The Potting Shed (Part 1)

Started by SunBear, May 24, 2017, 10:08:47 AM

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Gromit

Sweet peas have germinated, but my basil still fails to appear. It will be time for tomatoes soon.

Blueberry

Wow! Your local climate is a bit ahead of mine. Our snowdrops are still blooming, though dandelions are up (the leaves) and ground elder too. I eat both of those so I notice.

Gromit

These are just seeds planted indoors, I know the tomato seeds should be started soon. Nothing goes out until May.

Outside there is some blossom coming, I have seen a magnolia up the road. I think there may be pollen from some things in the air, I have been sneezing.

Blueberry

Yesterday it was unseasonally warm here. I did quite a few jobs in the garden including planting my squash plant that I grew from a seed in November. It's probably not going to produce any squash, but then I thought it wouldn't survive the winter indoors or produce flowers, but it did both, so who knows.

Otherwise, moss-clearing, weeding (most of which was also harvesting since I eat the edible varieties). I also sowed some wildflower seeds and alyssum seeds. Harvested some more Jerusalem artichokes (and ate one today with lunch), emptied my kitchen window ledge container of ground elder since there is quite enough of that weed in the garden again, ready to plant some more seeds in there. I also put various seeds in my super-mini-greenhouse on the window ledge, including 3 more squash seeds.

The snowdrops are over, but there are other flowers blooming now e.g. daffodils and various blues and purples.

Blueberry

Two of the mini-greenhouse squash seeds are up and now flourishing in a normal pot on window ledge. Have some other stuff in mini-greenhouse, including a nasturtium seed to see if the packet is still going to produce anything since beyond best-before-by date.

Done a lot of harvesting and eating of weeds in garden, as well as more moss-clearing, and some dandelion and daisy-clearing to make up for my neighbour intending to plant more because they're so healthy  :stars: It's true they are healthy but i can't see the garden needs more of them. We ahve enough to feed several families but I'm the only one who seems to eat them, even said neighbour never seems to get round to it.

The tulips are blooming, also lung-wort and yellow primroses both of which attract the bees no end. I hung a little insect hotel up in my garden a couple of weeks ago and yesterday I saw a wasp going in a hole, inspecting, came out again though. But then I saw 4-5 holes plugged with pale pink something or other which means there's somebody in them  :cheer:

My little lilac bush has buds and the cherry tree is covered in white blooms. Unfortunately the cherries are only stones covered in skin but the insects and birds love the tree.

Blueberry

A few weeks on and the garden looks much different. It's flourishing! Just as well I eat those weeds, helps to keep them back a bit. The squash plant I had over the winter in my kitchen was devoured (by slugs?) quite soon after I planted it. Oh well. Today I planted 5 new squash plants I've been growing in the kitchen for a few weeks now.

I also started making some natural liquid nitrogen fertiliser. Last time I tried that a number of years ago, it sat in the bucket for weeks and fermented. Now this year I really think I'll manage to make it and then distribute it in a useful form.

Last week I made herb butter aka 'weed and wild-flower butter'. It tastes good! Maybe I'll make some more tomorrow before certain flowers are over for this year.

Blueberry

#36
 :cheer: :cheer: :cheer: It's finally raining. Of course sun and warmth are brilliant. But the ground, the soil really desperately needs moisture. I know people whose rain barrels are completely empty. Apparently we need 3 days and nights of gentle, steady rain to really soak down into the soil to reach the deepest roots and not run off. That's not forecast, but the plants will still be refreshed, and the seeds I sowed and plants I moved from the kitchen to the garden yesterday will be helped along.

Also it will be easier to weed after this. I would like to clear some beds of that pestilential bishop's weed / ground elder. I do eat it, but there's only so much a single person can eat. I don't buy lettuce or even any veg at the moment, I just pick and eat what I find in the garden. Usually while I'm down there. Graze as I go, like a goat or a cow.

The rain will be washing all the yellow pollen off all the plants too, like the nettles, some of which I'm going to pick later to put in my soup. Now I won't have to wash them so carefully. (Just love doing long-drawn out work with the stinging nettle. Not.)

There's lots of blue atm. Forget-me-not all over the place, and then what seems to be called 'mountain bluet' or 'mountain cornflower' in English. It attracts lots of bees and I'm all for encouraging bees.  :)

There's also a mass of yellow, japonica I believe. It's very pretty against the white wall with lots of greenery surrounding. Unfortunately it's not attractive to bees due to its cultivated properties. A shame for the bees.

It's so nice to write about plants and my garden and colourful flowers after doing a severe TW post. Gets my mind on other things, stopped the slightly physical freezing reactions I was having.

Blueberry

I did make some more 'weed and wild-flower butter' and I gave some little tiny packets of it away too, which was generally well-received.

