Planting out and more sowing

The children are now starting to complain that their windowsills have been requisitioned for so long...but of course as one batch goes outside to start hardening off, the next batch of something else has been sown and requires indoor cossetting!

And so it continued today, as the second (more successful) batch of pumpkins went out to the greenhouse this morning (the soaking overnight of the pumpkin seeds worked! Who knew? Must remember this next year...) so this evening a massive selection of tender beans were sown in pots and brought inside:

1. Runner beans - Grandma's saved seed from various, unknown, years
2. Runner beans - 'Best of All' old packet so we shall see...
3. Dwarf French Beans - 'Sonesta' yellow podded - my favourite
4. French Bean 'Slender' - Grandma's saved seed again, not indicated if climbing or dwarf
5. Climbing French Bean 'Cobra' - I don't normally bother with climbing french but I couldn't resist the promise of 'Violet flowers', it's an old packet, again left by Grandma, so they may not germinate, but you never know...

First batch of broads looking good!

I also sowed another batch of Broad Bean 'Green Windsor', as the first batch are now well over 2 feet high, flowering well and I am thinking of pinching out the tops.  They are looking extremely healthy and currently still unsupported despite being battered by the wind a few weeks ago.  Apparently they should be the "tastiest heirloom variety" so I thought I might chance my arm with an (extremely) late second sowing, hopefully to keep me in beans through to August.

Seeming almost total failure of my direct sown peas (only 1 plant has appeared in each row so far) means that I have also taken one last gasp attempt for peas this year by re-sowing, this time 3 peas to a 3" pot, in the greenhouse for transplanting if successful:

1. Sugarsnap Pea 'Sugar Ann'
2. Maincrop Pea 'Rondo'

Turning to planting now, with great excitement I began to plant out my brassicas in the new 'no dig' bed alongside the main path.  Okay, so I have already popped in a line of marigold plantlets to line this path either side, but that didn't count as really planting up the bed with veg, did it?

This 'Brassicas' bed has been divided invisibly into 4 equal sections along its length, and it is now proudly home to 8 Purple Sprouting Broccoli in the first section at the western end, followed by 6 cavolo nero in the next section moving eastwards along the bed.  As these will take a while to grow up and out, I have interplanted a row of 'leftover' Tom Thumb lettuce plants and a row of similarly 'leftover' Merveille de 4 saisons lettuces to hopefully cover the ground a little and provide July salads (as long as the stress of being abandoned for so long in their modules doesn't send them shooting straight into flower, that is).   

I had planned a grand covering of these precious brassicas with a tent of Enviromesh (which I received as a free gift from a catalogue order last year, but never used) and merrily set about hammering in stout stakes to about 4 feet high to support the mesh tent.  I hadn't measured the enviromesh first...you can see where this is going, can't you?  Hmm...long enough, but no where near wide enough to cover roof and sides... Drat and botheration!!! Am I doomed to lose my brassicas again this year to the dreaded caterpillars???

Grandma arrived to give E her piano lesson just as I was swearing heartily at my stupidity and struggling to erect emergency plan B - I used my old fleece mini tunnels to create a shorter temporary enviromesh support tent, so at least the babies are protected as best they can be whilst I ponder on a proper Plan B... All seems to be fine, until I caught Mr Darcy asleep on top of the enviromesh this evening as I came in...Grrrr.  At least he hasn't squashed any plants (yet!) but of course he had pulled out the edge of the net from its weight on the edge.  I can see that this is a very temporary option indeed and will need proper redesign!

Just a bit of fillering...?

Meanwhile, in other news, we now have 2 beautifully cut holes in the wall in E's bedroom as the Engineer's repair and prep work continues apace...we are both somewhat nervous about this particular repair as we have never done it before, but the laths are obviously broken and there is no way I could have successfully painted the loose, cracked plaster without no doubt causing total collapse.  So in we go and see how we get on!

Apologies for total lack of photos today - for some reason, the brief and frequently interrupted opportunities I have had to whizz down and do a bit of planting when all is quiet on the childcare front generally mean that I forget my phone!  I will try to take some tomorrow and upload them to this post, if I can work out how to do it xxx Done!

