Back into two jumpers again. it is bucketing down in Bristol and very dark so this is it for some hours no doubt! Duck pond on the patio again. I think I will be gardening off the paths for some time to come. The raised beds will be easy to plant up and the edges of the borders but i would not risk destroying my good soil structure in the beds and borders by walking on them till we have had weeks of drying weather, so the bungalow windowsills are now going to be stripped of ornaments to make way for flower and vegetable plants as they get pricked out from their seed trays. The cold frame is full up and the conservatory is getting there. Two long cloches have been ordered to help warm up the soil and should be on their way..
So excited. The next box from Mr. Fothergills for the Nation of Gardeners Trials is being despatched this week. We evidently will need our greenhouses (in my case the conservatory) for this assignment but the rest is a secret till all have been delivered, not to spoil the surprise. It is a bit like having a monthly birthday.
Good job I looked at my sowings I did in my new propagator on the !0th Feb. They are up, well five of them, on the 12th - my cosmos and all four saladings. I will resow on the 10th of each month till I have finished the packets. I do love salad leaves in my lunchtime sandwich. They set off cheese, eggs, meat, salmon, perfectly. And I love the Spicy mixed salad leaves on a tomato or green salad with my supper.
ages since I've had time to check this site - and had wondered what had happened to you happymarion! perhaps my quick checks had just been on other topics. Yes, I too love your pictures and enthusiasm - it's infectious - and hope you have a wonderful golden jubilee year.
I'm afraid I am a hit-and-miss gardener, and believe that where a plant has made an effort it should be rewarded, so do not always take out things when I should. My venture up the garden to the compost bins amused me as individual crocus plants seem to have popped up all over the grass area near to the winter bed where the real clumps are flowering. The bulbs are all well into their stride - daffodil buds, hyacinth flowers appearing, snowdrops, primroses and anemone blanda all doing their thing.....but oh dear, I dread to think what damage I am doing as I have no paths in my garden - only beds separated by grassy areas and so soggy! No sign of flowers on my auriculas yet - they are growing in clay pots - and the birds have all but stripped all the flowers of the mahonias near the house, but then they were grown partly for the birds.
Your crocus have found a good seedbed, Gardening granny, and are happy. My garden would fall into naturalistic category too. Very cold up there this morning but had to check my trees after the horrific wind last night. Picked up armfuls of debris but no significant damage. I am not looking forward to the heavy rain promised by the weathermen for St. Valentine's day and Saturday. There are puddles in my garden I have never seen before in fifty years here. Water table is very high indeed.
Sun is out this morning - primroses flowering, and the spring bulbs making progress every day. My garden is filled with plants that selfseed in the wrong place and have to be moved, but the crocus, along with the violets which will appear soon, will just have to stay in the grass. You've inspired me to fill a few seed pots, though I will have to book them into my friends seedling B & B whilst I am away for a month in March. Trouble is, the pots are small enough to accomodate, its after they've been pricked out into individual pots that the space problem raises its head. O only have an ancient small cold greenhouse, but I put portable cheap tower staging in to cope with as many trays as possible.
Do hope you don't get too much rain - it's so soul destroying.
St, Valentine's Day and pouring again in Bristol with risks of more floods. Reminds me of my childhood in Alloa when my grandmother would tell me of 1906 when she put my father as a toddler into her upturned kitchen table to be "safe" from the flooded Forth while she got her older children safely up onto the churchyard behind the tenement. That year the table floated out the door and my father was rescued as it hurtled towards the harbour by fishermen in their boat, alerted by her screams. The River Forth would flood regularly while I was at primary school but only once do I remember it getting as far as the school playground.
The rain has not stopped all day so i could not go on safari up the garden to see how the St. Valentine flower (the crocus) was faring this year. I thought of writing it a Valentine poem but veg. won out. Here it is, my Valentine poem for my garden.
....love it! I'll just have to content myself with mincemeat (homemade of course) topped apple sponge pudding (still eating last year's crop) and custard - but cheered up by a pot of pushkinias outside the french windows - a large pot, because I found the bulbs in the shed in December, and not recognising them put them all spaced out over the top of a large pot. There they all are - their little blue stripes glinting ubnder the raindrops.
