After several weekends away from
home and more busy ones coming up it would be now or never for the garden (well
for this year anyway) and with a garden warming party planned for a few weeks’
time there’s some serious sorting to be done. So I was delighted this morning
that the sun was out and the lingering chill that’s pervaded all week seemed to
have passed. Rather than persist with his interior DIY projects Matt, my
husband, decided to join me outside too.
I had planted quite a few seeds a
couple of months ago – my green fingered mum warned me then that it was too
early. I tended to them in mini-propagators in the spare room, balanced on a
pile of cushions on top of the chaise longue by the radiator to maximise
sunlight exposure and warmth. I was not disappointed: 11 out of 12 mini squashes
germinated, 6 out of 8 aubergines germinated, 8 out of 8 tomatoes germinated.
Not quite as successful germination of peppers and chillies as I’d hoped but
still over 50%.
I transplanted some of the mini
squash seedlings into pots. I ran out of plant pots so transplanted the rest of
the seedlings into sawn off milk bottles. Some of them grew and some of them
died.
And then we went on holiday. I
transferred the seedlings and surviving seedlings into the greenhouse. Barbara,
Matt’s mum, had kindly agreed to water them for me while we were away. My mum
said that it was still too cold and that they would die. But apparently the
first weekend we were away the weather was scorching. Barbara was away visiting
his Matt’s sister Lucy so the plants went untended. I think that the seedlings
died of heat stroke. And then apparently during the following week the weather
deteriorated and there were gales. The greenhouse blew over which saw the
demise of any remaining seedlings and the emptying out of my (as yet
ungerminated) herbs.
But with some careful salvage
work from Barbara we came home and still had three living mini squash plants. And
after today one of these is now potted into what I hope will be its final
growing container. If I have any more big terracotta pots left when I’ve
planted the rest of the produce that I’m aiming for one of the other mini squash
plants might get a chance to grow up and fruit in our backyard. Otherwise I
will be looking for good homes for them.
Matt did a lot of work on
clearing out the garage. This required me to offer various items on Freecycle®.
The list is like a selection of dodgy prizes from the Generation Game:
- 12 concrete blocks (one of which was previously stabilising the re-erected greenhouse). 4 “wanters”. Collected by a chap who’s going to use them to build a pen for 2 Staffordshire bull terriers.
- An exercise bike. 11 “wanters”. Collected by a chap who’s wife needed it to do some exercise.
- A dehumidifier. 26 “wanters” – obviously there’s a lot of damp in Plymouth. Still awaiting collection.
- A bag of building sand, half a bag of cement and half a bag of floor levelling compound. 2 “wanters”. Collected by unknown from the garden path.
- A chest of drawers. 14 “wanters”. Collected by a couple who were “desperate for storage” (after I had re-located a spider who had made a nice home for herself in the bottom drawer).
- A skanky set of shelves. 4 “wanters”. Awaiting collection. But the people who collected the drawers and the blocks and the exercise bike all wanted it too when they saw it. As well as a random chap who spotted it and drove down the service lane to ask us if he could have it.
There’s something strangely
satisfying about offloading stuff that you can’t really imagine people wanting at
all to people who are absolutely delighted to have it.
Before lunch I also planted a
clematis, some chard, some mange tout peas, some dwarf French beans and a
sunflower. The only one I remember the Latin name for is the beans: Phageolus vulgaris which is kind of
catchy. And I tied some canes together
for my unruly sweet peas.
After lunch Matt put up some
hanging baskets. Into which I have planted rocket and spinach. The instructions
on the packets are very vague, and tell you to plant rows 40cm apart. This is
challenging when the diameter of the hanging basket is less than 40cm, so I
just kind of sprinkled the seeds in what looked like a reasonable density. This
strategy seems to be working for the beetroot seeds that I planted a few weeks
ago as they are now sprouting nicely.
The planting has come to a
standstill for now as the compost has run out (it’s surprising how far it doesn’t
go, even when you bulk out the bottoms of the pots with empty sawn up milk
bottles). And it’s kind of strange after spending all that time working only
having a load of pots with compost in to show for it. But I did get to see some
baby blue-tits close up on the bird feeder which, even if nothing grows, makes
the day in the garden worth it.
