Tulips and daffodils

Sweet peas planted out

The first sweet peas of the year have been planted out into the border. Five plants were sown during the winter and kept in the greenhouse. During that time they have grown slowly and now the warmer weather is with us they have started to shoot up. These plants were grown from the seeds I harvested from last years crop.

This first batch should provide early flowers. A second batch of seeds will be sown this weekend for a later flowering.

Ive attached netting to the fence for the sweet peas to climb up. I have tried to position it slightly more to the right of the plants this time. The wind can often blow towards the top of the garden causing many of the plants to drift that way. As a result last years sweet peas grew away from most of the netting.

The same batch of sweet pea seeds were given to family and friends at christmas. I hope to hear news of their own plants soon.

The wind also effects the bulbs which blow over easily. To control the wind, I plan to put in shrubs to act as wind breaks. I have lots of shrub cuttings in small pots at the moment. I hope they will be big enough in a year or so's time to be effective.

Busy, busy.

Its all go in the garden now, with sowing of seeds and clearing the ground for the new crop. The greenhouse is full of garlic (now sprouting), onion sets, potatoes in large pots, peas, tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, beetroot, salad and more. Carrots have been sown outside. Potatoes have been planted in big pots outside.

Daffodils and tulips have started to flower. Only two tulips have matured to flower with more developing at a much slower pace. The bright yellow violas shine brightly on these chilly days.

New greenhouse

My now older and wiser head will tell you all to never buy cheap as it costs more in the long run. This comes from my experience of buying a cheap Wilkinson mini greenhouse last spring and expecting it to last more than a season.

It was a very nice greenhouse, only 15 quid, with 3 shelves and just enough space for my first year of vegetable cultivation. However, the clear plastic cover started to develop weaknesses at the corners or where it was once folded. The weak areas developed into holes, and once the strong winds blew in February it soon became a mass of shreds.

I can only presume that the plastic cover could not withstand the extremes of temperature change.

My greenhouse wows are over now as I have bought a 4 tier variety from Homebase, and luckily for me I happened to buy it on a sale day so got it for £20 instead of £30. Well done me. Its cover is made from a much stronger plastic with mesh running through it and also a fabric zip. I would expect this one to last a good few years.

Perfect gardening weather - lets run 10km!

This weekends weather was perfect to make a start on the first gardening jobs of the year. However, I had different plans. Instead I ran in the St Davids Day 10km run around Bute Park. I'm suffering a bit now - everything from the hips down aches - but the aches and pains are worth it. This was my first run for about 3 years and with a time of 1hour and 2 minutes I now have something to beat when I come to run again later this year. The big plan is to run in the Cardiff half marathon in October. Before that I hope to run in 2 or 3 more 10km events.

Winter peppers

I was very surprised to see that my pepper plant, growing on the kitchen window sill, has 3 small peppers developing.

Especially as the season is a snowy winter. It seems that the warmth from the kitchen and from the sun through the kitchen window has fooled the plant into producing fruit.

Flowers started to appear a few of weeks ago.

The pepper plant was the only plant out of the 5 or 6 I grew last year that I kept indoors. The others were left in the greenhouse and as the weather grew colder the plants eventually died.

This variety of pepper will produce only small peppers and so is suited to growing in a small area such as the window sill.

These pictures are more recent than this post (end of March 2009) and shows the peppers near just as they have turned red and close to harvest time.

You can see down edges on one of the leaves. Im not sure what that is caused by by I am trying to water the plant more often and feeding it with Baby Bio. Not sure if the Baby Bio is the right thing to feed it so I shall research this a bit more.

The leaves go pale and drop off every so often but other leaves are a deep green and the plant looks healthy.

New year - new veggie plans

I cant believe how long its been since I last wrote in this blog. It just goes to show how busy I have been as I honestly havent had a spare moment to myself for that long. I dont make resolutions but I do intend to plan a bit of time for the blog from now on.

Since the last post I have harvested 6 peppers (5 small and 1 large). A fair crop which help to make two dinners. 4 of the 6 plants fruited. I grew 5 of the plants in the greenhouse which have all died now. They produced green fruits.

I grew 1 on the kitchen window sill producing red fruit and this plant is still going string. I have even noticed new new flower buds. Its needed a bit of nitrogen feed as the leaves had gone light green but its looking healthy and strong.

Almost everything in the garden has died, especially as the last 2 - 3 weeks have been the coldest for 20 years. Even the lake froze over completely. So Ive put a few tendy plants in the greenhouse. It really makes me realiase I must do more with evergreen plants to make the grarden more interesting all year round. As soon as the first frost hit the Cocmos died straight away.