Wednesday 10 May 2023

Growing Well

 I had a fright one morning in the week before last - looked in the greenhouse and all my babies were looking a bit limp - of course it was a night when they'd not been covered with fleece and the temperature must have dropped lower than the forecast. Thank goodness a while later they were all standing up straight again....phew!

These photos were taken on Saturday - Before the Coronation I worked in the greenhouse for an hour filling up some of the big pots ready for all these to go into later.

There are too many peppers and  too many aubergines here...........

and too many tomatoes too!

and just one cucumber............so far. There are two more babies on the living room windowsill although I only need one because the plan is to sow another cucumber seed in June for a later crop.

Also on the living-room window sill are some teeny squash seedlings - a second sowing after the first three didn't germinate - thought I was going to have to buy new seeds but they seem to be OK.

The raspberry bed is looking more hopeful, considering how sad they looked through the heat of last summer when there was no sign of any new canes appearing. Brother in Law hammered in two metal posts - from his neighbour's old gazebo- early last year and now I've put string along the top and two rows of wires below and fixed a new piece of netting right over the top. The netting cost me over £20 and I wondered aloud if I would get the value back in raspberries but as Lesley (who sold me it ) said -"well without it you won't get any!" - Very True

One more thing looking good is the plant stand. The pots have been standing on the patio all winter after the trellis collapsed but now they are back and the whole thing is tied to the post. There is someone at the car-boot sale who sells succulents so I may be tempted to buy two small ones for the top two shelves and I lost a lovely pink flowered Saxifrage over winter so could replace that.


 You can see the difference in temperatures this spring compared to last if you look at THIS PHOTO of the Plant Stand taken at much the same time last year.


And my 3 Minarette Apple trees are in flower. I know it looks weedy around them but the plants there are mainly Phacelia which are a green manure - self seeded from last year - and after they've flowered for the bees I'll hoe them up and leave them on the soil as a mulch.


Fingers crossed for an edible harvest later.

Back Tomorrow
Sue


26 comments:

  1. I'm glad your greenhouse seedlings survived. Perhaps the excess plants could be used as barter at a car boot sale? And I look forward to seeing how many apples your trees produce :)

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    1. Bartering at boot sales isn't something that happens unfortunately. As the Minarette trees are so new I'd better not let them have too many apples

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  2. The planting in my raised bed is beginning to look green and healthy. The greenhouse less so - a friend passed on some spare tomato plants as allmine failed to germinate

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    1. Tomatoes are usually very reliable to germinate - wonder what happened . Hopefully your new ones do well

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  3. Gardening is always a gamble with our weather. A collective sigh of relief must go up when we get through May without snow.

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    1. Luckily snow is not likely in Suffolk in May - or am I tempting fate?!

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  4. I have bedding plants which are flowering in their pots, more than ready to go out, hopefully I can get them in by the weekend, if the rain ever stops. I have already planted one bed and my huge raised bed, they too are doing well.

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    1. Everywhere is very green from all the rain - no watering needed outside at the moment - different to last year

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  5. Your greenhouse vegetable plants all look very healthy.

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    1. I keep talking to them so hopefully they'll keep doing well!

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  6. Yes, all looking very promising. You could make new plants from some of your succulent babies. Use old terracotta pots with lots of crocks, peat free compost and grit 50:50 as your medium and tease a piece of plant out with roots attached, water by standing pots in a tray of water. I am still using one metre wide scaffolding netting bought about 20 years ago when I had the allotment. It does everything from shading the greenhouse, protecting asparagus from wind rock and strawberries from birds and I wrap a piece around the Calamondin orange tree if it gets cold at night early or late season. I won’t sow anything tender until 17 May, it saves a lot of time and everything is ready to plant out first week in June and then romps away. Mind you after this very wet spring everything is romping away and I’m picking around 15 asparagus spears every other day from nine crowns. I planted 10 but one isn’t doing very well so leaving that alone for the shoots to make better roots. Sarah in Sussex

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    1. I'm hoping to find different plants for the stand to make it more interesting.
      I had to buy a bunch of asparagus for a treat- very disappointing after all the years of growing my own and rushing it straight from garden to kitchen

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  7. It is not just about the harvest amount...it is about the pleasure derived from growing your own...says she who is about to wage war on some very hungry slugs and snails! x

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    1. Good luck with the slugs.
      I just love growing things to eat and am ever hopeful

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  8. Happy harvests to all gardeners, out there!
    Debbie

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  9. You do get a lot of pleasure out of your gardening. I love being able to grow food, too.

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    1. I'm keeping fingers crossed that everything survives to give me a good harvest

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  10. All your plants look very healthy and should provide a great harvest. Will your daughters take some of your extra tomato plants? They need a good home. A single plant in a large pot makes a nice gift.

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    1. None of our 3 children are at all interested in gardening - sadly - plus everyone works full time so they are always too busy!

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  11. Your plants look lovely. I have a similar plant stand which only gets used a few weeks a year when hardening off seedlings - I am off to the garden centre to look for some succulents! If the seeds I plant make an effort to grow, then I hate binning them - just counted 41 tomato plants, 12 aubergines, 11 chillier, 12 courgettes, 8 peppers & that’s just in my conservatory. Must limit my seed sowing next year ( think I said that last year) Luckily we are vegetarians!

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    1. I always sow extra seeds -just in case - and always end up with too many and prick out too many and pot on too many- it's a recurring problem every year!

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  12. Just realised my post went as anonymous - my name is Glenda

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  13. Wow it is all looking very good! Despite not living in the smallhold anymore you certainly make most of the space you have and seem to be growing lots of things! Any tips for keeping deer away from eating everything?

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  14. It's all looking good and your cucumber plant looks lovely, I have three that are getting very sturdy and quite tall but are refusing to send out any true leaves, very puzzling!

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