I also started using my natural nitrogen fertiliser today. Yesterday I cooked up a natural anti-aphid spray and was using it today on my blackcurrant bush. I've read about these types of things before but never had the emotional stamina to go through with them. Making things which involve several steps and waiting time (most of these have to steep for 24 hours or more) are often difficult for me. But it is getting easier and that's a sign of overall emotional growth and healing for me.  :)

Both my currant bushes (red and black) are covered in berries.

The peony is blooming deep pinky-red. The garden does look better where I mowed lawn next to certain beds, but otoh where I haven't mowed there's lots of long luscious grass to pick for the Little Furries I'm looking after.  :)

Blueberry

Now the garden looks better where I've mowed most of it and not just next to certain beds.  :) I mow just a few times a year, natural gardens and all that, good for the insects. Yesterday the Little Furries went back to their owners so I don't need to pick grass and other goodies for them.

The elder-flowers are blooming and that's a nice scent. I put the flower heads upside down in water to which they impart a bit of flavour. Makes tap water a bit more interesting at this time of year. I also sometimes add a leaf or two of mint.

The orange hawkbit has just started blooming, apparently you can eat it. Well, supposedly, but it's got hairy stems and in my garden it is always covered in aphids so I'll pass. I did rub the aphids off a few stems and put these in a vase in my apartment. On Saturday I sowed most of my remaining wild flower seeds that I'd had from various places, I'll see if they actually produce anything this year, by about September. Sometimes they don't germinate the first year strangely enough.

My rose is about to bloom. Its buds were covered in aphids too, I rub them off and squash them. Though there are plants were I leave the aphids in peace. My red and blackcurrants are still doing fine, not ripe of course or even turning colour but lots of fair-size berries. My raspberry blooms are beginning to turn into berries. It's nice that I have a berry harvest every year even if salady type things or veg don't work out much. 

Blueberry

I wandered into the garden a couple of times today, smelled my roses, now blooming, and did a little weeding here and there. Found and ate 2 ripe strawberries too. The strawb plants run pretty wild so small berries, not very sweet. Enjoyed the warm sun on me. STill eating bishop's weed etc while weeding and so not buying salad or veg atm.

Blueberry

Found and ate lots of garden strawberries today. Good harvest this year, by my garden's standards. The blackcurrants are turning colour and some ready to pick soon. The redcurrants are just beginning to turn.

My 2 roses are blooming, one flower on one and 2 flowers on the other. Nice scent though. A honey bee landed on my white washing, obviously hoping it was a flower. Then I noticed a rather dearth of flowers atm in garden. All those flower seeds I put in?? It looks as if a few nasturtiums are on the way, though it's too early for these little plants to flower, but nothing else seems to have come. Despite being watered etc. Once things have taken hold I mostly don't water.

Today I had some homemade garden pesto on my bread. Bit heavy on the olive oil and salt, but it was my first try. I had intended to make more and there are some garden herbs and wild herbs that could both do with being picked and made into something, but I feel too lethargic. I'm accepting that because so far this year i've done more with preserving garden produce than ever before. There are plenty more weeks to the summer for preserving.

Blueberry

I picked a bunch of redcurrants today, though I've left a few on the bush that maybe need a day or two more, same with the blackcurrants. This is the biggest harvest I've ever had. Shame I now have to move my bushes to somewhere else in the garden. Not just a shame, but rather a lot of work for me too, considering how much of the earth is very hard-packed and full of stones, old bricks, old roof tiles and tree roots criss-crossing all over the place. And then my exhaustion on top of it all.

I actually came onto my computer to check how I can best preserve certain leaves before I remove the plants altogether from my bed. Some of the raspberries haven't produced fruit at all. I'll see what i can do with the leaves other than dry for herb tea, pick them and then dig up the plants. Some smaller stuff like seedlings of common yarrow that haven't really 'taken' yet, so aren't very big, I'll be able to move pretty much right away. 

Most of the raspberries are still green as green but I had 3 red ones and they were huge. Also no worms. Last year they were full of worms.

Blueberry

This evening I dug up the yarrow and moved it, after clearing this and that from a different bed. Apart from picking red and blackcurrants and eating some strawbs off the plant, I still haven't done any harvesting and preserving. Maybe tomorrow.


Blueberry

I have various on my inside window ledge. I planted seeds and seedlings about 6 weeks ago maybe, thinking it was probably too late, but it wasn't. I'm now harvesting leaves of yarrow and coriander for my cheese sandwiches. There is mint too which I can eat as is or have as tea. It's not much, but I like to see them growing. The fact that they are makes me feel some success as well. A little project I started which worked out and came to fruition. Trying to focus on my progress rn.

Blueberry

The snow has all disappeared in the garden and the snowdrops are up!
There are some other green shoots up, maybe crocus? I'll see when they bloom.
Small buds on one rose and on the blackcurrant which I had to move in the summer.