2nd weekend in April was pleasant weather, enabling a fair bit of pottering in the garden.
I added some new compost to the balloon plants in their pots.
Sown seeds for cauliflowers (as the slugs destroyed the whole original batch), sprouts, thyme, cucumber, 1st tomatoes, basil, 2nd lettuce, and a fair few marigolds.
Annoyingly the weather is supposed to change and be more wet and slug/snail friendly, so everything is at risk. It’s why I have sown so many marigolds – apparently slugs hate them and stay away.
I still have a fair few things I need to sow, but I don’t have any room now! And god help me when the stuff sown does sprout and needs potting up, because then I will have even less space, though I hope by then some stuff can come outside.
Have to do a load of other jobs now (tidying and stuff) that don’t involve planning and hopefully keep me from checking on what has germinated every couple of hours whilst panicking nothing will sprout, or the seeds are rubbish, like I do every year…
The weather at the end of April starting drying out. I spent a bit of time doing tidying jobs (weeding, strimming etc when there was sufficient dryness!)
Thankfully, the early May bank holiday enabled pottering in some pleasant weather!
I sowed some rudbeckia seeds. I collected them from the plants I grew last year, so we will see if anything happens!
I have sown a 2nd lot of spring onions. The first lot haven’t sprouted yet – don’t know if that relates to the cold/weather.
I noticed the Rhododendron bush has flowers about to open. That’s always exciting, and it reminds us of when we moved in, because it was a burst of colour as we moved into this house.
Slugs/snails have had a field day with numerous plants. The sunflowers got hammered, even some magnolias (which they’re not supposed to like!) I am sure several caulis and sprouts amongst other stuff have been eaten too.
The bluebells have looked amazing this year. We planted the bulbs several years ago, and they seem to have finally established. We think there are some in places we didn’t sow them!
The apple tree is in full blossom. The cherry blossom is almost all gone from the tree now, but it did (for a few days) look amazing.
Flowers have appeared on the blackcurrant plants, and also the blueberry bush.
The lilies have burst into flower all of a sudden.
I have sown a second lot of tomatoes, as none of the first lot sprouted yet 9watch loads of them sprout this week now!) I also sowed some cherry tomatoes which I don’t usually grow.
Likewise the 1st cucumbers I have sown haven’t sprouted, so I have sown a 2nd batch in case.
Several more trays of marigolds were sown over the weekend. I also found some old parsnip and leek seeds. I have sown them as the alternative was to throw them away. Not hopeful, but may as well use them up eh?
Some of the stuff that has sprouted (cosmos, some early marigolds, the lavatera, plus lettuce and so on) was brought out of the greenhouse to make space, and also let them harden off ready for planting out.
Sowed more lettuce, and sunflowers to replace the casualties.
The dahlias are sprouting now. The Asian lilies, and peruvian lilies are kicking in (need to split the Asian lilies this autumn). The daisy I split 2 months ago seems to be growing which is good.
I still have several seeds to sow, including some wildflowers and forget me nots (although there are already loads of forget me nots all over the garden growing wild, but which look lovely!)