Empty patio pots now looking accusingly at me whenever I come in and out of the kitchen door...but it won't stop raining!

At least the front door pots got done at the weekend...still settling in though, I'm looking forward to them romping away and giving the front that sunny southern African feel!

Just a quickie...

...before I whizz off to bed in readiness for tomorrow's mammoth day of tank-based adventures!

An odd bank holiday weekend so far - torrential rain yesterday, blistering sunshine today...

Paint purchased for the first proper re-decorating project of the new house:

Yes, at last E has made her mind up about her colour scheme, having changed it completely from the yellow-white-sea greeny/blue that she had in the old house and was initially extremely gung ho about having her new bedroom exactly the same....as we can see from the above 'mood board' collection, she did a total about face and we now have a jungle tiger/pippi longstocking inspired green-white-orange scheme.  This is fine, I really like the green she has (finally!) chosen - the one on the right in the photo, slightly paler - and it will look fresh with the white furniture etc, but it is also a warm toned green so the room shouldn't look chilly.  BUT...of course this now necessitates new blind at the window (fabric still to be found), new bed throws and blankets (although I have already discovered a potential candidate at the National Trust shop in Tyntesfield during last weekend's post-TKD tournament stopover), and new cushions to add that all important orange element...

Meanwhile, filling cracks in the walls has commenced, as has changing the 1990s triple spot energy guzzling light fitting for a single bulb drop (to be completed with a white paper lantern shade once painting is done), and rolling up the carpet to investigate the cause of the squeaky boinging floorboard (looks like the board has been cut for previous pipes and electric work and not screwed back down ever...).  Naturally much swearing and bad tempered running up and down the stairs has accompanied all this as the Engineer struggles with the delights of electrics.

How I ever think I am going to get any of this decorating done with the kids off school next week I have no idea!

Further purchases so far this weekend include a new bike for E, with L moving up swiftly onto her old one (the Engineer still wincing at the onslaught to his wallet after the purchase of the paint for her room only half an hour previously).  Maiden voyage for all concerned on their new bikes occurred this afternoon, leaving me with an hour's peace to try and make headway on the emptying of the patio pots of their sad looking spring options, in readiness for the Great Summer Container Planting which I hope to proceed with over the next few days.  Why does this take so long?  Quite literally all afternoon to empty the pots and tidy away the detritus.  And now my back is killing me - this does not happen with 'normal' gardening.  There is obviously something dangerous about bending over pots for hours on end.

So to cheer myself up I gather a little posy of roses for the kitchen table:

which included some Icebergs, a Gertrude Jekyll, a Queen Elizabeth (I think) and 2 blooms from the unknown and seriously bedraggled looking bush in the rose divider border that nevertheless seems to be producing these lovely two toned flowers (top left).  The scent is a delight.

Whilst in the background a naked (yet again) small boy decided that the coolest place to be was in the mop bucket full of cold water...

It is, indeed, a hard life to be a child on a hot Spring Bank Holiday!

xxx

Just pottering...

As the temperature has continued to be beautifully warm over the last few days, general pottering has been the order of the day rather than nose to the grindstone hard work!

I am pleased that I have finally managed to clear of bluebells the corner turn of the border outside the vegetable patch, which has been irritating me for a while - I didn't want them to spread any more and make more hard work next year... In the process I discovered a clump of aster, not yet really getting going, and a label!  This clump rejoices in the name of Aster novae angliae 'Purple Dome'...which according to Claire Austin Hardy Plants, is easy to grow with no special requirements...sounds promising, so I've tucked it back in carefully with fingers crossed!

Here are my celebratory pictures of having completed the bluebell digging on the whole north side of the circle bed - hurray!  I must say however, that it looks even better now as I have edged the lawn properly and sheared the shaggy grass edge neatly.

A few cloudier hours encouraged a bit of long overdue greenhouse pootling - now all the pelargoniums are spending their days outside, hardening off alongside the gauras and dahlias in readiness for being potted on in to larger pots to go on the patio for the summer....

