Loadsaphotos!!

Aerial view of the garden!

Strawberries in bags!

Home-made strawberry hanging bag!

Runner beans!

Bootfair Rhubarb!

6 pumpkin plants

Carrots

Lettuces

Spuds

Cabbages

Onions!

Lettuces to be re-planted

Our 1st fruit!!

Pepper plant & 2 'Alice' Strawberry plants

5 cucumber plants

We've had loads of things coming up in the past few weeks. The bit of sunshine we've had recently has done wonders to accelerate the growing of our veggies - and there's nothing like watering them after a scorching hot day, you can almost hear them gulping up the water!!

Had a near disaster with one of the troughs of lettuces - somehow forgot to water them on Sunday evening and by Monday morning they had totally wilted, but after a quick thorough water they perked up, so all is well.

We've transplanted the strawberries into bags which are now hanging on the fence - hopefully the bees will get to work and we'll have some flowers coming through soon.

The next job is to move the lettuces out of the troughs into 2 large flexi-tubs in the garden - unfortunately have no more room in the actual ground, unless we dig up the lawn. Maybe next year, eh kids?

xxx

Crops galore!

Spent a few hours out in the garden this afternoon re-planting plants from the tubs into the ground!!
So we now have in the ground in the garden: onions (white & red), cabbages, potatoes, carrots, more cabbages and at the end, 6 large pumpkin plants!!
Got to buy a couple of large tubs for the lettuces and i've re-potted the cucumber plants into a trough (if they get too big for it, Graham is going to make a large planter to go by the wall).
Am also going out this week to buy a hanging bag for the strawberry plants to go in.
xxx

Beans re-homing!!

Had a lovely couple of hours out in the garden this afternoon. Graham did some much needed weeding and I re-planted the runner beans into their new home - 2 lovely big bright tubs, where I am sure they will be very happy.



Each tub has 5 canes so they've got plenty of climbing room and will hopefully give us plenty of big beans!!



We actually ended up with more bean plants than I originally thought we had because although some of the seeds looked as though they hadn't germinated, i'd obviously put the seeds too deep in the soil in the trays because their leaves were hidden under the soil. So I gently coaxed them out and i've planted them with the big strong plants - hopefully they'll do just as well.



The slugs had already had a good munch on the bean seedings while they were in the green house (a couple had absolutely no leaves, just the stalks!!) so i've copied a tip I heard on the TV the other week and put a ring of vaseline around the top of each pot - aparently it makes it harder for slugs and snails to grip and climb up the pot. I've also put some slug pellets in the pots as a second line of defence!!



Saw some lovely 'climbing' green net in Homebase at the weekend (nice and thick with big holes) - just right for when my cucumbers take off. I'm going to grow them out of large troughs up the netting against the wall where we get lots of sun for half the day - am hoping to get a good crop because our guinea pigs (all 6 of them) absolutely love them, especially when it's hot.



Next job on the list is to plant the cabbages and lettuces that we've grow in the troughs, but I dont think that will be for a few weeks yet cos they are still quite small - want to give them a fighting chance of surviving before we put them in the ground.



Got a small problem with the Honeysuckle plants I planted last week, one of the plant's leaves are covered in black patches. Not sure what's caused it but it's weird it's not on both plants - will have to do some searching on the web.



Am glad Lynn has got some crops growing - i've someone to talk to about this gardening business who is properly interested and not just humouring me, lol!!!



:-D

To catch a criminal!!!

Lots of pics at the top of this post!! The 1st is of a crime committed in the relative 'safety' of the greenhouse!!! I noticed Saturday morning my lovely pepper plant and also one of my 'Alice' strawberry plants had been munched on over night and after a thorough search of the surrounding area I found the culprit - this little tiny slug!!! Needless to say, plenty of slug pellets have now gone down around the perimeter in the hope of of keeping out any other 'copy cat' criminals!!