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Back into two jumpers again. it is bucketing down in Bristol and very dark so this is it for some hours no doubt! Duck pond on the patio again. I think I will be gardening off the paths for some time to come. The raised beds will be easy to plant up and the edges of the borders but i would not risk destroying my good soil structure in the beds and borders by walking on them till we have had weeks of drying weather, so the bungalow windowsills are now going to be stripped of ornaments to make way for flower and vegetable plants as they get pricked out from their seed trays. The cold frame is full up and the conservatory is getting there. Two long cloches have been ordered to help warm up the soil and should be on their way..
So excited. The next box from Mr. Fothergills for the Nation of Gardeners Trials is being despatched this week. We evidently will need our greenhouses (in my case the conservatory) for this assignment but the rest is a secret till all have been delivered, not to spoil the surprise. It is a bit like having a monthly birthday.
Good job I looked at my sowings I did in my new propagator on the !0th Feb. They are up, well five of them, on the 12th - my cosmos and all four saladings. I will resow on the 10th of each month till I have finished the packets. I do love salad leaves in my lunchtime sandwich. They set off cheese, eggs, meat, salmon, perfectly. And I love the Spicy mixed salad leaves on a tomato or green salad with my supper.
ages since I've had time to check this site - and had wondered what had happened to you happymarion! perhaps my quick checks had just been on other topics. Yes, I too love your pictures and enthusiasm - it's infectious - and hope you have a wonderful golden jubilee year.
I'm afraid I am a hit-and-miss gardener, and believe that where a plant has made an effort it should be rewarded, so do not always take out things when I should. My venture up the garden to the compost bins amused me as individual crocus plants seem to have popped up all over the grass area near to the winter bed where the real clumps are flowering. The bulbs are all well into their stride - daffodil buds, hyacinth flowers appearing, snowdrops, primroses and anemone blanda all doing their thing.....but oh dear, I dread to think what damage I am doing as I have no paths in my garden - only beds separated by grassy areas and so soggy! No sign of flowers on my auriculas yet - they are growing in clay pots - and the birds have all but stripped all the flowers of the mahonias near the house, but then they were grown partly for the birds.
Your crocus have found a good seedbed, Gardening granny, and are happy. My garden would fall into naturalistic category too. Very cold up there this morning but had to check my trees after the horrific wind last night. Picked up armfuls of debris but no significant damage. I am not looking forward to the heavy rain promised by the weathermen for St. Valentine's day and Saturday. There are puddles in my garden I have never seen before in fifty years here. Water table is very high indeed.
Sun is out this morning - primroses flowering, and the spring bulbs making progress every day. My garden is filled with plants that selfseed in the wrong place and have to be moved, but the crocus, along with the violets which will appear soon, will just have to stay in the grass. You've inspired me to fill a few seed pots, though I will have to book them into my friends seedling B & B whilst I am away for a month in March. Trouble is, the pots are small enough to accomodate, its after they've been pricked out into individual pots that the space problem raises its head. O only have an ancient small cold greenhouse, but I put portable cheap tower staging in to cope with as many trays as possible.
Do hope you don't get too much rain - it's so soul destroying.
St, Valentine's Day and pouring again in Bristol with risks of more floods. Reminds me of my childhood in Alloa when my grandmother would tell me of 1906 when she put my father as a toddler into her upturned kitchen table to be "safe" from the flooded Forth while she got her older children safely up onto the churchyard behind the tenement. That year the table floated out the door and my father was rescued as it hurtled towards the harbour by fishermen in their boat, alerted by her screams. The River Forth would flood regularly while I was at primary school but only once do I remember it getting as far as the school playground.
The rain has not stopped all day so i could not go on safari up the garden to see how the St. Valentine flower (the crocus) was faring this year. I thought of writing it a Valentine poem but veg. won out. Here it is, my Valentine poem for my garden.
Tatty Love.
My heart goes a-flutter
As I dash for the butter
When I see new potatoes before me.
I moisten my lips.
Getting to grips
.With the sumptuous treat laid before me.
No love can compare
With such scrumptious fare
On any St. Valentine’s Day.
No kisses as sweet,
No cuddles can beat,
That taste that sends longing away.
New potatoes I love you;
A halo hangs over you;
Black pepper and butter help too.
I would brave battering storms
Forage in far flung farms,
For a St. Valentine’s meal with you.
....love it! I'll just have to content myself with mincemeat (homemade of course) topped apple sponge pudding (still eating last year's crop) and custard - but cheered up by a pot of pushkinias outside the french windows - a large pot, because I found the bulbs in the shed in December, and not recognising them put them all spaced out over the top of a large pot. There they all are - their little blue stripes glinting ubnder the raindrops.