...and enabling me to snuggle the tomatoes and cucumber into their ring pots and grobags, and not a moment too soon!  On most of them the first truss of flowers is opening - this greenhouse is so much lighter and hotter than my old one, I'm going to have to keep my wits about me or I will forget to water enough, spray the floor with water against red spider mite, and probably have to shade it in the next few weeks...unheard of in the old garden.  Hopefully it might mean earlier and better tomatoes too.

It was such a gorgeous sunset I found it hard to bring myself indoors...

so I stayed out and was treated to the aerial acrobatics of the bats as they started to emerge from whereever it is that they are roosting.  It must be very close by, they definitely look like they are only just dropping and swooping when they cross the garden from the hedge by the northern boundary.  I saw 2 different types at least - one very small which kept circling the lower lawn for ages (probably circling me as I was attracting the insects, I fear), and one much larger one.  I love this time of the evening, it's like handover time - the dayshift still murmuring its lullabies, and the nightshift just warming up.

A gallery of roses

The  roses in the garden - and there are so many of them! - have started to flower properly now.  Is this early? I'm not sure, but somehow it feels early to me, after all its only the middle of May.  Of course we have had an amazingly warm period, perhaps they have been tricked into thinking the summer is further on.

Grandma has vaguely mentioned what she thinks or knows what some of them are - most she can't remember, and I have only 4 labels for roses in my box of homeless labels!  Hmmm...so I thought it might be worthwhile to start cataloguing the individual plants as they flower to see if I can work out what they are, or at least have a record of how they perform and perhaps formulate an idea of what group they might belong to, for future care, pruning etc.

So off we go...and starting with the best!

This rose to the east side of the stone shed is my absolute favourite of all the roses so far.  Interestingly I thought it was an old fashioned style shrub rose due to its shape.  Grandma was certain that it is a David Austin rose, and lo and behold, a label!  This is Rosa 'Malvern Hills' which is actually a 'short rambler' and repeat flowering English Rose.

Next is the wee flowered pink double on the west side of the stone shed.  This little sweetie has given a smattering of pretty flowers since early February, and is now covered.  It does seem happier since we better secured it and improved the supports.  It must be another repeat rambler?  Perhaps another David Austin purchase...but no label and at the moment, no idea of identification.

There is a little, slightly darker, pink rambler type rose underneath the mountain of the beautiful clematis montana on the black legged tripod.  No idea what this is.

Here we are now in the rose divider bed, starting at the far east end closest to the stone shed.  This worrying specimen is one of the newest roses in the garden, and it suffered on planting from rabbit damage, whereupon grandma encased it in chicken wire.  I'm not sure it has recovered from this early setback, and it is already looking fairly sad on the leaves with black spot and quite yellowy, but we will look at it again later when the flowers open fully.

Here is rose no 2 in the divider bed.  The photos haven't managed to truly capture the rich browny apricot of these flowers - quite interesting and very rich, though the flowerheads are quite massive, I wonder if they will be able to hold their own weight under the weather.  I am pretty convinced that this one correlates with the label I have for Bush Rose 'Hot Chocolate'.

Next in line is a climber which is yet to flower, so I will photo that on another occasion.

Alongside the climber, heading west, is this struggling pink one, which does have a less strident shade than the photo suggests!  But I don't know what it could be...

Next to that is the Iceberg, which is lovely and a nice size and shape, though just this last week has started to show signs of black spot starting.

At the west end of the divider bed is this tall and reasonably ugly specimen, a typical hot pink with lots of black spot and terribly yellowed leaves.  I don't really care what it is.  Definitely for the chop!

Across to the  shrub rose which is now against the new rabbit fence, and is apparently the oldest rose in the garden as it was here, grandma says, when they bought the house.  It's quite large and sadly spotted with black spot but otherwise seems in rude health and has carried a smattering of these small creamy yellow flowers for a good few weeks now, which fade to almost ivory white as they age.  I don't know if it will carry on like this carrying just a few flowers over a long period, or if it is building up for a full show.  We will see.  But she is a venerable old lady who is pretty and doesn't shout in your face, I like her.

