Time to pot on.

May 25, 2009 · Filed under Veggie plot 2009

Another glorious sunny day yesterday and I spent all morning potting around in the garden.

The extra pots and compost I brought yesterday enabled me to finish potting on the Tomatoes, Cucumbers, Peppers, Courgettes and Aubergines. I had to move everything out of the greenhouse so I had room to work and generally get organized as the shelves and floor are chock full.

My work friend Julian gave me some different Tomato varieties to try out. His wife had brought back seeds from Russia on a recent trip home and had been telling me about them whilst I was installing a new printer in his office. He’s says they’re similar in size to Beef Tomatoes but have a distinct sweet taste unlike any Tomato he’d ever eaten. He gave me pink, yellow and…..black(???) varieties. I’ve had them in 3″ pots for a few weeks and as you can see, are ready to be potted on.

Everything else seems to be coming along nicely in the veggie beds. The runner beans seem to have recovered from the wind damage a few weeks ago and the onions, raddishes and beetroot are looking promising too.

I’ve also planted out some of the sweetcorn that’s been growing in the greenhouse and I thought I’d try a few kernels sowed directly into the bed. I’ve also sowed french snap peas and ‘regular’ peas in the other beds as well as few more lettuce mix seeds.

The herbs are coming along nicely too, although we seem to have quite an abundance of Basil. I’m not complaining thought, it’s our favorite herb that we use nearly every other day in most of our cooking. I’m looking forward to trying Basil and Strawberry salads.

I’ve also planted out Sunflowers, Marigolds, Sweet Peas and lots of varieties of Dahlias in and around the garden.  The rest of the morning I preparing a new flower bed under the shade of our conifer trees sow the packets of  wild flower seeds I’d brought containing shade loving woodland flowers. Hopefully next year they’ll be coming out just when the blue bells are finishing and mingle in between the ferns we have at the moment. It’s a lovely cool area were we can sit and relax away from the summer glare and lookout across the garden.

One thing I am missing in the garden is a small area were I can light a fire. My usual spot has now been taken up by the veggie plot and although I can compost some of the garden cuttings, I occasionally have the odd bit that wouldn’t compost very well and is either to big or messy to load up in the car to take to the recycle centre.

Roy, our neighbor has a Taper Incinerator which he says does the job perfectly so later on in the afternoon, whilst Curstie nipped out into town I went to buy myself one. The walk back to the car park was quite a long one so now I can see why the refuge people like wheelie bins!

By late afternoon the sun was getting a little too hot to work in, so out of the blue we decided to jump in the car and go for impromptu ride out to the coast. After a very busy and hot day, walking along a cool sea front eating fish & chips was just the ticket.

I took my camera with me just in case and I’ll upload a few more photo’s a little later on.