Germination

Last week was a bit manic, we had the house painted (will load pictures soon) and the house looks a million dollars. In addition I had rather a lot of freelance work arrive towards the en of the week so my lunches in the garden became lunches at my desk looking at my garden. The temperature dropped to 1.3*C but so far we have avoided any frost in the greenhouse, which given the slow rate of germination is a good thing.

Satuday I went walking for a hen party along part of the Norfolk Coast using the coasthopper, lovely weather but maybe a smidge warm! We had a picnic at Burnham Ovary Staithe and then walked back towards Holkham, not the longest of walks but a good one.

Tonight I escaped out to the garden to discover I have the following germinated;
1 Runner Bean
2 Marigolds
3 Courgettes (Midnight & Black Forest)
4 Harlequin Tomatos
6 Cos Lettuces,
And a million sunflowers, zinnias, mesembryantheums! ALso sweet peas are coming up and normal peas, although very patchy, given they were all sown at eth same depth at the same time it seems a little odd.

Hammock up, up , up and away!

Overnight Low: 3.8C Daytime High: 31.9C

Christmas 2008 I bought Hubby a hammock from Natural Collection, Christmas 2009 I bought him the hooks to put the hammock up as the hammock had not moved out of the wardrobe for a year.  Today the hammock went up and heres a picture of happiness! I had a go too and its is sublimely comfortable. We had dinner outside tonight - a first for the year!

Greenhouse got really warm today - still no evidence of seedlings but hopefully next week I will see some shoots. Marigolds should have come up by now!

A day of compost

Overnight Low: 5.3C Daytime High: 23.1C

I ate lunch again in the garden today - every day this week! I have pretty much got everything tidied up now ready for the grand house painting next week I am so excited!

Today I didn't do a huge amount, suffering slightly from yesterdays overexertions. I did lay a path out of old bricks, and one wheelbarrow and a 60litre bag of the new compost which we made onto the veg patch to make a courgette bed (L shaped in photo below) and a carrot/salad bed (square shaped) which will be fabric netted to a height of 70 cm to avoid carrot fly and also stop the ground drying out so the lettuces aren't as likely to bolt. In the foreground my garlic is to the right and my shallots to the left sheltered by the honesty. I have been collecting earthworms to put on my new beds and i will cover them up until they are ready to be planted - it will be several months before the courgettes are big enough to go out.

I am also looking for a new blog template, so watch this space! I want something more ephemeral, subtle and with greater control over the image placment

and i might - just might have had a furtle under the soil of some of the pots to check germination is taking place. patience never having been a virtue of mine!

Damn Grape Hyacinth (muscari)

Overnight Low: 6.1C Daytime High: 25.8C

Spent all day 'weeding' the front of small tiny irritating weeds and grass which invade the concrete and gravel. The house is being painted next week and I want to try and get the whole outside tidied up and looking pretty ready for the new arrival. I had to wear my ultra excellent straw gardeners hat becuase it got so hot in the sun. I am delighted by the fact that for the first time since planting the Rosemary out the front has flowered - i will post pictures soon.

The afternoon saw me return to the back and sweep the concrete by the veg patch, and the patio outside the shed as well as digging out the grass and weeds from the path. Then I turned my attention to the annoying grape hyacinths which manage to come up through the weed matting we put down under the gravel. They are a real pest, because the leaves bruise so easily they look ragged and untidy against the gravel and are right in the way of the pergola space. Other than dig the bulbs up (which I do) is there any way to get rid of them?

No germination as yet in the greenhouse - there is a frost predicted for Monday evening, I will have to wrap all the plants up carefully although hopefully the green house will protect them a little. I am more concerned about the new herbs I put out and the passion flower which I removed the fleece from yesterday.

Lunch outdoors again today though - 4 days in a row!

Will they? Won't they?

Overnight Low: 8.0C Daytime High: 26.2C

This is a picture of the greenhouse after I had been out to play today. I have sown additional seeds, mostly flowers and mostly old seeds from our trip to Heligan in Cornwall in 2008. Hence the title of the post - will they germinate or not?

The Zinnia, Aster, Ox-Eye Daisy and Mesembryanthemum are sown in big pots inside plastic bags to try and up the temperature to enable germination. The Sweet William, Marigolds, Parsley, Harebells and Lemon Balm are in my white plastic pop up seed try which enables me to extract easily the plants which need potting on while leaving the roots of the others untouched.

The only other plants to be given very special treatment are my sweet peas, seen inside the propoagators. This year I have spent very little on seeds and gardening materials. I did buy some new seed labels and Parsely seeds which are notoriously difficult to germinate anyway and wanted to start with the best possible chance.