Next we hop across to the border outside the vegetable bed, which used to only receive the morning sun, as it faced east with the fence behind it.  Now of course the fence is gone and the sun (and wind!) can come through the rabbit fencing from the other side too.  Less sheltered definitely, but more light and air.

There are two crimson red roses which look like a matched pair to me.  Also one in a pot which I found abandoned by the side of the stone shed which does look very similar.  Are they climbers? They might be as they were planted against the fence with trellis to support them.  But they are quite ungainly and 'sticky' looking things, and too bright for me I think.  Odd really, I love red, and I like red roses in a jug, but I'm not so keen on them in the garden for some reason.

Now we leap over to the circle bed, where we find grandma's personal favourite - the David Austin Gertrude Jekyll rose:

Again, the photo is failing completely to capture the actual colour of this rose - a luscious deep rose pink which is not at all lipsticky, and quite lovely.  I was surprised as I thought Gertrude Jekyll was a shrub rose, and this one looks most definitely like a climber...then grandma confessed that she hadn't got around to pruning it last spring (hence the rather edwardian looking trussing! Miss Jekyll would have approved of her stays, I'm sure) and of course by the time I realised what had happened it was too late to do it this spring either or we would lose the flowers this year.  However, on researching her on the david austin website, it seems to suggest that she is a medium shrub/short climber - which I suppose means that depending on where and how you grow her, her habit is a bit flexible.  But I think in this location she ought to stay a shrub, but its a shame as she would have looked lovely against the house wall at the front, instead of the rather ungainly rigid thing that is there at the moment...

Coming round the circle to the east, so clockwise, after Gertrude we come across this one - which is again forming itself into a rather odd shape, and again a bit bright for my tastes here...

Next is the unknown Moss Rose, yet to flower so I can't even narrow it down by colour yet.  It looks like it will be quite a small flowered one.  Quite badly infested with greenfly (perhaps the recent spraying may have helped), I am hoping that the greenfly won't have affected the flowerbuds too much.

Next comes this rather weeny and pitiful (and red - again!) short patio type rose at the front...

...with the robust looking yellow rose towards the centre of the bed.  This is quite handsome, but the only label for a yellow rose I have is for Patio Rose 'Happy Birthday' - not sure this could be it, as surely its far to tall and large flowered?

There is also a rose planted underneath the magnolia, apparently intended to cloth the other side of the wooden archway but which has instead decided to clamber up inside the magnolia.  Another rambler (!) and with small red double blooms apparently.  Not sure I'll take to it but we'll see what it looks like when it flowers.

On across to the entrance archway:

and here's the climber that grandma planted for our wedding here back in 2002! A mere baby at the time, I don't remember it flowering at the time, but it was bought to match the colour of the bridesmaids' dresses and it certainly is the right colour, at least.  Though again it is rather a stiff habit and so I don't think it 'drapes' across the archway dripping in blooms like a climber should in this situation.  Instead it reaches for the sky and that's where all the flowers are - 10 feet up where you can't see them! It also has terrible black spot already and i couldn't reach up to spray it as I tried and just ended up being raining on myself by anti-fungicide...

I have a label for Climbing Rose 'Galway Bay' - not sure if this is it (amazing for grandma to have kept a label that long!) or if this might be the name of the newish one that she planted against the house wall in the front courtyard to replace the one that struggled and died:

...here it is, the flowers are quite strong pink on opening but seem to fade to a more pleasant shade on full opening, thankfully.  Still a shame she didn't plant the Gertrude here though...

So there we have it, so far!  Roses every where you look...I feel my mission may be to cull the numbers a bit and focus on improving the shape and health of the remainder.

Another scorcher!

What a week of lovely weather it has been.  Typical, as it is the week when one of my main garden tasks has been to shovel leaf mould and compost, and barrow, barrow, barrow! (and tip and spread...)  Hot work indeed.

But we have achieved - hurray!

