Because I want to write something and I’ve had a productive
day sorting the garden out.
My brain has taken a dive this week with the announcement
from my work that furlough has been extended, and then the announcement from
the government that the whole scheme has been extended. This means although I am
now due back at work from June 30th, I am not actually expecting to
be back until August at the earliest. We will have lost a whole growing season.
All of the hopes and plans and dreams and goals for this year won’t be
achieved, but luckily the sites will still be there to try again next year. I
am very fortunate that I have a garden, Mommas garden, David’s Poppas garden,
and two allotments to soak up the excess plants that I had started for work!!
A thought I did have is that by the time I go back, if I am
allowed back on site, I can harvest last years garlic & onions and probably
plant this years…
Anyhoo. I had a day in the garden sweeping up the slabs
because bits keep falling off the ash tree over the back, and we’ve also been
getting visits from a ratty boy so I wanted to sweep up any excess bird food
from the floor. I also decided to hack back a pearl bush as it had finished
flowering and the squirrel was using it to access the garden without being
seen.
The garden looked WELL GOOD but now it is covered in more
bits of stuff off the ash tree, so it needs sweeping again. I am going to invest
in a wider yard broom as we only have a small one.
I have put some twine on the back fence for the peas and
beans to climb up as they have nothing to hold onto before they reach the mesh.
Design flaw from me, that one. I have pulled the first radish from the veg bed
too!
I picked some flowers and made a small posy which is now on
our cluttered mantel/radiator guard thing.
 |
| Yes we do still have cards from 18 months ago |
My next-door neighbour sent me a message and said she’d been
having a sort out and found some wooden boxes, and wondered if I wanted them for
my plants to match the other wooden boxes? So I said ooooooooooh yes please! I
have now painted them – a different shade to the others as I have no pale
purple paint left and no money to buy more, plus I need to use the dark purple
paint up as the lid currently doesn’t fit back on the tub so it needs using.
These two planters are destined for the front driveway and are going to be
planted up with sunflowers, lobelia, nasturtium, calendula, tomato, and maybe
whatever else I can find in my seed box. I have also hacked back the roses by the front door as the suckers
were nearly up to the bedroom window.
Now that the pearl bush has gone from the bottom we can see
the lights in the evenings now. I have stapled the bunting lights up in the
middle as they were flapping around like no ones business in the wind the other
day and I don’t want the copper wire to snap.
The first two clematis flowers have opened. The buds were
white so I was convinced it would be a white clematis – nope. A really deep
pinky-reddy-purply. Quite intense but quite nice. I planted another clem a bit further
along the fence and then found a stray clem rooted near the slabs but trailing
all over everywhere, so this has now been tied into the fence too, so I am hoping
for a wall of clematis flowers later in the year.
 |
| Clem wall. |
I have also planted the first batch of sunflowers. I know I said
I was going to wait for them to get taller and grow more solar panels but I got excited and couldn’t
help myself. I needed to free up space with all of the pots, and also needed to
re-use the pots for mint cuttings. I planted (I think) 18 sunflowers, and I still
have more to go in. When they get bigger. So probably next week.
We’ve been super lucky and don’t appear to have been frosted
which is good. I did throw a bath towel over the pots (horticultural fleece?
Pish). The sweet peas are still going, growing up the side of the shed. I am
going to put some of the bushy type sweet peas in one of the planters out the
front.
I do love this little garden. It may only be 35m2-ish
but it’s plenty big enough with loads of space for everything – if you’re
inventive. I have things growing literally on top of each other – my six foot
long veg bed has potatoes, radish, parsnip, turnip, beetroot, mizuna (salad
leaf), sunflowers, nasturtium, chard, yellow beans, purple beans, peas, yellow
raspberry, borage, French marigold, a courgette, and a spaghetti squash plant.
LOADS. I do keep taking the tops off the potato growths to allow other things
to grow before they get swamped, but I have no idea how this is going to affect
the spuds growing. Only one way to find out.
Wasn't such a brief update, after all.
 |
| Bye bye, pearl bush |
 |
| Salad box. We've had two salads from this so far! |