I am wondering about a little sideline in money earning - maybe pot up 20 or so tomatos (I have the seed left from last year) and extra butternut squash, as well as cucumbers and rom them big and string before selling them for a pound or so each through hubbys work. Having taken a gander at the offerings at a few garden centres its obvious that the only seedlings available are bog standard run of teh mill types where as I have some really interesting varieties.

Tomorrow I'm going to get the soil in the tubs for the potatos to let it start warming and turn my eyes to the weeding as opposed to the fun planting. I have been advised by my yoga teacher to practice my squats so I will do this while weeding. Then I'll have lots to take to the dump on Saturday (we don't compost our weeds) when I have an extra pair of hands!

Rain and Flapjacks

Overnight Low: 5.0C Daytime High: 26.3C

The greenhouse seems to be really making a difference to the surrounding temperature, obviously keeping the wind off the plants is great but I need to find a way to store the latent heat in there overnight. I have collected a lot of plastic water bottles and tomorrow I am going to fill them up and leave them lying in the sun inside the greenhouse - hopefully it will work as a heat store.

I did some more planting today, having eaten lunch outside (now if I can do that everyday between now and July I'll be impressed) I skipped off to the garden centre in search of some sunflower seeds and more parsley - can't seem to find Rue anywhere anymore. I found some sunflowers named 'Irish Eyes' which are a dwarf variety suitable for shubberies (tee hee) and pots. They are also edible as young buds so I may try some in the vegetable garden.

Getting home I realised I had promised 'him' some flapjacks so I sorted those out with a very quick recipe.

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110g margerine

110g soft brown sugar

225g soft rolled oats

3 tablespoons of syrup

150g sultanas

Warm the oven to 180*C. Heat the margerine, sugar and syrup together in a saucepan, when melted and gooey pour over the oats and sultanas. Put in an 8" square dish and cook for 20-30min. Remove and draw a knife accross to cut into squares, allow to cool

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Then I got out into the garden, at which point it decided to rain. So I resorted to my deckchair in the shed and sowed

• 24 Sunflowers 'Irish Eyes' - dwarf variety
• 24 Lettuces 'Cos' - will also do some of these in the ground under the fleece polytunnel but need to prepare the ground first and allow it to wrm up a little.
• 6 Chilli Pepper 'Hot Tepin' - I wanted to try these as they grow as a shrub and have very pretty bulb shaped chilli fruits. I'll probably keep a couple in the greenhouse and have the others outside in pots - they have to be protected from the cold and frost at all times - can live to 30years old!
• 6 Gourds - Seeds from either last year or the year before, I will see if they germinate and if they do I'm going to grow them over the pergola on strings with the pots in the bathroom roof.
• 6 Sea Hollys, beautiful plants and very attractive to bees appartently. I am going to plant a couple in the back but most in the front as they are more likely to be able to deal with the south facing aspect. These seeds are from Heligan in summer 2008, as are the Globe thistles below, I hope the seeds haven't dried out.
• 6 Globe Thistles - these are specifically for the cats. I am going to place them at the entrance to the lawn so when one of the little sods tried to get past it'll get prickled.

Spring Cleaning

Overnight Low: 5.7C Daytime High: 25.2C I like my new toy.

This morning was bright but cold, after lunch I decided to clear out the shed and the sun came out - glorious! Grabbing my tools and my seed box I started to sow seeds and finished with;

• 10 Runner Beans 'Celebration' - two year old seeds but cropped well and by planting early if they don't germinate I can replace with 'Painted Lady' which were last years poorer cropping variety.
• 4 Greenhouse Tomatos 'Harlequin' - fabulous croppers, by reducing the number of plants I actually gorw in the greenhouse I hope to improve the crop.
• 6 Vine Tomatos 'Matkotska' - a new variety but I'll reuse the hanging baskets from last year and grow them around the edges of the pergola.
• 1 Butternet Squash 'Cobnut' - an old seed but going to try in a lined deep pot and see how I get on, my little sister makes the most jawdroppingly good soup from butternut squash (and cream - reather a lot of cream!).
• 2 Courgettes 'Midnight' - a very dark skinned variety, last years seeds but trying again for a better crop by planting in the veg patch rather than tubs.
• 2 Courgettes 'Black Forest' - these are the climbers from last year and I hope to get some decent crops off them this year, again by planting in the veg patch and not in tubs.
• 36 Peas 'Meteor' - winter peas but inspired by a few coming up of my pre winter sowing I redug one of the long thin tubs we used last year for onions and mixed in panty of home compost before covering with fleece to raise the germination rate and keep mice and pigeons off.