Two new vegetable beds finally completed.  Could do with a splash of rain, really, to help settle them down (although I have religiously bashed each layer down with my garden fork and stomped across the whole lot with a plank) and then I'd feel they were ready enough for planting into - with great trepidation this first season so soon after their construction! Not that I don't have complete faith in Mr Dowding, but you know how it is when you try something that you've never done that way before...

Meanwhile, I have at last managed to get the straw down under the rapidly forming strawberries, which look quite promising too considering they were only planted a few weeks ago.  Definitely a wise decision to select a late cropping variety - looks like we might be lucky and get to taste some home grown strawberries this year.

Lots of other stuff is coming along really well too - potatoes have been earthed up once already and are poking out through the tops of the ridges again...

Onions and spinach seems to be ok, but I am starting to twitch about whether I should be watering them...forecast for unsettled weather to return from Monday evening, so perhaps they will wait until then? The waterbutts down here in the veg patch are basically dry and I have to ferry water from the two garage ones now...

Lettuces are burgeoning beautifully, broad beans are flowering, but peas are looking distinctly patchy if not almost none existant....

I also completed the cardboard and horse manure/straw mulching of the gooseberry-rhubarb bed today.

This is intended mainly to suppress the major weed issue that this area had been left with, hopefully so that I can plant in the autumn or winter perhaps another, special gooseberry variety that I have set my heart on - Gooseberry 'Black Velvet' - which is a cross with a Worcesterberry and supposed to taste like bilberries. As I can't grow Bilberries really on our alkaline soil here, I am very excited about this, although it does seem that there is only one nursery in this country who sells these.

However, this dry weather has already taken its toll on the rhubarb which seems to have flopped quite severely - I wish I had completed this mulching earlier when the soil was so much damper to help seal the moisture in and perhaps protect the rhubarb from this.

A, having completed his wood shelter to great acclaim and satisfaction, was reminded (somewhat harshly perhaps, considering the weather) by me that an empty wood shelter isn't really helping anything very much... so from 9 o'clock this morning he set to to begin the Mammoth Task of chopping, barrowing, and stacking the Enormous Pile.

A 'before' shot of the Enormous Pile was requested:

Naturally to be partnered with an 'after' shot:

Obviously this is purely an interim 'after' shot - to be honest after 3 solid hours he hardly seems to have made a dent in the top... I did warn him that I feared the wood shed would be too small...but was unceremoniously accused of insubordination.

Sweepstakes are now being taken on how long its going to take to get to the bottom of the pile...

Also this evening at 9pm it was at last calm enough, set dry for the evening and tomorrow, and the bees had finally gone to bed so that I managed to get the first spray of the roses against the black spot that is already attacking some of them quite badly.  There are so many roses to spray! 3 litres wasn't quite enough and I ran out before I got to the last red rose by the veg garden gate.  Oh dear. I can see that a surreptitous cull of some of the less favourable colours and most severely affected candidates might be a wise idea if only to reduce the amount of spraying needed!

Last but never least, an update on the ladies...We are now getting 2-3 eggs a day, though these are mostly still pullet sized, but so far all have had yolks.  I had to throw one away today which had cracked too badly 'on descent' and the white was leaking out. Thought it wise to be cautious as I didn't know how long ago it had been laid.

However, we received our first proper large size egg today as well!

Bedtime check revealed this lovely scene:

Another first - first time they are all settled to sleep on the perches, rather than 4 crammed into the 2 nesting boxes, causing a terrible mess to be cleaned out in the morning before egg laying starts, and Margot up until now seemed to sleep huddled up on the floor by herself by the pophole.... But it looks like they've finally worked it out.

And I managed to pick Delia up for the first time today.  She squatted for me which she has never done before, so I was able to get hold of her. Interestingly, she seemed quite calm until L came in to stroke her - he was so desperate to - but she is obviously nervous of him as she started to wriggle and make panicking noises.  I have told him that his 'enthusiasm' to stroke her previously (eg chase her around the enclosure) has upset her and she needs time to get used to him.  She's obviously a lot more highly strung than the others.

But we are progressing, at least x