Pic 3 is of my carrot seeds, coming up nicely but to delicate to be transplanted anywhere at the moment.

Pic 4 is of my lettuces (at the rear) which have now been re-planted into a couple of troughs to give them room to spread and grow before they go into the ground. In the front of the tray on the right you can just make out my cucumber plants starting to come through - unfortunately the pepper seeds on the left haven't made an appearance as of yet.

Pic 5 is of my runner beans that I grew in tissue paper/jam jar indoors that have now been put into pots.

And finally Pic 6 is my cabbages which have also been re-planted into troughs until they are big enough to go into the ground.

I also have a tray of runner beans coming up nicely, so lots of veggies to go into the gaden which does present us with a small problem - we dont think we're going to have enough room!! So it looks like the lawn in the front of the shed may have to be dug up to make room for the runner beans - but needs must when growing veggies!!

I have one tray in the greenhouse which is still bare of any seedlings and that is the one with pumpkin seeds in (Milly's idea). I'm hoping that maybe they are waiting for the really warm summer weather before they make an appearance (would make sense as they are usually harvested early winter). Will keep you posted on that one!!

I have another few additions to my garden - GNOMES!! Nuff said! ;-)

Grow, grow grow!!

OK, lots happening in the garden at the moment (as you'd expect in spring).

Carrots, lettuce, cabbage, one cucumber, one runner bean and 2 onions have started to sprout out from the soil, yay! I had also planted some runner beans in a few jars indoors (as we used to do at school in the old days) and they have come up fantastically well (wish i'd done them all the same way). I have planted the 5 of them into pots and a couple already have leaves.

I went to Aldi yesterday and I bought 2 Honeysuckle plants. My mum had a lovely one in the garden when we were kids and I remember the gorgeous smell when it was in flower. I've planted them at the side of the new fence, hoping it will spread up and along the fence eventually so we get an extra bit of privacy from next door (will give us an excuse to put some trellis along the top of the fence at a later date).

Anyway, back to the veggies. The plants growing in the seed trays still look too delicate to put into the ground at the moment, so we're going to the 99p shop tomorrow to get some large troughs to put them in before finally putting them in the ground.

The cabbages that i thought wouldn't grow have started to get established and i've noticed new leaves on them which is brilliant and i've also noticed new growth on the one pepper plant and the strawberry plants I got from the garden centre.

Graham has suggested we plant the stone from a mango I bought yesterday - i'll give it a go, you never know!!! Lol.

xxx

Everything's coming up cabbages!!!

LETTUCES!!! & CABBAGES!!!

Well, I was very excited to go out Friday morning and discover my cabbage seeds had started popping through and then this morning my lettuces popped up too!! Yay!!

Over the weekend gave the rest of the garden a good dig and planted my spuds. Noticed the cabbage plants I put straight into the ground have been nibbled by something - got plenty of slug/snail pellets around them so it cant be them, obviously some other nasty beasty.

When we put the runner beans in the trays we had a few left over which we decided to grow in doors in the old school way i.e. in a jar with wet tissue paper, and they've started sprouting so will try and get them into pots over the next few days.

xxx

Some pics!

This is a piccy of my new greenhouse (small) and in it are my trays of planted seeds - just waitng patiently for them to start peeping through the soil (sooo exciting). Since this pic was taken i have also planted some strawberry plants and one pepper plant in some toughs that are now stood in the bottom.

OK, now I know this pic looks the same as the other garden shots, but believe me, it is totally different!! It is different because although you cant see them, underneith the soil are lots of red and white onion bulbs waiting to grow and burst out of the ground in a few months!! And since this pic was taken I have planted some cabbage plants - not sure how they will do though cos they were being sold cheap as they were starting to go yellow, but even if they grow a bit they will be fine for the piggies!!!

Not got much else to do outside at the moment except keep it watered and weeded and wait for my seeds to start growing. Shouldn't take too long - I hope!

xxxx