Roundup

Hiya folks!

Phew, it's SCORCHIO today! Mustn't grumble though, only last week I was whinging that it was too cold and wet to plant out, and now I still can't plant out as it is too hot during the day. Have to wait until evening me thinks. I have done a wee bit here and there though. A couple of days ago I planted out a few bits in a tub, Spinach, Chard and Calendula in this one:

And here is the two varieties of Radish I planted a while ago, beginning to ripen and bulk up now. I pulled two just to see how they are going. One is supposed to be the regular red type, and the other a white, long type. Both are white just now though, weird!

Also put out my red Kale:

I put some of them them in next to the Cabbage from the autumn planting. They are doing very well indeed! I am surprised at how tall they are.

I have put some Peas in a tub, and have got round to putting my Runner Beans out as well.

My spuds are coming along nicely in their old compost bags. I have been topping up the compost around them as they grow taller, almost at the top of the ones on the left there. Those are the earliest first earlies - Swift, so I am hoping to lift them soon.

My mini greenhouse still has a lot of stuff in it. Butternut Squash doing OK, but I need to pot them on or plant them out real soon.

Courgettes doing great as well. Gotta find a warm spot for them too.

Not so fab on the Cucumber front though. Two have wilted and died, and the others don't look so well either, very yellow. I'll try potting them on to see if it is a nutrient thing.

Remember a while back I went on about this lovely tree I didn't want to part with, that had flowers a bit like a Hydrangea? Well, they have finally come out, and here it is:

Just loooove the colours. I also love this deciduous Azalea, it has such a gorgeous scent, and lovely bright flowers. I also have a red one of these, but it is a bit behind this orange, as it is in the shade. I want to get the yellow version too, but am having a hard job finding one!

I came across an old Chive I planted a couple of years back, flowering away, and had to snap it. Found a setting on the camera for floral photos and tried using that. It blurs out the background and focuses on the flower. Nice!

And finally, the first Rose of the season. This is a 'patio' type rose. My son chose this one, as he loves orange, turned out to be more red than orange in the end, but it is very pretty.

Hope you all enjoy your weekend and manage to get everything done on your 'to do' lists! TTFN folks xx

When Will it End?

Really, really need to get on the garden, get rids of the weeds, get stuff planted out.

My beans are so far behind, with no forecast for any decent weather any time soon.

Getting so pee'd off with cold, wet and windy!!!

Do you hear me up there?? Send us a decent summer-

Pleeeeeeaaaase!! 

A Snails Pace

Hiya folks!

Wish I could say things are coming on a pace out there in the garden, but with all the weird weather we have had lately up here - snow, sleet, wind, cold, grey, damp a spot of sun then back to grey again - things just haven't been growing the way I'd like them to.

Back in the middle of April I planted some Runner Bean, French Bean, Pea and Egyptian Bean seeds. One pot of each I kept inside the house, the others I put in the cold frame hoping that I could get two stages of harvesting later in the year. The inside ones all came up lovely and are merrily growing away. The others, well, need some encouragement! Not a sign from the runners, peas are showing now, the Egyptian beans started after I put them in the heated propagator and the French Beans are beginning to sprout. But they have all been very slow to get going.

The mini-greenhouse is almost full. You can just see those French Beans at the front on the bottom there. Marigolds, Calendula, Love in a Mist, Chinese Leaf, Tomato amongst others all trying their bestest for me. Below is one of my coldframes with some Cabbage, Kale, Sweet Pea and a Trachleospermum Jasminoides flower I need to find a space for somewhere.

I have however started to plant things out, mainly because they are getting pot bound (cabbages) and are turning yellow in their pots. But also because I am just so impatient!! I put a Sprout, Kale, Cabbage, Chinese Leaf in here below, with a couple of Marigolds for company hoping the smell of the flowers will confuse any bugs. Already popped a stake in to tie them to later (had to prop up the cabbage with one too as it was getting rather leggy)

And again here. You can just make out a tub of garlic (top left) behind the tub of Beetroot seeds which have yet to show. Bottom right is a tub of Salad Onion which are sprouting and starting to unfurl. The other tub right at the top has some Radish in, which seems to be doing fine despite the naff weather.

Below is a line of Cabbage I planted at the back end of last season, which all came through the winter unscathed, along with last seasons Leeks that I am harvesting gradually. The Blackberry has taken well to its move the other month and is almost flowering against that trellis. Got to take the Kale out from behind there, as it is now gone to seed and flowering.

On a different theme, the Maples are all putting on a good show of leaf after I shifted them a few months ago. The Primula look a bit yellow though, not sure why. Maybe I'll just have to start feeding it all, as the compost minerals won't last forever. 

I'll leave you with a quick look at the blossom on one of my new Single Stem Apple Trees which is about to blossom (late or what??) And you can just see the Strawberries blossoming away, although they started way back when we had that heatwave! Poor plants are so confused (know the feeling)

YAY!! It's GONE !!

Hiya folks!

Today is a GOOD day! OK, so the weather is a bit hit and miss what with the hailstorms followed by the sunshine, but apart from that it is a good one. ** THE TREE STUMP IS GONE ** Woooohoooo!! It took some effort mind you, remember what it looked like? Well here it is when we started hacking at it this morning:

And here is that space now, complete with my newest make, the bird feeding station. Yeah, its a bit rough round the edges and a bit skew-whiff but hey, it's only birds!!

