Spreckly's armchair gardening

Forgot what happened last year - maybe it's here!!
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Spreckly
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Re: Spreckly's armchair gardening

Post by Spreckly »

Our aconites arrived this lunch time, fifty of them. OH has kindly planted them in our "orchard" area, in amongst some snowdrops in the green which we put in a few weeks since. Should make a lovely carpet of colour next winter.

Onion sets have gone in this afternoon. A friend in the village has already put her early potatoes in! Ours are still chitting.
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Lillia
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Re: Spreckly's armchair gardening

Post by Lillia »

Aconites. I looked this one up too. They actually grow in the winter? Amazing! My husband would LOVE these...he always says how he misses color in the garden in the cold months~
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Annie
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Re: Spreckly's armchair gardening

Post by Annie »

Your garden must be a picture thanks to your organising and OH labours. I wonder do you have a local flower show in the Summer - I bet you clean up ? I have 3 buddleia in our back garden - one I let grow too big but its lovely and has room, its a mauve/pink, the others are white and a dark purple , I love them. I enjoy growing seeds some veg some flower and find it quite exciting waiting for the first leaves to appear, I admire your stamina with all that pricking out , have to say it gives me back ache , even though I have tried different ways , standing up, sitting down , still it has to be done. I hope when your hard work is coming to life we will get to see some pics.
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Spreckly
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Re: Spreckly's armchair gardening

Post by Spreckly »

Annie, I sat on a stool to prick out. After five minutes I was almost double with back ache. We don't do flower shows! A few years ago we were to have an Open Gardens in our tiny village, and OH spent hours titivating it up, then the floods happened, and it was cancelled!

Lillia - we had difficulty getting the aconites. Tried our favourite garden centre, but they were all gone, tried the internet. In the end, got them from an address in the Garden Newspaper. Eight pounds for fifty small plants. They are not in flower, but hopefully will flower next February/March time.
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Spreckly
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Re: Spreckly's armchair gardening

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I have spent some time bending a trowel in an attempt to dig up a miniature rose, which the previous owner of our house had planted in the holes in breeze blocks. OH to the rescue! Moved and repotted two others, which have been so cramped in the breeze blocks, also moved a polyanthus which has appeared suddenly. I have a trough on the fence filled with potted polyanths and primroses, which I can see from my kitchen sink. I have to fasten black cotton round sticks otherwise the sparrows peck all the petals off.

No more greenhouse work at present, nothing else ready. Potatoes still not ready to plant, and they are first earlies.

Brought a lavender out of the greenhouse, and will bring the house leeks out later today. I have lost my parsley over the winter and can't find my mint.

Beautiful day here today, really warm in the sun, but windy and cool down the lane.
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Spreckly
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Re: Spreckly's armchair gardening

Post by Spreckly »

Some of our wallflowers are starting to flower. Also, there are lots and I mean lots of violets in flower under the hedge at the Old Vicarage four doors away. The hawthorne hedges are also in tight bud. I ate some today - we used to call it bread and cheese when we were kids. As the leaves unfold they start to taste bitter.
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Annie
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Re: Spreckly's armchair gardening

Post by Annie »

Have you found your mint yet Spreckley, if its anything like mine it has probably escaped next door }hairout{
It will be alright in the end , if its not alright, it isn't the end .
Quote from the proprietor of the The best exotic Marigold Hotel for the elderly and beautiful
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Spreckly
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Re: Spreckly's armchair gardening

Post by Spreckly »

Annie wrote:Have you found your mint yet Spreckley, if its anything like mine it has probably escaped next door }hairout{


It was in a pot Annie, there is some small shoot which OH thinks is the mint, but I do not agree with him. Time will tell. I had spearmint and apple mint, so two separate pots. Why can't it grow where we plant it.
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Spreckly
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Re: Spreckly's armchair gardening

Post by Spreckly »

The lost mint is growing nicely, in its small pot, don't want it all over the garden. We have just planted two and half rows of earlies, and a row of peas. OH grows the latter in plastic guttering, then just slides them into the ground. I do the soot and chicken pellets and watering, and covering up.

Just pulled our second lot of rhubarb.

Baking hot, so have come in to put a summer skirt and top on.

Walking past the workshop, the scent from the hyacinths is wonderful.
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Spreckly
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Re: Spreckly's armchair gardening

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All our daffodils are finished, due to the high winds last week. The hyacinths are also over, but the trough of primulas on my fence opposite my kitchen window is blooming.

Inspected the strawberry plants today, flowers on three of them. The rasps are getting leaves, but everything else is so very, very slow. We do have violets, which grow in abundance on our gravel, and in the garden borders.

Nothing to report on the veggie front.
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Spreckly
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Re: Spreckly's armchair gardening

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It is a glorious morning here. Sun really warm, stripped fleece and gillet off. Between us, OH and I have planted two rows of parsnip seeds. Two rows of Markie potatoes, and three rows of Charlottes. Plus a row of onions grown from seed. All fertilised with last year's chicken compost.

The clouds are rolling up, and so everything will get a good watering in.
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Annie
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Re: Spreckly's armchair gardening

Post by Annie »

I like the idea of teamwork Spreckley )t' . Our day has been sunny too but not much warmth in it (and a frost this morning). I planted a few parsnip seeds in an old washing basket that was sitting idle in the greenhouse but no sign of life as yet - are parsnip slow germinaters ?
It will be alright in the end , if its not alright, it isn't the end .
Quote from the proprietor of the The best exotic Marigold Hotel for the elderly and beautiful
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LittleBrownFrog
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Re: Spreckly's armchair gardening

Post by LittleBrownFrog »

I find parsnips slow. I tend to expect them to be like carrots, and am invariably surprised that they don't grow at the same rate.
"Happiness is like a butterfly; the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder..." Thoreau.
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Spreckly
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Re: Spreckly's armchair gardening

Post by Spreckly »

Update on our garden. We have had days of torrential rain this month, nothing new, I know, but it has enabled the weeds to thrive, so weeding is an ongoing battle.

Our peas are podding, lovely, we love peas. The first early potatoes look disappointing. OH dug up a root two weeks since, which yielded one spud, which we ate between us, it was delicious. The runner beans are half way up the canes, rhubarb has done well, but the strawberries have been disappointing, and though netted, we have lost several to slugs. The new rasp canes we planted in the spring rotted away, to our disappointment, mainly due to the front garden flooding during the monsoons.

Our carrotts are only in leaf, nothing like LBH's fabulous crop.

But, the flowering plants are doing really well, especially our many clematis, which grow in various parts. We have a pergola with two Kiftsgate roses in full bloom, the scent is amazing. OH will attempt to put a photo on. The roses were cuttings from a beautiful walled garden in Wales only two years since. We have had some beautiful lupins, now on their second flowering. Raining now, but I have been trying to get some couch grass up earlier on.
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Spreckly
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Re: Spreckly's armchair gardening

Post by Spreckly »

Rosa Kiftsgate

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