supermouse (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
supermouse) wrote2012-03-30 05:47 pm
supermouse) wrote2012-03-30 05:47 pm
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Absentmindedness causes me to garden in my pyjamas.
The reason I so often garden in my pyjamas is that before or after breakfast, but before dressing, I'll put my wellies on and stump out to the greenhouse to check and water my plants, and then around the garden to see how everything is doing. I then will see something that needs doing, forget I am not dressed yet and suddenly I've spent hours planting out or whatever. Cotton pyjamas wash well, which is just as well really.
The weather has turned cooler and greyer, although rain isn't expected until Monday night. I'll be quite glad of it. Meanwhile, I've had the fun of expanding coir compost in 60 litre buckets, then the fun of draining it after I realised I put in too much water. I think my '60 litres when expanded' is closer to 50, to be honest. The process of stirring it involved getting into the tub and treading the compost like grapes. That was when I discovered a small hole in my super duper wellies. Does anyone know how to fix wellies? I don't want new ones, as these are the nicest wellies I've ever had since I was about three and had a bright red pair with daisies around the top.
I planted out dill and some sacrificial tomatoes which are surplus to requirements and got in my way. The tomatoes are Roma VF plum tomatoes. They're hardy little seedlings, but even so I think I've signed their death warrant, with no hardening off or anything. If they make it, I'll merely put the rest of the tomatoes somewhere else. They're in a pile on the soil, of living alehoof, followed by dead rhubarb leaves (well chewed by now), followed by blood, bone and fish, followed by coir compost which tomatoes supposedly like. I need to shove some lime in there (easy to do when it's a heap), and they won't get any nitrogen at all beyond the initial dose. What they will get is a companion group of comfrey plants I can cut down and let rot into their heap from time to time. If I *really* need to, I'll give them comfrey tea, but I'm reluctant to use liquid feed. The tomato heap is next to some planted-out dill which should live.
From the same tray as the dill and tomatoes, I've planted out five sweet marjoram seedlings of six sown modules and one lavender seedling, again of six sown modules (I overwatered them, poor things.) They're in a seed tray heaped up well with compost, and will be planted out as an entire unit. I'll sow new lavender in the same tray, for a lovely fragrant double row of herbs. I think the lavender will do a lot better in the bigger tray because it's a lot less drown-and-drought than the little modules. I love that I am learning what works, and what doesn't, and still ending up with plants. Plus, seeds are cheap.
I have a container ready for when the black cherry tomatoes come up. I have more pea seedlings, still, than I can face planting out in a day. Hopefully, I can put out more tomorrow, in their own little piles of compost. I'll put the compost out in the morning and put the peas in it in the evening, to make sure the compost has had a chance to drain further. Every edible pea I've planted out so far is alive and well. The sweet peas are more finicky and apparently tastier, but by letting some grow taller and then hiding them under bottles, I've managed to keep a dozen or so plants alive. I'll supplement them later in the year with outdoor-sown seed.
Dill has also been placed to one side of the brassica/allium bed, on the opposite side to where the carrots will go. Everything else on the bed supposedly really benefits carrots, and dill really benefits the everything else, so I'll just let the everything else play chaperone. I also planted out some spring onions, as my spring onion trough (with eighteen healthy plants in it) is full. I also planted out some spring onion ends that I soaked in water overnight. Apparently, you can get three spring onions from each one you buy if you only save the root end. Let's see if it works in practice. It also works for celery ends, apparently, except those you bury straight into the soil an inch deep.
My nasturtiums are just at the stage of splitting and putting out the first bit of root, as I found out when I turned one up. By this time next week, I should have little baby nasturtiums everywhere. The eventual plan is that every bit of ground not growing something else I want will be covered with nasturtium. All I have to do for the nasturtiums is put them in a crappy bit of soil and leave them well alone.
My catnip is doing very well and every plant now has new proper leaves. In COMPLETELY UNRELATED news, both cats have suddenly become very interested in joining me in the greenhouse and I keep having to chase them out. I'll pot them on and let them get good and big before I throw them out to the mercy of every neighbourhood cat. The plan is to place them strategically to keep the birds away from my tomatoes. They'll go on their own in a bit of 'waste' earth next to the greenhouse where it won't hurt anything to have cats rolling on it. I also have to look up what it was they were meant to be a companion for in the west-facing bed, and where they can go to do that and not cause cats to crush my other vegetables.
