Now I look back at the shots of my plants in previous years and I realise just how late I have been with planting things this year. With us being away for 3 weeks in Hawaii and then me suffering from a severe bout of post holiday blues I just couldn’t get going. Yesterday I only just planted my spinach, beetroot and bulls blood seeds in the root bed. I transplanted 3 tomato plants which have looked a bit small and pathetic into a grow back and hope that as we appear to be having a good summer so far that they’ll make a sudden burst and will grow fairly quickly. As my asparagus appears to have died over the winter I have transplanted one of the courgette plants into the top of the container. I’m not sure if the cucumbers are growing much – they are in the greenhouse still, I’ll see how they get on but may need to move them into the sunroom to get some real progress on them. This has been a busy weekend with a lot of transplanting, planting, topping up compost, we’ve taken out the dead tree and the half dead conifer from the inside garden. And trimmed all the grass around the edges of the house and fences, what a difference it makes when the edges are all trimmed. This evening I’ve started to have a look at ideas for our Pacific Northwest Road Trip. That makes me realise I am ridiculously behind with sorting out all the photos from our Hawaii trip in March and I really need to go through them and get some of the posted and enter the details. Whether anyone reads them is less important than me having the record for myself. It really was a truly magical trip and having the ability to review the highlights and photos from any computer anywhere in the world is worth investing the time in getting them on here.

Now that I have deleted Candy Crush from the iPad and phone I have my time back to do more constructive things…so this evening I washed my car and then did some weeding, set up my pea pole support I got for my birthday last year but don’t think sweet peas are big enough to put in ground yet. I am not growing edible peas this year. I planted the tender bed with Mezuna, rocket and 2 types of lettuce. Planted some additional lettuce seeds in green house and cut back some of the grass which is crowding my perennial sweet peas. This year I need to put a proper support up.

Today I dragged Allistar to the garden centre so he could help me with the lifting of compost bags. I bought him lunch there as a reward for coming with me as he hates gardening jobs.

I bought some manure, various compost bags and lime. When we got back I transplanted my 3 blueberry bushes to some bigger pots, planted my jostaberry plant (which is a cross between a gooseberry and blackcurrant). Repotted my mint, rosemary and one of my peris bushes which has been looking a bit miserable. I lost two shrubs this winter so had two large empty pots. I have smashed up some frost damaged pots for crocks to use.

This doesn’t sound like I have done very much when you write it but it feels like I have had a busy afternoon. The weather has been nice today, blue sky, warm when the sun is out and only occasional drizzle.

I need to start making plans for my shed. How big it needs to be, exact location, I want it to be wide enough for a nice long work bench and plenty of space for my tools, compost bags, pots etc. at the moment I do my planting in the garage as if I work in the greenhouse I have to wheel all the bags and tools around and then wheel them all back again. A nice sunny shed will be a great addition. Plus it may free up enough space in the garage to actually fit my car in next winter.

Today I have ordered some new seeds. I still intend to plant remaining seeds from last year, plus some I got from my mum at Christmas but I just couldn’t resist buying some new ones too.

New Buys
Beetroot Bulls Blood which is a salad leaf that is supposed to taste of Beetroot.
Watercress Aqua, they say it doesn’t need running water just a pot sat in water, so I’ll give it a go.
Honey Bear Squash, I don’t know why I keep trying to grow squash when I have had years of failure in growing them, but for £1.29 for a pack of seeds I am going to give a different variety a go.
Green Globe Artichoke, never grown artichoke before and not sure how well it will do this far north but we’ll see.
Cara Potatoes, hopefully they’llbe tastier than last years Desiree which were so floury dry.
Porbello Leek seeds came free with my orderso I will plant these. I haven’t grown leeks for a couple of years.
I have also treated myself to a Jostaberry plant which is a cross between a gooseberry and a blackberry, sounds interesting.

I also got some free seed packs during the year including Carrot Mini Finger!!

Gift Seeds
Broccoli purple sprouting
Cauliflower purple graffiti, I will try one seed as I don’t like cauliflower but I will try and see if this variety can change my attitude to it. Anyway it being purple will look pretty at least.
Strawberry Florian, it says great for baskets so I am going to do strawberry hanging baskets this year!!!!
Tomato Gourmet, last year I only did cherry tomatoes, this is a medium sized fruit so will hopefully be ok for making sauces etc.
Pepper Diablo and Ringo, last year I did masses of Hamik peppers and they didn’t ripen. This year I will grow less pepper plants but the two varieties.

Last Year Repeats
Brocolli Tenderstem
Carrot Sugarsnax
Beetroot Boltardy
Chinese Cabbage F1 Tip Top
Courgette Best of Brittish
Cucumber Superbel
Peas Sugar Pod and Quartz
Pepper Hamik
Pumpkin Hundredweight
Squash Cobnut and Sweeit Dumpling
Tomato Gardeners Delight
Mix of various varieties of lettuce, rocket, spinach beet, herbs.
I also have my asparagus bag that I bought last year which will hopefully have a harvest this year.
Big plans, busy sprung and summer lined up. Time to get dressed and get planting some seeds.

I think I’ve planted out my sweetcorn too early, it hasn’t grown much since it left the greenhouse.  The mangetout and sugar snap peas seem to be doing well.  We had a hail stone storm yesterday which knocked them down a bit but hopefully they’ll recover ok.

First 6 brussel sprout plants seem to be doing ok, I have some more and some brocolli to plant at the weekend, I’m hoping that if I squeeze in more and then cover with a net I’ll limit amount of pest damage and at least end up with one sprout and one brocolli by winter.

Potatoes are doing well, the hail yesterday went straight through some leaves, I couldn’t work out why there were tears throughout leaves, yet no bit munched…the collection of hail stones under the leaves were the clue.

