June Colour

The hay fever is doing its best to keep me out of the garden at the moment but I  have managed to get out long enough to take a few snaps.

In the mean time, the salad is coming on nicely, giving us a handful of fresh mixed leaves every day and the first of the strawberries have started to ripen.

 

Taking Over

It's that time of year again when the newly potted plants start to take over every spare windowsill of the house. Fortunately we have plenty of windowsill space in the conservatory . Even so, I was still struggling to find space for everything after a busy weekend of indoor gardening, including potting up all of the plug plants that the postman keeps delivering. I really should compare notes with my good lady wife to see what she has ordered before I start browsing the gardening websites. I think we might have to extend our flower beds a bit this year...

All the seeds I planted in the propagators at the end of last month have developed nicely. I'm particularly proud of the chili seeds that I retrieved from a shriveled fruit that was clinging on to a neglected chili plant in the corner of the greenhouse. It seems that every one of the seeds has germinated so now I have 27 nicely developing baby Cayenne chili plants.

Given the weather this weekend, the only thing to do outside was to remember to water the greenhouse which is currently home to a collection of sweet peas. At least I don't have to water the rest of the garden yet.

Potting On

Did a lot of potting on and generally moving plants around on Sunday.
Firstly, I dug out one of the compost heaps. We have two so that we fill one whilst the other is left in peace to rot down. Time for a switch round before the season gets into full swing. The full heap should have most of the summer to slowly rot down ready for an autumn mulch.

We've had some broad beans coming on nicely in toilet roll tubes in the greenhouse. Time to plant these out into their own bed. They were such a surprisingly good crop last year, I made sure to put plenty in this time. I found they were great for adding to stews and even chilies last year, as well as being delicious on their own. To keep the mice off, I surrounded them with freshly cut holly leaves. I have no idea if this really works but I tried it last year and never had any problems with mice so no harm repeating it and it may even help to keep the cats off the fresh dirt. I even got creative and constructed a simple frame to give the beans something to cling on to as they grow.





Moving the beans out of the greenhouse left room to move the first of the rather leggy sweet peas in. I have really gone to town with these this year so it seemed to take most of the day to transplant them from their seed tray into individual pots. Only another couple of trays to go...








I also moved in the marigolds from the windowsill propagator out into the greenhouse. Of course this meant the propagator was empty so I couldn't resist putting a few more chili seeds in.
All in all a pretty busy day. I just hope I can keep up with things through March as everything seems to start to speed up this time of year.

Here's hoping to some warmer evenings and the chance to get something done throughout the week.

February Prep

The first weekend in February saw the sun come out, at least for one day; so, taking advantage of the weather, I got some more of those odd jobs done in the garden. This included clearing, weeding and lightly digging over the last of the beds. Now they are covered in a mixture of cardboard, black plastic, weed suppressant and, in one case, a custom made cloche cover. This little lot should not only keep the weeds down but should also help to warm the soil in preparation for some early planting.

I also dug over what will become the squash bed. Hopefully we'll have better luck than last year when all we managed to grow was fresh slug food.

The last job in the garden was to dig up what will be almost the last of the parsnips. These were a real experiment last year but at about a foot long, these have done us proud.

The weather on Sunday was not as good so it was an opportunity to visit one of the many garden centres on the Island. We only wanted to pick up some potting compost but, of course, we came away with a few more 'essential' items that we didn't realise were missing from our lives, including this nice new planting tray:

I know, I could have made one from scratch but it would have taken me all summer and probably ended up costing more than the £6.99 that we splashed out for this one. At least now I can do my sowing at the dining room table without getting into too much trouble.

So what to sow? Firstly, some flowers for the propagator: Agastache 'Golden Jubilee', Pyrethrum 'T&M Superb Mix', Salvia Lyrata 'Purple Volcano' and Chrysanthemum Heteropappus 'Blue Knoll'.

I also like to get the sweet peas in early so planted 'Fragrantissima', 'Statesman Mixed' and 'Fragrant Ripples'. Unfortunately there's no room in the propagator for all this lot but the warmth of the utility room should help them along.

Finally I managed to get some 'Cayenne' chillies and 'Stereo' broad beans in for planting on later, as well as some coriander and peas. These last two are a bit of an experiment, intended for growing on the kitchen window sill and putting into salads when they reach a few inches high. Even I'll admit that it's still a bit too early to sow these for growing on to maturity. Maybe next week...