It's seed weekend

A glorious sunny Sunday followed heavy rain on Friday and light rain on Saturday. All that rain left the garden water logged and so I was unable to go near the borders. Instead I used the time to sow the veg and flower seeds for the coming year. All have been put into the green house as its too cold and too early to be left outdoors. I have not got a great deal of space so for the larger plants I have restricted the amounts of veg seeds in each row to 5 for each variety, in the hope that at least 1 will germinate.

Tray 1

1. Tomato - Harbinger


2. Tomato - Money maker


3. Tomato - Gardeners delight


4. Tomato - F1 Fantasia (x2) Harbinger (x3)


5. Pepper - California wonder


6. Pepper - Mini mix


7. Pepper - Yolo wonder


8. Sweet basil

Tray 2

1. Mint


2. Radish


3. Radish


4. Leek


5. Leek


6. Brussels


7. Brussels


8. Marigold

Tray 3

1. Salpiglossis


2. Coleus


3. Nigella


4. Morning Glory


5. Nasturtium


6. Antirrhinum


7. Cosmos


8. Stock

Tray 4

1- 5 Marigold

6-8 Sweet Pea

To round off the day, I also created a new herb garden with a pot of mint that I bought at Morrison's on Saturday and a pot of Thyme and Parsley that I have been growing for a few seasons. The herbs are contained in a trough that sits next to the back door, so that I don't have to go far to pick a few bits of anything. As mint is a bit of an aggressive plant containing it within the trough should be perfect.

Now I have planted up this herb garden next the back door I have realised that I should do the same for the salad area. For the past few years I have grown the salad at the top of the garden, but that means I have to walk to the top of the garden to pick a couple of leaves. So the next job for the week will be to move the salad containers down to the back door. This should also be an improvement for the plants as there is more light and warmth at the house end of the garden.

Apple tree joins the Garden of Shaz

Welcome to the newest member of the Garden of Shaz. The Cox's apple tree, a Christmas present from Rob and family, was planted into the garden today. It takes pride of place at the top of the right side border.

Over the last few weeks I have been improving the soil, digging in new compost and sand. This weekend brought glorious sunshine and so I could not hold back any longer.

The tree was in a plastic pot and so I treated the planting as such. However, once I tried getting the tree out of the pot I faced a problem removing it with the rootball intact. As I prised the tree out it became a bit messy. In the end the tree came away from the soil and so became a bare root planting. With a stake to keep the tree in place, it should be protected from the wind that will blow towards it.

At 4 ft tall I can not wait to see how well it grows over the next few years. I do hope might attempt at planting it was satisfactory.

Homemade compost

The first weekend of March brings glorious sunshine. Perfect weather for gardening.

The weekend jobs were to carry on improving the area where the apple tree will go and some general tidying before spring really hits.

The apple tree will go near the top of the garden in the left side border. The soil in that area is horrid and needs lots of improvement before the tree goes in. For the last few weekends I have removed the grass, added good soil and dug it over but with any heavy rain it still gets too boggy.

This weekend I started adding sand to improve the drainage.

But how about the compost heap? Since starting work on the garden I have composted as much as I could, with any extra going into the wheelie bin. But for those few years I had not looked to see what was happening below the top level.

After removing the newest material from the top it wasn't long before I found really good decomposed compost, as you can see from the photo. And there was loads of it. Three buckets of this free compost then went in to the border to help improve it.

I hope to be able to have the soil ready for next weekend and get the tree planted before the growing season starts again.

I also dug up the carrots that have been growing since last spring time. I was hoping these would have grown bigger than the previous year but no such luck. As you can see from the photo the average length is only 2-3 inch's and perhaps two meals worth.

The lack of growth may be due to the depth of the container. This year I will plant some carrots direct into one of the borders to see how they do.