Discovery of Gardening

Heavy Heart, but not so bad

Ding — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 18:22:45 +0000

Hi all,

I’ve decided to migrate my blog over to the Allotments UK web site. The link is :

http://plot38a.blogs.allotments-uk.com/

I’m going to work hard over the next few days to post a TON of stuff which has been going on both at our allotments, and at home in our garden, so please “see” me over there.

Thanks

Parsley

Ding — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 18:19:23 +0000

We’ve grown parsley on the window sill in the living room. I think it has been growing for about a month, and it’s doing pretty well.

It gets watered every day and the window is locked on it’s open-a-tiny-bit setting so that it gets some fresh air during the day. Our window faces south, so it gets sun ALLLLLL afternoon.

Month Off

Ding — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 06:44:19 +0000

Well, what can I say to everyone? I took a month off blogging, because things were just so busy at home, but now I’m back.
Today I plan to update the blog with many of the things that we’ve been doing over the last month, including harvesting our basil (and preparing it for freezing), tomatoes getting huge, mange tout harvesting and much more.

Stay tuned.

Mini Herbs

Ding — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 09:16:19 +0000

Some of our herbs have started out life in little trays, and well sort of stayed there. It doesn’t seem to do them any harm, so why not ?!

Ollie’s Rose

Ding — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 10:52:58 +0000

Our black cat Ollie died last September, but to remember him we bought a nice rose and put it in a fair sized pot. The idea was that we would put the pot near the space he always used to sit on the garden.

For part of this year we’ve had the pot on the edge of the new patio area, and as you can see the roses look really good – this is one we picked to put in a vase in the house, and it lasted nearly 2 weeks ! :

Cherries

Ding — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 10:49:49 +0000

At home we have a cherry tree, and an apple tree. Both blossomed and looked pretty good. This is the apple tree around the beginning of May 2008 :

Last night we picked a bowl of cherries off the cherry tree, and we’re looking forward to trying them :

.. of course that’s just a few after they’ve been washed.

Lettuce Everywhere

Ding — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 08:00:22 +0000

On Friday at lunch time I nipped to the allotments to check on things. Everything was doing well – very well in fact. Lots of new shoots coming up with the things we’ve replanted. The lettuces which remain in the first bed are now HUGE. I collected 3-4 of them, updated our pricing spreadsheet with £1.00 to reflect the harvest and brought them home.

I’ve just cleaned them, and we have a big salad spinner full, plus a full ex-2-Litre-Icecream tub for the guinea pigs !

That’s a good harvest I’d say from 3-4 lettuces!
I had a sneak taste of them as well, and they tested REALLY nice.

Flowers – it’s not all about the veggies

Ding — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 07:12:10 +0000

I was just looking at some photos that I had taken a few weeks ago, when our garden first started to bloom. I realised it’s not all about the veggies. It’s about the mix of veggies, herbs, and flowers.

Here are some flowers :

Water Butt

Ding — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 16:57:26 +0000

When we moved in to our new house (nearly 2 years ago now) we didn’t take the water butt with us from the old one.. we did buy a new one though.

At first I positioned the pipe leading from the down spout too high up. This led to the water butt not regulating itself, meaning that when it rained and filled up the butt, it overflowed ALOT. So much so that for the first year or so I just regulated it manually by putting a stopper on the inside of the water butt. That was a pain though because you could guarantee it would only rain when I wasn’t in, and couldn’t regulate it !

Last summer I amended it and moved the entrance from the down spout lower. You can see right at the top left of the picture where the old opening in the down spout was. I got a joining-up piece (sorry don’t know what else to call it) from B&Q, and then a bracket to screw the whole thing to the wall to make it a bit sturdier.

Now when it rains I end up with a nice full water butt, except the top inch or two. This means I don’t have to have the plug on the inside of the water butt, and I have a lot more re-usable water.

We are thinking of putting guttering up on the shed, and getting a second water butt. They save an awful lot of water I’m sure. This one is just a 110 litre one, if I remember correctly.

Reload

Ding — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 07:35:12 +0000

This weekend I reloaded a few things that we had run down ..

* A trough of Radishes

* A tray of 6 lettuces

* Two pots of coriander (with just 2 seeds in each pot)

The radishes and lettuces are outisde in the greenhouse, whilst the coriander is on the windowsill in the kitchen. It seems to like it there, but I might move it slightly out of the way once it starts to grow, so that it doesn’t get too dried out (I think that is what happened to the other two pots).