Snippets of June

June is a month that has never interested me. The only excitement it brought was my town festivities. Since gardening, however, it is the month where everything is lush and green and growing. I have planted out plenty of kale and lettuce, utilising the space I have and embracing the kitchen garden. It's the first year I have done this and I am quite pleased, although I know I can do more next year! I think I will invest in more reclaimed pots, etc. as I really like that look. I bought an old bread bin and paint bucket this week. Thinking about what to use them for!

In the meantime, I have emptied the big plant pot with jasmin and forget-me-not like flowers, and I have planted them elsewhere in the back garden. I have left the lavender pot and have added 2 buckets of daisies I got from M&S a couple of months ago. 

The sweet peas are rapidly becoming one of my favourite annuals. While I am considering not investing so much time and money in annuals, they smell amazing! They remind me a little of jasmine, which is one of my most favourite scents. 

I planted these sweetpeas out last ___ and for a while I was worried that they weren't going to grow as the change in temperature stunted them. Look at them now! They have climbed all the way up the wigwam I built earlier this year have they are producing lovely little flowers. 

These sweet peas I sowed a little later and they have only started shooting up now. I'm expecting a lot from them, so any growth and flowers will be a bonus. 

I also have one snap pea plant growing. I sowed 3 peas directly in the soil and only one germinated. So I think next year I will sow them in the greenhouse and have some more to eat!

This is an example of how I'm using the bits in the garden to grow veg. I do want to do more research on companion planting, so I'll make sure I do more of that next year. Here you can see some lettuce and kale growing among the plants. I also moved the strawberries planter as I don't think it was getting the sun it needed to ripen the fruit. They are growing much bigger and faster now. 

 I have also found some tendrils. These are capable of making new strawberry plants. What you should do is "plant" the tendril so it is contact with the soil. That way it'll produce its own roots. Once that is done you can cut the tendril from the "mother plant" and plant them wherever you please.

I have potted on my pepper plants. They are looking healthy! No sign of baby peppers as of yet but I am looking! 

I planted the ferns in the more sheltered part of the garden. The weeds come in from next door, so the fact that there weren't many plants to begin with make it the ideal place for weeds to go wild. My plan is to slowly add some more ferns and shadow-loving plants. That way it'll look nice and keep the weeds at bay. I was concerned that no one would see my nice ferns, but Boyfriend says he likes looking at them while he practises his martial arts at the top of the garden. I'm not sure what those grass-looking plants are, but there have been bluebells popping up here and there. 

Finally, the top of the garden. I'm loving how it's looking so far. You can see some alpines mixed with kale, onions and thyme on the left. To the right I have my strawberry cage, lettuce, cut flower patch, chives, spinach and some pots. Since taking this photo I have also panted 3 sun flowers where the white painted bricks are. I might have to stake them soon!

I haven't had any flowers yet. I am a tad worried as everyone else on the blogosphere seems to have blooms everywhere. Perhaps it was because I sowed them directly into the soil...? Hopefully they'll bloom soon! I need to see what I think of having rows of flowers as opposed to sowing freely - or, indeed, whether I will grow the seedlings in the greenhouse and then plant them out next time round.

Weekend project: Strawberry "cage" for people who are renting

As someone who doesn't own their house but who enjoys pottering around in the garden and growing things, I don't really want to buy anything that involves cement, major digging, drilling, etc. So, when I planted my strawberry plants, I was faced with the conundrum of how I would protect my precious berries from those pesky birds. So, I gathered some netting, bricks, string and frames and I concocted a "protected area".

I placed it on the edge of a bed as the garden is tiered and slopes upwards. It's also paved quite a lot, as you can see in the photo below.

A couple of details that show how I put the frame and net together. I had visions of animals trying to struggle under the net, pull the net, etc. So I tried to make it as animal proof as possible both for my benefit and for theirs. I don't want anything getting trapped!

By tying the net to the back of the frame, I have made the fruit accessible only on one side. Granted I need to shift the bricks, but I don't mind doing that. As you can see, I have some hay (which I stole from The Pigs -the Guinea Pigs) and which I am using to keep the strawberries dry. Someone told me that if they are in direct contact with soil they can get spoiled, so I thought I would try placing hay in between to keep them nice and dry. Also, I saw the light when I friend said: "well, they are called straw-berries". That blew my mind!

Growth and seedlings everywhere

It's lovely to see seedlings coming up, isn't it? Went to check on the little things after several days of cold wet weather.

The sweet peas are doing well! They were stunted for a couple of weeks, but I tied them to the frame and now they seem to be finding their way up. 