I have lots left which I want to sow, carrots and spring onions will go directly into the ground. I will do half and half for little gems - some outdoors inder the polyfleece tunnel and some in the greenhouse. I do need to do some tidying of the front garden which if the weather hold tomorrow I may do then. The tulips are now appearing in the front to the delight of the bumbly bees. which I am pleased to say I have seen many of. I am going to let just one borage grow at the back of the veg patch this year, along with cornflowers and limnanthus. I also have the honesty which is growing big and strong in the veg patch and will hopefully really bring bees in this year.


And then there are our wedding flowers as well to plant :)

Sunday Mending

Today dawned reasonably bright and sunny and therefore had to spend some time in the garden. Its the law. The perspex I bought to mend the greenhouse was very expensive but necessary and its been lying on my living room floor for the last two weeks, it wsa cut up and screwed carefully to the southern end of the greenhouse. If we were here longer I would be very tempted to replace all the polythene with perspex - 'he' pointed out if I'd done this to begin with it would have been cheaper to buy one rather than build one.

Then having dug over the last of the vegetable patch and put up the new extra tall beanpoles in a wigwam shape ready for the runner beans, I turned my attention to the sweetpeas. With poor germination rates I chose to soak the peas overnight in warm water before planting out in deep biodegradeable tubes, I have planted some straight outside into the willow pot which will allow them to grow up along the dead branches and worked quite well last year.

I also placed the sweetpeas inside propagators inside the greenhouse which should guarentee the temperatures needed for good germination. I have planted a mixed heirloom variety this year which should grow between 6 and 10 foot high, perfect for the trellis to break up the appreciation garden from the production garden.

I swept out the greenhouse and arranged the empty pots ready for planting. I have also fixed the electronic thermometer so we can start to get a direct reading each day, watch this space!

Easter Monday

Today was freezing! Really cold but last week I was determined to get help from 'him' in the garden to move a big table and get various bits and bobs done. I dug over the flower bed and deadheaded everything, the fennel has yet again come back in force. I have to confess to weeding from my deckchair now as the baby bump has become too big to ignore and almost impossible to kneel on the ground!

I also dug in about 80% of the green manure and then covered it with weed fabric to keep the cats off, the last 20% beat me and I just couldn;t bend anymore - frustrating as I was determined but decided to be sensible. Having weeded the garlic very carefully by hand I was really pleased to see that there was 100% germination and the glorious straight green shoots are looking string and healthy despite the continued coolness of the soil. The shallots have also germinated well, unlike the broad beans which are stunted and only two show signs of flowering, I will replace the B beans with runner beans well spaced as soon as possible to get an early crop.

The Japanese Crab Apple, Elstar eating apple and Acer are budding well and amazingly I have some herbs which have survived through the harsh winter - Parsley, Marjoram, Mint and Applemint. I have additionally planted up some Lavender, Bay, Thyme (x2), more Spearmint and a big Sage into the old flower bed where this year I will cultivate flowers and herbs. The vine looks healthy but no shoots yet - still too early.

Out the front the tulips are coming along well, the daffs have barely shown their heads and the myrtle is sufferng from frost bite. One of my tasks this week is to weed the front where I will top dress the myrtle to try and give it a bit of a boost. The Japanese Cherry is coming along beautifully, the flowers come first followed by lime green leaves which turn red to last through th eyear. This year a giant sweet pea (self seeding from 3 years ago) is twined through the Cherry which is a little odd but hey - who cares.

Tomorrow sees me mend the greenhouse with perspex (tools allowing) and hopefully get the first of the beg crops started in the greenhouse. I am concerned however that it is still too cold at night for little plants, even in the greenhouse. I have held back on planting out the potatoes for a similar reason.

Good Friday

Today was the first of our joint tentings of 2010 - I have had a great day out on the river a few weeks ago in the canoe but today we went with a crowd of people and many dogs up to Sheringham Park for a walk along to the viewtower which 'he' didn't climb due to his dislike of heights but I went up and in great tradition saw the North Norfolk Steam train pass by below - choo choo - in clouds of steam. We then headed for the coast and walked along to Sheringham whereupon we walked down the High Street searching for lunch, somewhere to seat 12 people and 9 dogs is hard to come by. Luckily the Lobster had plenty of seats outside and a great lunch was had before trekking back in less than perfect weather. Will most certainly do the walk again soon as it was a really good one.