A Hard Days Work

Sun was shining today but it has definately been cooler overall, the beans, pumpkins, cucumbers and honesty had a good night outside. It was just as well that I hardened them off because there is a ground frost predicted for tonight and I only discovered this after I put half a dozen in the ground to mark out a line between beds.

I have had a busy afternoon - after we went up to the garden centre for lunch and to get a few pots (Acer and Hibiscus were potbound) some more compost and some other bits and bobs then we HAD to do the food shopping which I did as fast as I could. Got home and wrapped wire around one of the pergola posts and then trained the rose up the post (annoyingly found a much better rose pot up at the garden centre today) which was a painful exercise as teh rose did not want to be trained! While we were up at the garden centre i did get some organic slug pellets because they are decimating my crops. I am pretty certain we don't have hedgehogs and any slugs i do find i put outside the garden under a cherry tree and few doors down where the birds tend to gather. I saw a female blackbird on the fence the other day so I know we do have birds in the garden.

I needed a polytunnel for the salad bed but being an awkward gardener my beds are not 3 meters long and 1 and a half foot wide, therefore i decided I wouldn't spend fifteen squid on one of those extendable cloches but try to make one at home. When I got back I delved around until I found three old curtain tracks (the plasticy sort) which when bent have a nice dome shape to them and then spend a happy hour constructing a cloche which is tied at each end, one side is buried in the soil and the other side weighted down with rocks/wood. I've planted more Chantenoy carrots, Springies, Niche Salad Leaves and orange radishes underneath, I might use it as a halfway house for some of the veg to harden off. Will have to be careful to water enough.



And also repotted the Acer, the Hibiscus and the Camilia which through my own faukt has not had a good year. I was bought it in Jaunary and I think it had been very sheltered in its previous home, it was doing ok then caught a frost so as the greenhouse was finished by then i put it in there. This seemed a good plan until one day it got scorched and then when i put it outside we had a very severe frost - the one which killed off my stunning trellis passion flower. So the plant doesn't really like me! I managed to leave the garden centre with just 1 living addition to the garden - An Aubergine - which i managed to drop on its head as i got out of teh car - so it probably doesn't like me either!!!