April, seedlings and seeds.

Looks like it is going to be a great bit of weather for a few days at last. The last nice spell saw me doing hours of weeding and getting most of the back garden beds ready for the year ahead.
My house windowsills are full to busting. My sweet peas and nasturtiums have come on a treat although I tentatively potted on the nasturtiums today and they have all fallen down so fingers crossed, I know they don't really like their roots disturbed too much. If they fail I still have time to start again though. Tomatoes are coming on ok, I am growing a few different varieties and will probably just keep two of each in the end.

A tangle of sweet peas

nasturtium all lying down.

The other windows are full of trays covered in plastic bags, which I can't wait to see green shoots emerging from.

So this is what I am growing at the moment:

Tomato - Gardener's Delight
Tomato - Moneymaker, both tried and tested before and very succesful plants.
Tomato - Tigrella
Tomato - Marmale
Tomato - Golden Sunrise
Zinnias
Cosmos Purity
Cosmos mixed
Sweet peas.  Alan Titchmarsh, Purple Pimpernell, Chelsea Centenery, Winston Churchill
Nasturtiums, Mixed climbing and Moonlight
Turks Turban Squash
Sunflower Valentine, Vanilla Ice, Claret
Lime Basil
Padron Chilli

And a few more besides. Lots of these were courtesy of a lovely blogger who sent me some left over seeds.

I've planted my lilies in pots as Monty Don said to in Gardener's World last night and I always do what Monty says, put some crocosmia lucifer corms in the ground and now I am going to have a cup of tea.

Nice day and weed free beds (sort of)

My daffodils and narcissus see to be behind everywhere else in the country.

Tulips coming up nicely.

This is a great time of year for lots of exciting things and over the next month or so lots will be happening to report on. Not just in the garden. I am in the middle of getting quotes to convert my garage which is very exciting stuff too.

Happy Easter everyone.

In Need of my Spring Fix

The weather seems to have subtly changed here in East Lancashire. It is still cold, but finally all the snow is melted and there have been no frosts for a few days now. When this happens I find my mind turning towards Spring time and all that joy to come. I love seeing the first snowdrops, which are nodding their white heads in my garden now.

My small narcissus are  growing nicely too although my daffodils are yet to appear.

At this point I would usually be reaching for the compost and seed packets, desperate to get growing things, but I am forcing myself to wait this year as I am always too early. I have decided that the first week of March will be my first planting, desperate though I am. For someone who isn't interested in gardening this itching to start planting must seem like a strange desire, but anyone who has grown plants from seeds knows that this is one of the most exciting times of the gardening year.

I have given into my planting fix by buying an azalea which is going to go in a pot. One afternoon I was sitting in my arbour with a cuppa looking at the garden from a different angle and I realised I was misssing a trick. At one end of my deck is a lovely azalea that has rich purple flowers when they come and on the other side of the deck was nothing. I thought a pair would look nice at opposite ends. I am not usually one for symmetry but this appealed to my gardening eye. The other factor was that it is in a very pretty pot that I got for free from freecycle and I had another one exactly the same with nothing in it currently so they really will be symmetrical. Just to mix it up I got one with pink flowers though instead. It is currently residing in my greenhouse awaiting potting up - this afternoons job so photos will follow.


Has anyone else given in to the planting temptation?

The resilience of plants

Earlier this month I cleaned out my greenhouse because I had found some fungus growing on old tomato plants, I cleared everything up and then I let off a sulpher bomb (which gets right up your nose if you don't leave the greenhouse quickly enough after letting it off) which effectively smoked everything in there and should have killed off all that fungus.

It was only as I was putting everything back in and sorting it all out that I discovered, hidden under a bench 4 pots of three hyacinths each. A year ago I forced these and they gave me a beautiful (and beautifully scented) display for a few weeks over winter. When they were finished I put them in the greenhouse under a bench and promptly forgot about them completely. So it came as a complete surprise to me to find that they were growing again considering that I had not given them a drop of water for a whole year (yes I am very ashamed) and they had been fumigated by sulpher.

I promptly gave them a bit of a drink and brought them inside. Two in one of the pots did succumb but all the others are still growing and one is, dare I say it, really thriving!

I have no doubt that the majority of the bulbs will actually flower as three of the pots are nearly as far along as this pot!

It just goes to show that a plant can thrive when all the odds are stacked against it and I can't help but be slightly proud of them.