News from the Potting Shed

I’m beginning to panic a little bit about all the ‘stuff’ I need to get done before we go on holiday for a few weeks (South of France, staying in a lovely little cottage near Nimes, can’t wait!). So I’ve done a bit of gardening in the rain tonight – we did actually have a little bit of sunshine earlier but it soon clouded over.

Before I did anything else, I ‘harvested’ some lettuce, mixed leaves and rocket – all of which has suddenly grown and seem to be taking over the cold frame.

Then some potting on – little and large here were sown on the same day but one courgette plant seems to have done a lot better than the other.

I popped the larger one in a pot, putting in a cane to help support it before placing the plant in the pot – I’ve managed to skewer the roots of a plant in the past so I’m trying to be a bit more careful now…

Some of the tomatoes needed tying up and a couple needed a better cane support so I got those jobs done before making up a couple of hanging baskets which are going to go out at the weekend.  By that time it was raining quite heavily so I put everything back in the greenhouse, watered all the tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and flowers and made a dash back to the house. Not before taking a couple of photos of the packed greenhouse, a sight that makes me very happy 🙂

Wordless Wednesday

Rain, rain, go away…

I had big plans for a major day in the garden and greenhouse today but the relentless rain got in the way. However, about 4 pm it brightened up a little and the rain stopped so out I went. In spite of the weather, it was nice and warm in the greenhouse – oh, did I mention I have a
greenhouse now? 😉

Watered everything and decided to put a cucumber and a courgette plant in one of the raised beds instead of keeping them all in pots, will see how that works. Then decided to plant a
couple of my small hanging baskets, a fuchsia and petunia in each with a trailing plant I’m not sure the name of and a seedling which I’m hoping is a stock but may be a pepper due to
labelling incompetence… 

Then I set about potting on the rest of the stocks/peppers in that little batch, as well as another couple of plants which have outgrown their previous homes – getting absolutely soaked in the process as by the time I was half way through, it had started raining again.

Back indoors in the dry and warm again now, but with the added glow of having ticked off a few things on my weekend checklist. 

Wordless Wednesday

The Handkerchief Tree at Batsford Arboretum

This tree at Batsford Arboretum only flowers once a year for about two weeks – last year it
flowered in June and by chance, we visited then and saw it. So this year, I’ve been keeping a look out on the Batsford Facebook page as we didn’t want to miss it.

It has flowered a bit earlier this year, they think it will be in bloom from 14 to 24 May so we popped up to have a look.

It was a beautiful sunny day at Batsford and lovely to see that there were still some bluebells flowering:

As well as some magnolia trees which haven’t yet lost all their beautiful flowers:

Also good to see some beautiful buttercups, they always remind me of childhood:

Filling up the new greenhouse…

Pepper progress

Haven’t done a pepper update for a while – potted on quite a few of them today as they were getting a bit too big.

The ones on this last tray don’t look quite as healthy but I’m hoping their new spot in the greenhouse will perk them up.

I haven’t done too well at the labelling though and have an awful feeling that I’ve mixed some of them up. I’ve grown Hotscotch peppers, Hot Devil’s Brew and Cayenne Peppers but now I’m not sure that they are all in the right trays. Oh well, we’ll find out at harvest time…

Operation New Greenhouse – The Grand Opening

I’ve missed a trick here, really should have asked a local celebrity or the mayor to come and cut the red ribbon to officially open my new greenhouse..

We had to have some more glass cut as there were some breakages moving it but my husband got that done locally and got everything finished this week – including building a great piece of greenhouse staging out of an old pallet and some planks. I’m absolutely delighted with it all and will be moving everything in over the weekend.

Just to get started, I repotted a couple of the biggest tomatoes which have been living on the spare bedroom windowsill – let’s hope they survive the move as I really should have potted them on a bit earlier. Looking good so far though..

 

Busy weekend ahead sorting potting on the rest of the tomatoes and sorting out the
cucumbers and peppers too. 

Wordless Wednesday

Operation new greenhouse – not long now…

About half the glass is now in place in the greenhouse, but my handyman has run out of the clips needed to keep the glass in the frame. It looks great, can’t wait to put my plants and seedlings in when it is done.