2021 - What I did today

Paid gardening today. Hurrah - we've had so little work because most of the people we regularly work for are living in their second homes rather than in the cities while working from home (who wouldn't, given the chance?) so Mr PP has done one afternoon this year, and this couple of hours was my first. Sadly, it was a tidy up before this house goes on the market so another regular job is going to probably disappear, too.

Unpacked my fancy new water butt (a Rainwater Terrace, with built-in planters), as Mr E had left the box out of the patio and it was starting to go soggy from last night's rain! 

It's going to take some ingenuity to get it hooked up to the conservatory guttering, as the only sensible place for it is in the corner where it can be attached to the wall for safety, and that means running the intake pipe above the doors. However I'm always up for a challenge - I foresee much googling for obscure bits of plumbing!

Sown seeds
Cleaned the cover on the salad bar. Levelled salad bar. Mixed big batch of homemade compost, used compost & manure.

Potted on some tomato and courgettes seedlings and put them under my new Grow light thingy - copying JJB

I just spent a happy hour looking at guttering supplies

I had a 10% discount code for water butt accessories, which I spent on a 50mm->inlet converter and a 5m inlet pipe, after I found a 68mm->50mm converter on Amazon. I'm hoping it will all just fit together without too much jiggery-pokery, but I guess we'll see!

Potted on some tomato and courgettes seedlings and put them under my new Grow light thingy - copying JJB

Immitation is the greatest compliment  - I hope they don't die.

Sowed some pompom aster seeds and while doing that one of my grandsons had come down to see if there was anything he could do for me, so after explaining to him how I wanted my seeds sown we switched places and he sowed tomatoes (Ailsa Craig) phlox, marigold and some dwarf asters, then he covered all my exposed plants with fleece, possibly I should have posted this in the What made you happy today, thread

Did a bit of gardening in my lunch break. Weeded the narrow bed between the path and the fence, and planted some ground cover perennials to try and keep down the weeds: Arum italicum, solomon's seal and Abraham-Isaac-Jacob (all getting a bit biblical!). I'm hoping the latter doesn't become too invasive - it's an early-flowering perennial borage that spreads via rhizomes. Apparently it's great for early bees as it flowers March-May, and is also edible, so we can always eat it into submission 

Digging a trench for water pipe at the plot. Repotted the strawberry hanging basket with fresh compost. Made up a second strawberry hanging basket.

Potted on chillies, peppers and aubs, sowed buffalo horn, black russian, cour di bue and brandywine. Windowsill wars have commenced