The weather has turned cooler and greyer, although rain isn't expected until Monday night. I'll be quite glad of it. Meanwhile, I've had the fun of expanding coir compost in 60 litre buckets, then the fun of draining it after I realised I put in too much water. I think my '60 litres when expanded' is closer to 50, to be honest. The process of stirring it involved getting into the tub and treading the compost like grapes. That was when I discovered a small hole in my super duper wellies. Does anyone know how to fix wellies? I don't want new ones, as these are the nicest wellies I've ever had since I was about three and had a bright red pair with daisies around the top.
I planted out dill and some sacrificial tomatoes which are surplus to requirements and got in my way. The tomatoes are Roma VF plum tomatoes. They're hardy little seedlings, but even so I think I've signed their death warrant, with no hardening off or anything. If they make it, I'll merely put the rest of the tomatoes somewhere else. They're in a pile on the soil, of living alehoof, followed by dead rhubarb leaves (well chewed by now), followed by blood, bone and fish, followed by coir compost which tomatoes supposedly like. I need to shove some lime in there (easy to do when it's a heap), and they won't get any nitrogen at all beyond the initial dose. What they will get is a companion group of comfrey plants I can cut down and let rot into their heap from time to time. If I *really* need to, I'll give them comfrey tea, but I'm reluctant to use liquid feed. The tomato heap is next to some planted-out dill which should live.
From the same tray as the dill and tomatoes, I've planted out five sweet marjoram seedlings of six sown modules and one lavender seedling, again of six sown modules (I overwatered them, poor things.) They're in a seed tray heaped up well with compost, and will be planted out as an entire unit. I'll sow new lavender in the same tray, for a lovely fragrant double row of herbs. I think the lavender will do a lot better in the bigger tray because it's a lot less drown-and-drought than the little modules. I love that I am learning what works, and what doesn't, and still ending up with plants. Plus, seeds are cheap.
I have a container ready for when the black cherry tomatoes come up. I have more pea seedlings, still, than I can face planting out in a day. Hopefully, I can put out more tomorrow, in their own little piles of compost. I'll put the compost out in the morning and put the peas in it in the evening, to make sure the compost has had a chance to drain further. Every edible pea I've planted out so far is alive and well. The sweet peas are more finicky and apparently tastier, but by letting some grow taller and then hiding them under bottles, I've managed to keep a dozen or so plants alive. I'll supplement them later in the year with outdoor-sown seed.
Dill has also been placed to one side of the brassica/allium bed, on the opposite side to where the carrots will go. Everything else on the bed supposedly really benefits carrots, and dill really benefits the everything else, so I'll just let the everything else play chaperone. I also planted out some spring onions, as my spring onion trough (with eighteen healthy plants in it) is full. I also planted out some spring onion ends that I soaked in water overnight. Apparently, you can get three spring onions from each one you buy if you only save the root end. Let's see if it works in practice. It also works for celery ends, apparently, except those you bury straight into the soil an inch deep.
My nasturtiums are just at the stage of splitting and putting out the first bit of root, as I found out when I turned one up. By this time next week, I should have little baby nasturtiums everywhere. The eventual plan is that every bit of ground not growing something else I want will be covered with nasturtium. All I have to do for the nasturtiums is put them in a crappy bit of soil and leave them well alone.
My catnip is doing very well and every plant now has new proper leaves. In COMPLETELY UNRELATED news, both cats have suddenly become very interested in joining me in the greenhouse and I keep having to chase them out. I'll pot them on and let them get good and big before I throw them out to the mercy of every neighbourhood cat. The plan is to place them strategically to keep the birds away from my tomatoes. They'll go on their own in a bit of 'waste' earth next to the greenhouse where it won't hurt anything to have cats rolling on it. I also have to look up what it was they were meant to be a companion for in the west-facing bed, and where they can go to do that and not cause cats to crush my other vegetables.
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