Braving it...

I know a cold snap's coming, but after some advice from the lovely people at the GYO forums. (Fab people, if you are looking for support, random advice and a breadth of knowledge that you'd be hard pressed to find anywhere else then I recommend you register over there grapevine ) we decided to make the most of a relatively nice day and put some plants in the ground! :)

We've planted loganberry against the back wall, put in 12 strawberry plants and dug up the conifer that was taking up the space I want my apple or cherry tree to be in. We've also put a new leaf bin together, tidied up the greenhouse, repotted some herbs that were overwintering and growing too big for their little pots, also some seeds have been sown into propagators.

The propagators are home-made using recycled takeaway tubs, I've made some smaller ones from Lucozade bottles.


Propagators in progress.

Compost being turned

Abi being helpful :)

Loganberry in place

The lesser spotted bint planting out coriander into a bigger pot. 18 weeks pregnant and trying to stay out of the cold wind.

Strawberry plants going in

Strawb plants all in, in front of the loganberry bush. Once the bush starts to grow we'll put some trellis along the back wall.

That lesser spotted bint again sowing onion seed into a seed tray propagator

Abi being a supervisor

Rhubarb from our split crown starting to make it's way through

The empty space once occupied by a conifer

Propagators in use, we have aubergine, tomato, and some lany peppers seed starting off.
We also have some jalapenos, habanero and generic chilli seeds in propagators in the kitchen.

Leaf bin being made and used :)

Red onion seeds in their tray propagator

Relatively tidy greenhouse

All in all a productive but tiring day. Hopefully this cold snap will disappear by next weekend so we can get back out there.

Poorly chilli plant

My chilli plant had started to feel very sorry for itself, the small tub it was in wasn't up to the job and the root structure had started to become exposed.

So into a new tub it's gone, hopefully it will come back to the land of the living.

Yes, that is a chilli still on the plant...I can't bear to prepare chilli at the moment, my pregnancy nausea is playing havoc with my food preperation. It's hubby's job this weekend to pick it, deseed and freeze it. I have my best nagging voice ready ;)

I have 5 Habanero seeds already collected from the plant last year, as soon as I get my windowsill propagators operational they'll be planted! :)

Just keep digging, digging, digging...

We had a busy day outside today, still waiting on the delivery from Marshalls so we did as much preperation as we could.

Attaching s-hook for birdfeeder

Attaching birdfeeder

A photo showing the difference now the conifers are gone from our boundary

Obligatory Abigail photo

A newly identified bush - It's whitecurrant, so we'll keep an eye on it this year and see how it fruits.

Wood Ash from a recent burning going in the compost

My lovely garlic

With new chicken wire covering

Bed full of soon to be gone flowering plants (possibly forget-me-nots)

New empty bed - ready for fruit trees and bushes

Remains of root structure we pulled up from under the new empty bed. It's from the neighbours beech trees (we think)


We removed all stray leaves from the beds, and raked in some compost over the top layer just to keep things ticking over till next week. We also split the rhubarb crown into two roots with buds and have replanted them, hopefully the harvest from those will be a bit more vigorous this year. I didn't take any photos of that because I've got pregnancy brain and forgot.

Nothing more to do right now other than wait for my delivery

*sits with feet up and huge mug of tea* :)

Still waiting....

Well still waiting for any delivery from Marshalls...I've emailed once and called, they can only confirm it's not yet on it's way. They can't say what will be to follow, or when I can expect it...only some stuff will make it's way to me soonish. Grrrr

In contrast, Wiggly delivered within 4 days, everything except the horseradish root and there's a note on the packing note that it is to follow in spring.

Tomorrow I'll edit this note with some photo's. We're off outside to do some minor repairs to the greenhouse, turn the compost to get those wormies moving and rake some of the leaves of the raised beds.

I've also bought some Basil seeds as that was one herb missing from my last order, and I want to companion plant them with my tomatoes :)

Eep

Well, that's it...orders for seeds, plants and trees have been made.

I wanted to get most of our items from wigglywigglers.co.uk, but unfortunately they were out of stock of most of the bits we wanted so we went to marshalls-seeds instead.

Orders have been made for;

Yellow Radish MSC 7695 (Seed Trial)

Runner Bean Pickwick Seeds

Broccoli Early Purple Sprouting Seeds Blend

Carrot Nandor Seeds

Cucumber Ilas

Lettuce Match Seeds

Pepper Lany Seeds

Perpetual Spinach Seeds

Tomato Shirley Seeds - Cordon

Apple Tree Elstar

Cherry Tree Crown Morello

Strawberry Flamenco Plants - Everbearer

Loganberry Thornless LY654 Plant

Onion Red Baron Seeds

Herb - Collection

Herb Chives Seeds

Cabbage Mila Seeds

Cauliflower All The Year Round Seeds

Potato Charlotte Pre-chitted - Salad

Aubergine Moneymaker Seeds

Blueberry Bluecrop Bush

Chilli Pepper Jalapeno Seeds

Mint Brundall plants x 3 We still ended up going to wigglys for Rooted Horseradish, 2 Roots Tree Hook, 800mm - for our birdfeeder Wiggly Seed, 3kg bag - birdseed Metal Planter, 190mm Square Metal Planter x 2- bargain and will be for my mint. Flower Meadow Seed Mix, 10g - I think it's a fab idea, and will help with pollenation too Ecover Washing-up Liquid, 5 litre Lemon New Bottle Garden is mostly planned out, will need to double check some rotation information and redo it. Then I'll scan in a pic. Also I have a wonderful gardening book to help me plan and document what's happening. Dodo Book No pics on this post,because I'm too lazy to go outside for too long..hehe