus on the veggie garden tomorrow.
Hope you've all had some of this fab sunshine.
C x