This is my rather pathetic looking root vegetable bed…  Believe it or not there are supposed to be carrots, onions and beetroot growing in this border.  There are the tiniest, teeniest seedlings popping up but they are taking an awfully long time, not sure I’ll get anything very exciting from this bed unless the weather improves.

My tender bed is ….. beyond pathetic.  I planted out 3 courgettes and then we had a turn of really bad weather.  Bottom left one will come out of bed tomorrow and I’ll try giving other one a bit more TLC and we’ll see how it does…not too hopeful though.

Mixed lettuce outside, doing well – rips from the hail stones but otherwise looks good and tastes yummy.

Cold frame (well kind of as there isn’t really a lid for it.  But it is storing my remaining sprout seedlings, my brocolli and even a couple of different squash.  Tomorrow I need to cut off the runners for my alpine strawberry plants and hopefully will get some extra plants out of the cuttings, but main reason is to concentrate it on producing fruit.  I need to put them in my strawberry planter really.  Other 2 pots contain some herbs including Chocolate Mint, oh and some borage I need to find a home in garden for.

Couldn’t resist this little fella in the garden centre the other day.  I was looking for pots for my blueberry plants and ended up with just him….back to garden centre at weekend to pick up some nice pots for blueberries.

(Left to right)  4 rhubarb plants I grew from seed this spring, they are doing great, need to find home in ground for them.  2 new cucumber plants, still not doing that great….maybe no cucumbers this year.  Jalapeno and Sweet Pepper plants.  Blueberry mini bushes.  Some more chillies and peppers.

Two varieties of tomato, here are 3 plants per long thin planter, they all seem to be doing well and have at least one truss that has flowers on.

In the corner are 2 more tomato plants, plus 3 chilli plants and 3 sweet peppers. 

(Left to right)  3 more tomato plants!  Ok so I went a bit nuts with tomato plants…but hey look at my cucumbers which I was conservative with and looks like I won’t have any…you can’t win.  Then a Squash, some Cos Lettuces, a very successful and healthy looking courgette plant, some flowers (I thought would attract in the bees to pollinate stuff, some more lettuces and another squash.  Then in the right corner is my asparagus plants (x3) which are new this year, so no crop until next year.

Finally a view of how things look all together.  Hopefully when I take photos at the end of July we’ll be a lot further on.

I transplanted my sweetcorn outside earlier today and now it is blowing a hoolie outside, I hope they don’t end up snapping.  I’ve planted out 2 courgette plants as well, and one of them the main stalk is snapped, I don’t know if it’ll still grow or die, but we’ll see.  I’ve still got 2 more in the greenhouse, so if they fail because it is perhaps too early then I’ll have my back up two. 

I planted 2 more cucumber seeds today and brought them in the house as 3 out of 4 of my cucumber plants have died in the greenhouse.  I suspect it is just too cold at night for them.

I had hoped to plant carrot and shallot seeds today but the weather has been crazy. 

So instead I’ve been scanning in old slides.  Who knows perhaps I’ll put some of those on here…or maybe not.

The structural work is finally complete.  At the moment I am trying to measure the temperatures in the greenhouse.  And as I had a part missing that only arrived yesterday (4th May), last night I was able to fit the second auto-vent to the other roof window opening.

Seedlings are well under way in the sunroom at the moment, and spent a day out in the greenhouse yesterday, but were brought back in last night.

I can’t wait for this weekend when I can start planting in the raised borders.  Roll on weekend.

Well my sweetpeas have been a disaster in the toilet tubes, the cardboard has gone all fuzzy and no seedlings have appeared, the same old seeds are also in normal pots and they’ve not germinated either yet, so I think those old seeds were just too old.  I’ve never had much success with sweetpeas though.

I can see a difference between the old and new seeds of the tomato seeds though.  I sowed the same number of seeds on each side of the tray, one side old seeds and the other side new seeds.  The new seeds have a lot more germinating seedlings so trick I guess is to use all the seeds up before they expire and share them if you have just too many.

Courgettes, Cobnut Squash, Cucumber, Tomatoes, Sweetcorn, Rhubarb and Sweet Peppers are all doing well.  Chilli peppers…hmm need to check on those.  The sprout seedlings are getting very long and falling over, I’ll plant some directly outside as well, not sure these leggy ones will do much good.

I’ve also planted some sweetpea seeds which were quite old, I’ve tried them in pots and some in toilet roll tubes!  I’ve never really been too successful with sweetpeas so I’m willing to give anything a try to get them working, as they are great to cut and have around the house.

I’ve also put a few herb seeds into a box on the windowsill, again quite old seeds so not sure if they’ll germinate.

Work starts Tuesday 19th April.  Hopefully will be finished before Royal Wedding Bank Holiday weekend.

I’ve changed my potatoes order as I realised Santé potatoes are floury – yuck!  So I have gone with Desiree which I think are more waxy, so I’ll see how we like those.  Next year I must remember to order earlier as there are potatoes which are so buttery you don’t need butter or marg. on them so they sound healthier.

Seeds have arrived so I can start those off and put them in our North facing sunroom – how ironic.  Hopefully they’ll be able to start germinating in there whilst I wait for my greenhouse to be completed.

Greenhouse kit is ready and waiting.  I have found a contractor to do the ground work, construct greenhouse and move/fill raised borders, so just need to confirm work order with them tomorrow.  Hopefully they’ll be able to do the work soon as I’ve just ordered my seeds from D.T. Brown!  I will be using these seeds, plus some seeds I have left over from previous years.  Some seeds date back to 2005!!! But I’ll give them a go and see if they manage to sprout.

I was going to keep my notes in a notebook, but hey it is 2011 so why not Blog it.

Today’s Order: