The Frantic Gardeners’ Blog

But not been entirely idle on the gardening front!

Seeds - the artichoke, sunflowers, indoor broad beans [now being experimented upon!] have all germinated , also the yellow tomatoes ilidi. i have sown peas endeavour and celebration today, some sweet peas and yard long beans.

outside - the fruit bed is all nicely weeded, the minarette trees trained, fed and pruned. [as an aside, i am never getting minarettes again, it is a big fib that they don’t need pruning and training! should have just got a cordon and been done with it!, at least they were part of an offer, though as 4 out of 10 died, still not entirely impressed] . the beginings of the industrial raspberry support has been done. this was less than planned, as i was also goldilocks to the children’s improvised 3 bears story, plated hide and seek, chased all spiders out of their den…

outside - the veg bed is all safely under that permeable plastic mulch awaiting using time. All the winds blew it around, so now it is truly fixed down. the broad beans and carrots not germinated yet.

wildlife - the birds def liking the new birdfeeders! have seen goldfinches for the first time - yippee.

have sown the toms - tigerella, gardeners delight and ilidi [a yellow cherry] with the girls. hopefully will get a good germination rate! Also sown the peppers - big banana, a black coloured one ?poblano - must check. they are late, so here’s hoping! also jalapeno. and also late, artichokes! the girls seed sowing technique means a very variable depth, but most things seem to survive.

Must now revitalise the propagator though. As the science experiments the girls have done show, warmth and water are the essentials.

chris has dug over the fruit bed, awaiting arrival of raspberries and of goosegogs. [the blueberries will go in the tubs]

broad beans done - through the cardboard again in a square foot type pattern. i am also trying carrots through cardboard this year. means that i am planting in stations rather than rows for a change, and wasn’t sure how many seeds per station, so will prob have to thin out terribly. just hoping that this will reduce the weedage! have planted flyaway [carrot fly resistant].

both girls helped me, the youngest by putting in the broad beans, and the oldest by putting the bricks on the cardboard to stop it flying away. An elemental idea, only thought this year, was to precut the holes on the comfort of my sofa, rather than grovelling on the ground with children throwing themselves across my back. much less stressful!

mulches R us - the rest of the veg bed a sea of black semipermeable membrane. we are going to lift, weed, dig and sow as we need each bit . As many things as poss will be grown through cardboard or newspaper with grass clippings on top. fingers crossed!

but we beat the bluster and went out to sow broad beans. that is me and the smallest undergardener! We are sowing through cardboard again this year as it was so succesful last year. they have gone into one of the bits that last year were nettles. a good choice i thought for the cardboard! i have sown bunyards exhibition, and we have [must look and add!] as well. we only put in half, as it was so cold and blustery that the wee one got a bit fed up. Anyway, its a start!

we have blossoms on the patio peach

well, so far this year that has been a whole lot of clearing and investing.

we have bought lots of mulch, to mulch over bits until we get to them, and then around them as we lost the battle of the weeds again. we will plant broad beans and pots through cardboard again, as they at least were happy with that.

we have also invested in raspberry canes and gooseberry, blackcurrent and blueberry bushes.

have only sown seeds as part of science experiment - weather a bit atrocious this weekend! must remedy this.