Catching Up

Two weeks ago I planted lots of seeds, and they all seem to have taken off beautifully :-).  Although I sowed them relatively late, I was wary of sowing any earlier as the constant rain/ice/snow meant that I wouldn't be able to put them in the greenhouse when I needed to.  But they've really made good progress.

Amongst others I've sowed speedy lettuce, spring onions, english lavender, various asters, various dahlias, hundreds and thousands tomatoes, tumbler tomatoes, oregano, mint, rosemary, thyme...the list goes on.

The garlic and onions that I planted in March had done nothing at all, I remarked to Dave about ten days ago that maybe a mouse had eaten the bulbs/cloves so I'd lost the lot. The very next day they all started showing !  They've suddenly shot up, so maybe the recent few days of good weather has allowed them to catch up.

Hallelujah!!

Clare xx

Tomatoes galore

For the last two years, I've really wanted to grow the tomato 'Hundreds and Thousands'. They're relatively expensive at about £3.80 for eight seeds but each year they were always out of stock :-(.

Yesterday I placed my main orders for seeds for the year and happened to look on ebay for these tomato seeds - I was lucky enough to spot some, and at the great price of £3.24.......for SEVEN packs!!  So fifty six seeds for less than the price of eight.  This seed is slightly out of date, but whenever I've planted old seed before, it's just had a slightly lower germination rate.  I intend giving some to my Dad too, as he loves his gardening as much as I do.  I also got seven packs of Tumbler from the same seller.

The remainder of my seed shop went through MoreVeg and Premier Seeds Direct on Ebay.  Again fantastic prices compared to the main stream retailers.  MoreVeg do smaller amounts for on avaerage 50p a pack - some things I don't need 2000 seeds of !!  Premier Seeds Direct do normal size packs at about 99p, so I balanced my order between the two.  They're all on their way in the post now and I can't wait to see them.

One of the things I love about gardening is that it really is a year round hobby - there's always something to look forward to.  Either choosing seeds, waiting for them to arrive, sowing, waiting to see those first signs of life, through to the final harvest.  I'm hoping to have a better year in the garden than last year - fingers crossed!!

A lovely weekend

We had a really nice, but busy weekend :-).

I spent Saturday morning at work, but I got home and prepared lunch, we went to a local park called Forest Park.  Just our luck - as soon as we pulled up, the heavens opened but after ten minutes the rain gave way and we had a breezy and slightly damp walk around the lake.

We spent a happy few hours baking, Snickers Muffins, Double Chocolate Muffins, Peanut Cookies and Millies Cookies, Lucy made a pillow for using a fat quarter I bought ages ago, I got absolutely loads of planting done, had a full roast beef dinner....all in all very busy, very productive....

but very fun :-)

My tomato border

In the 'dog yard' a it used to be called before I claimed it for my grow-your-own, hubby has made me two raised beds.  You can see one of them above, as yet not filled, and around it I have a border of gravel.  On this gravel I have pots of courgettes, but mainly tomatos-  Little Sweetie, Maskotka, Roma and Tamina.

Hopefully the gravel will help to deter the slugs!

We had the homemade pizza, made my my elder daughter.  It was actually very good! :-)