Similarly, the strawberries look healthy. I think I need to start thinking about laying some hay and find some sort of netting for the plants that I have further up the garden. Don't want those pesky birds to steal any! I already get them bird food. 

Got some dahlia tubers from Sarah Raven. The varieties are Gerry Hoek and Jowey Mirella. I was tempted to get a third one, but thought I would see how I go with these two and maybe invest in another next year. 

This is what my flower patch looks like at the moment. I have some strawberries growing, which will hopefully get some protection from the birds when the flowers grow taller. I also have some heather, but it's not working too well for me... Not sure what I am doing wrong there. Stalker Cat likes to rub her face in it...

I divided the plot into lines and sowed a mix of seeds in there. They are all starting to come up now, but I am actually thinking whether it would be best if I had just let them fall wherever and raked over. I might just do that for next time.

In the greenhouse I have some seedlings growing as well. I have some courgettes that are my fallback should the direct sowing fail. I'll let these grow a little more and then I'll have a look in the garden, see where I can plant them out. I might actually use the "wild part" at the back of the garden! We'll see. 

I also sowed 3 sunflower seeds that have just started sprouting. I sowed three directly, but it's a no-show at the moment. You can see 2 huge seedlings in the small terracotta pots, the 3rd one is about to break the soil level, I checked today!

The other two pots contain kale and some recovering winter pansies.  

The rudbeckias are looking good! the dianthus are also getting stronger after a leggy start. Will be potting them on shortly, to fewer seedlings per bigger pot. I am giving some to a friend in a couple of week. 

I'm so happy with these 4 pepper plants!They are looking nice and healthy and can't wait to start seeing little peppers growing! Peppers are easily the vegetable we eat most of. It's ironic because I hated pepper as a child, I didn't want to go anywhere near it. However, the boyfriend is a fan of pepper, and is one of the few veg he will eat so I caved and I am so glad I did! So tasty.

I couldn't end the blog entry without a word of warning. I underestimated the weather and assumed people exaggerated when they said we could still have frosts late April. I had these poor geraniums outside when the frost hit and this is the result. It does not all look like that, but I was sad to see the white specks :( that'll teach me to listen to other people. Happy gardening!

Edible Garden - update 15.04.2015

After dipping into Alys's excellent book, I decided to try and sow directly in some areas of the garden. I have been quite hesitant to plant anything directly which is not in pots, but I figured won't ever be able to improve if I don't try. If it works, great. If it doesn't, make a note of why and change it for next time.

So, I have used one bed in the garden for a small crop, and will try my hand at companion planting while I'm at it. So, here I have lettuce, spring onion and carrot. Not sure if the string is supposed to be there, but for me personally it helps me know where I have sowed should I want to add any flowers. Poppies, for example, could be grown with carrots. I have a fear of attracting carrot fly, so I invested in a big tall pot and thought I try to grow a smaller variety there, and use mint as the companion plant. After giving the seeds a sniff, I can totally understand why the fly wants the carrots; the smell is exquisite!

I also planted 3 peas, I want to try and grow Sugar Ann snap peas. We'll see how they go. If nothing happens, I might try again in the greenhouse and then plant them out. Not sure what that random lonely shoot is...

My mother-in-law likes courgettes, so I am trying to grow some for her. I only sowed 3 seeds at first, to see how it goes. I also sowed some calendula (marigold) around it as those two seem to be good for companion planting. I'm hoping that at least one of the seeds will germinate and make a nice little display on that bed.

Strawberries I'm really excited about. Birds stealing my fruit is something that is worrying me, but I will invest in a net and some hooks in the next couple of weeks. Birds never come to the part of garden nearest to the house as we have a cat that treats our garden and that of our neighbours at each side as her playground - I know she poos in mine, I have seen her digging!! Not impressed. Anyway, what I mean by that is that hopefully the strawberries in the tub will be safe... We'll see. I can always cover them up too.

Do people net spinach, kale and salad leaves too? Something else I need to look into. So far, I have taken the spinach and salad leaved out of the modules they were in because they were annoying me, all floppy. The salad leaves have been in the pot for a couple of days and it might be wishful thinking but I could swear some of the leaves have got bigger!  They are still living in the greenhouse for now, but I think they will go out in May.

Lastly, the potatoes! All of the bags are finally showing signs of growth. I am waiting patiently to cover the leaves up. I had the 3 bags sitting in a huge plastic tray so they wouldn't dry out, but I just found the water would collect from random showers during the day and the sacks would be sitting in an inch or two of water all day. So I have them sitting about in a little trio.