I laid out some path stones for hubby to get to his 'observatory', even using the painted ones that I used to have a plant pot stood on. He is busy now edging the concrete base of the observatory with some left over slate. Looks a lot tidier. I have dug over the bit of dirt in front of it too, just up to the lawn which is going to need a bit of attention soon, poor thing.

Next job is the potting shed. Here it is after a good sort out and shifting stuff about:

I didn't think I was going to be able to use the shelves from the middle shed, as it is full of woodworm holes. But it is still fairly sturdy except for the top which disintegrated when I tried to remove a nail from it. Other than that it will serve it's purpose, and is now stashed at the end of the shed. Need to build me a bench along the right hand side under the rather puny window. We do have a nice huge pane of glass in another shed which we could use to make a bigger window. Will have to figure that one out. . .

TTFN folks!

In between the showers

Hiya folks.

Hope you have all been enjoying some garden time this Easter weekend? Bit of a damp squib up here in NE Scotland. We seem to be back to the usual April showers and cold spells. Such a shame, I could have gotten used to it being nice and warm like it was a few weeks ago. Still, the plants need the water.

In between the showers I have managed to nip out and do a little bit. Not much mind you. I have put up some of my bean sticks already. Not because I have plants ready to go out. Oh, no! I have only just this weekend planted my beans and peas. Some pots I put out in the coldframe, and the rest I brought indoors and put on the kitchen cupboard. They are forecasting snow again later in the week, so I don't want them all to die just as they are coming up. Anyway, I just put the bean sticks up so I know where they will be going, and I can see what space I have left to plant other stuff in.

Today I spent most of the day making a new bird feeding station. It was just going to be a bird table, but I realised it would end up a bit short after erecting in the garden, and I also didn't have anything to hang the baskets on for the peanuts. So I went a bit wild and ended up with what hubby calls a bird hotel, lol. I added four uprights, and another table for a top, then put some battens across to hang the nut baskets on. Here it is all painted up with preservative:

And yes, that is the hubsters 'observatory' behind there. Damn the weather though, it started to rain just after this photo was taken, so I expect I will have to repaint it.

I did make a start on getting shot of that darned tree stump too. I managed to cut off one small root, and have hacked into two others, but they were a bit thick and the blade of the saw kept getting stuck in the sap, so I called it a day then. Maybe when hubby gets round to it he can finish the job off for me.

We also found a guy who is willing to take away the rest of the tree branches that have been lying in the garden for weeks now. He's only just over the road from us, and has a wood fire, so that is well handy! Didn't realise before that he also has a chainsaw - DOH!! He could have helped when it was time to chop it down if only I had known!! Ah well. He's welcome to the leftovers, lol.

Anyway. Here's hoping it doesn't get too cold later in the week. I put all my little babies back in the mini greenhouse, and I haven't the space on my kitchen cupboard to bring them all back again. . .

Bbbbbrrrr-illiant!

Just flipping brilliant!!

Who would have thought that this week would be TWENTY degrees colder than last week?

Just what we need :(

At the time of writing, it is piddling with rain (much needed so that's OK) and only 2.2 degrees C outside. So I went on a rescue mission and now have the majority of my wee babies sitting on the kitchen counter until it gets a bit better. Although they were inside a mini greenhouse, it was just as cold in there as it was out of it, so in they have come.

Hop we don't get that snow they forecast for tonight. . .

Take care all.

xxx

Update on Seedlings

Hiya folks!

Hope you have all been enjoying the fabulous sunshine!!?? We've had it great here in NE Scotland for the past few days, but we have cloud rolling in, the wind has got up and it's a bit cooler today. A great day for doing a bit more digging. Hubby and I put up his new shed over the last weekend, man, it's BIG. Not as big as the one that was here when we moved in, but at 8ft x 8ft(ish) it's still a biggie!! Right slap-bang in the middle:

Here it is from the left looking towards the old shed:

Now that leaves me with a largely shady patch behind the new shed. It gets the shade in the morning from the old shed, then it gets the afternoon shade from the new one. A small amount of sun goes across around noon before that shade hits it, then again it gets some sun at evening time. This is of course assuming we get more sunny periods! LOL. You can see there at the back that I have moved the trellis and posts. I got rid of the Tayberry that was there and have planted the Thornless Blackberry 'Loch Maree' against it.

Today I gave it all a dig over, and am using up some more of those stones as a border to separate the dirt from the bark path that will be around the new shed.

Now for the seedling updates. Remember those Microleaves I was going to try out? Well, I gave up on those!! They took forever to come up, and didn't even manage to make any true leaves. I got fed up waiting. Needed the space in the mini greenhouse, so they went off for recycling.

 Here we have my Cucumbers, Tomatoes and Leeks. The Tomatoes are a Cherry Mix that I bought from Lidl. I also got some white cylinder shaped Radish from there, and some Carrots.

 Next up, some Sweet Peas, Marigolds, Chinese Leaves and my Cavolo de Negro Kale plants:

And then there are the other Kale, some I left in the original tray to grow on a bit, and to the left a mix of salad leaves. I am more impressed with the growth of these than those microleaves I'll tell you!!

And finally, I have had to start using the cold frame, and have put my Sprouts and Cabbage in there. This will eventually house my Runner and Dwarf French Beans when I get round to putting them in pots. The wee daughter wants to help with those, so that will be a job for next week when they are on their Easter Holls.

Right, off to check on the Squash and Courgette that are in the heated propagator. Signs of life there too. Hope I can figure out where to put everything when the time comes!!

TTFN folks!