Wednesday 17 May 2006

Gosh, that's a big one

Folks and I treated my OH to his first garden centre visit ... not being the green fingered type its hard to tell if he was appreciative or not - when asked what he thought he said he didn't know garden centres came in the size of Manchester ! Maybe starting with Reighton at Hunmanby was perhaps a little overwhelming - its enormous and absolutely crammed to bursting with every plant under the sun. Got some pink lavender and some lavender lavender, lots of herbs for my planned herb patch (OH interest perked up at this bit), a lovely succulent (OH interest peaked at this point), some alpine strawberries and a cucumber.

After that we took him to Bempton Cliffs, just down the road from Flamborough Head. The birds clinging onto the cliff face were an absolutely breathtaking sight - we saw gulls, gannets, razorbills, guillemots, puffins and ... pigeons. Yup, they get everywhere. The puffins were sooooooooooo cute. The cliffs are around 400ft high - its a stunning part of the country - but it was FREEZING.

Have abandoned all hope of ever getting any of my tomatoes to germinate and gratefully accepted all offers of spares (thanks Francis & Mike xx) ... heard they were supposed to be fool proof but obviously NOT !! Got some large plastic storage boxes today which will form part of my ring culture in the potting shed. Think I know what I'm supposed to be doing, so shall have a go at the w/e. Will be extremely busy as we are also dismantling a friends greenhouse to take to the lottie (hurrah).

Still not managed to find any Munchkin seeds, but by chance happened across a seedling in my local garden centre - so he is now sitting on my windowsill until the weekend. Definitely want to build some sort of structure to grow my pumpkins and squashes up ... looking around for some inspiration at the moment.

It's my birthday next week, so have booked a week's holiday. Hopefully will make some good progress on the lottie.

Saturday 6 May 2006

Summer's Here ...

Planted out my peas and sweetcorn today. Only have 20 peas ... did some investigating and the other 20 pots no longer have any peas in them !!! Those naughty mices ... have sown some more today and put under cover. Potted up my aubergines, but my peppers and okra have suffered from the increase in the temperature and being in the propagator too long. Have resown - no sign yet of my tomatoes. Sowed some parador (?) courgettes (yellow) and black beauty (green).


















Here are my pumpkins, Carabocha:



















and Big Max:
















Started making a seating area last week - am hoping that the sweetpeas will provide some protection from the sun - its been unbelievably hot up there today. I've collected all the bricks together and plan to make a herb garden in front of the bench (Basil is just popping through in the potting shed)