Ideas anyone? - follow up

Thank you for all your comments yesterday, it seems there is a great choice for using the windowboxes for veg. I can't quite work out why I didn't think of using them at any other point during the last 2 years. Out of sight, out of mind I suppose. I am going to compile all the possibilities and suggestions into a list and then decide which to do. There were some great ideas.

Whilst thinking about it I was remembering my first attempt at gardening when I lived in London. I had no outside space so had to utilise anything I could. hence buying the windowboxes.

I found these photos of what I did with them that year.

So they have been used as a herb garden before.

Dwarf peas, I don't think I got many.

Strawberries and marigolds.

More strawberries and cut and come again leaves.

And under all of that, my tomatoes and courgette (hence the marigolds)

I can quite see why I was so delighted with the results of my first ever attempts at gardening. I actually don't think I have had a crop of tomatoes as good as I had that year, ever again.

The following year I ditched the veg because a) I was beginning to get the flower bug but b) because I was trying to sell the flat and thought flowers would help. So went bedding plant crazy.

So back to the veg again now I think.

It was nice to go back and see where my love of gardening first started

Ideas anyone?

I have been thinking about the veg patch (something I find that happens increasingly during winter, as a substitute for cold grey days). I suddenly remembered that I have four empty window box containers sitting in my greenhouse from my London days when all I had was window boxes, they've never been used since I was in my cottage because they aren't really suitable for use as a window box where I am now.
I just remembered about them anyway and decided that one of them (maybe two) would be a perfect container for growing a row of lettuce, save space in my raised bed.
So what about the other two? Anyone have any suggestions as to what veg would grow well in a window box, obviously nothing that requires massive deep roots Maybe some peas (I have a suitable trellis). I don't know, I am throwing ideas around at the moment so all suggestions are considered. Has anyone any experience growing successful veg in a windowbox??

A little touch of Winter joy.

It is cold and grey (every day is grey) here again and I have no desire to go outside at all.

So it is lucky that today is a short 'indoors' post.

It's the first time I have forced hyacinths and I am delighted with the results. I bought four lots of three last September, planted them up as instructed and put them in a cupboard in the garage and forgot about them. A couple of weeks ago they were all ready in different ways to come out so they came into a cool room on the windowsill. One shot forward, another was slow and steady and the remaining two are slow coaches that will get there in the end.

This delightful pink is filling the room with it's heavenly sent (although my mother has warned me that this smell will turn to cat pee eventually). A small glass bowl that I did a mercury glass spray paint experiment on last October just happens to fit the pot perfectly which is lucky.

These are the remaining ones. It looks, to my untrained eye, that they are all going to be ready at different times, which is a lucky coincidence as this might give me a continuous supply for a while. One is white, one is the deep purply blue and the other light blue.

Lovely.

A video

What a positive response I got for yesterday's post!

I got fancy messing around with a video/slideshow with soundtrack yesterday - something new to me. It was good fun to do and interesting to watch I think (I hope you find it so too) I know a lot of the photos are those I have shown before but it is the order which makes them interesting.

Frugal Living UK becomes The Singing Gardener.

Hold on, what's going on here then?

OK so I got bored and feel it's time for a change.
It feels pretty major (unreasonably so) to change the name of a blog and I have thought about it since new year and worried people wouldn't like it or no-one would realise it was the same blog etc etc. And then I just realised it didn't really matter, it is my blog after all and I had got a bit stale towards the end of last year. When I started blogging I had no idea what it would be like and certainly never thought I would end up with 353 followers and so just came up with any old title, now it feels right for a new one. Everything else in my life is changing at the moment so I might as well go for it. And you know what? If I find I don't like it then I will just change it again!

So here we are, I am, after all, A Singing Gardener in my heart and the title appealed.

The content is still the same although that has changed somewhat over the last 2 years too, everything evolves after all.

I hope you all like it and I hope you all carry on reading.

Dan X

I've always been a little afraid of dahlias.

The whole lifting and drying thing seemed fraught with danger of loss. I can't even remember what colour tulips I have planted most of the time, let alone where dahlia tubers might have got to.
My other problem has always been when the combination of big, blousy and dare I say it, yes I do, vulgar dahlia flowers are all together in a messy drift. I find it too much. no I hate it.
So when my mother gave me a pretty pink and delicate pom pom dahlia in a pot last summer my heart sort of sank as I thought it would end up dead in a few months.

So it was with surprise that I really started to love this little plant, it has a delicate colour and the small blooms were just perfect. It was even more of a surprise when I found how very very easy lifting the tubers and drying them can be.
So recently, while browsing through the Sarah Raven seed catalogue I was rather captivated by the dahlia section. Rather pretty combinations.

Maybe it is those gardeners that like to specialise in just one species that has turned me from dahlias, too much of a good thing can become massively overdone for me and I find it a little bit like the woman that has 30 cats (apologies to all those readers with 30 cats :-)). What seems to make any flower look good is the combination with other species that compliment it's form or colour and with that in mind I have been wondering for the first time if I should maybe try again with this flower that I have avoided.

maybe....

Inspiration for the week

After a week of talking about winter, delphiniums are today's inspiration.

Is it any wonder?

I have not had huge amounts of luck with delphiniums yet.

I planted some last year and as they come up the following season I am hoping for a display this year, if not quite as wonderful as this one then at least half decent. Last year I had a few from the year before but they were a bit ragged and soon fell over. I planted them a bit too near the sweet peas and these were a little attention seeking and got their tendrils onto the delphiniums and pulled them to the ground. Won't make that mistake again.

The wonderful blues and purples here is something everyone must want to experience in their garden, surely?

My own great British garden revival would be Delphiniums.