2024 - What I did today

Topped up the path in the old chicken run with grass cuttings.
Pulled up more ***** .

Raked some coir over the bottom of the old, now dry, pond, ready for setting out the bottomless courgette pots. I'm getting impatient with the weather - really want to plant the courgettes out.

Yesterday potted on courgettes, cucs and some of the toms. Dug out lots of dandelions and Forget me nots.

Went to the allotment with my littlest, but she really does not like it and the wind was not kind to us. At this rate, the bindweed will be the only thing growing on the plot this year.

I do have seedlings finally looking like growing at home, so maybe we can wait it out for some decent weather to actually get things going on the plot this year. The best news is that I finally unearthed my new, hopefully real, tromba seeds. The past two years I grew mystery squash but Premier sent me a new pack of seeds when it became clear that the old one was not as marked.

I'll crawl back into my cave now as it's forecast to rain the rest of the week.

So tired, tired of waiting, tired of waiting for ..........the sun
So I decided that today was summer and I would plant some courgettes that have been hanging around in the GH for a while. They went in the old pond. I'll sow some more as insurance.
Also planted some Bijou mangetout seedlings in the "chicken run".
Then I cut down some bolting chard in GH1 (so bolting it touched the roof). I'll start clearing the bed tomorrow, ready to plant some tomatoes. They've been in the GH for a couple of weeks and have survived the cold nights, so its time for them to earn their keep.
Lots of horrible midge things that fly up in your face when you disturb the soil. Hate them with a vengeance.

Yesterday I potted up my black holly into large pot. When I checked it for dryness in the old pot loads of water ran out!  It was planted in a pot, set within a wicker basket. What I hadn't realiised was that there was  a hole-less plastic bag in between the two, which held the water in!

My next door neighbour has a huge 20ft high red acer. Helen loved it and asked me to get one for our garden. I bought a red acer not realising it was a dwarf variety. Five years down the line after being planted in the garden and swamped with weeds, it is no bigger than when I bought it at about 18 inches tall. I decided to dig it up and put it into a pot on the decking where I have various differnt coloured foliage plants. In the timei it wasin the ground it had sent down a tap root which I managed to  snap off at about 1 foot deep. Hopefully it still has enough roots to thive in a large pot with new compost?

Didn't rain today after all. Got the rest of my seeds out of the plastic bags I had them chitting in. Hung out in the garden with the kids. Forgot to sow tromba but I'll have time indoors during the forecast thunderstorms!

Also stated my intent to go to the allotment on Saturday if it's sunny. Time for potatoes to be planted finally and my wildly leggy sweet peas to go in too. Also have some MT and proper peas to go in. I'm trying to believe I'll have time and sunshine to get some things growing this year!

Finally got to play in the garden today. Finished levelling the potting bench outside the tunnel. Also put salad bar in its temporary spot at the back of the tunnel. Which involved putting down the rodent mesh. (Mesh was part of the tunnel really but while I was grubbing around on my hands and knees at the edge of the tunnel I thought I might as well do it). Putting down weed membrane and levelling the salad bar. Then filled 2 shelves of it with over flow plants. Pricked out the first 30 sunflowers.

Yesterday I pulled up and composted the kale plants thats finished and planted post pre-chitted parsnips.

When we bought our present house we jokingly said "We'll fit a woodburner then if things get tight we can burn the furniture" lol.

I had a clearout of one of the bedrooms the other day and dumped two solid wood chests of drawers at the top of the garden for disposal.

Today,armed with an axe, I converted the drawers to enough sticks to last me until autumn! Two heaped barrow loads all neatly stacked under cover..

At the time, we didn't realise how close to the truth the comment would be!