Roaming Zebra

Greenhouse thermometer was just under 38C today. Even with the door and side vents open and the auto roof vents open. Still dropping to about 10C at night though.

Fruit on Cucumber plants

Potted on the cucumber plants, Tiffany and Zeina, both starting to get fruit on them but were in need of moving to larger pots. Tied in the Plum and Beef tomatoes which are taller than the Moneymakers at present – though I did buy these plants rather than growing from seed. Fruit starting to appear on the Plum tomato, so I thought a good feed was in order.

Also transplanted the melon plants. We have 4 Eldorado and 4 Edonis. The growbags claimed 4 plants per bag! Last year though 2 was a lot for each one, so 2 pairs have gone in growbags, the rest into very large plant pots. Need to take care with pinching out the tops this year to get proper laterals to form!

Finally got around to hacking out the buddleia which is right next to the house. It had just overgrown the space really and was encroaching massively on the path. Never really seen any huge number of butterflies or bees on it either. The digging up was spurred on by managed to get hold of some dwarf buddleia varieties – a deep mauve/purple and a marbled white one. We’ve been looking around for a while and were going to get a couple from T&M, but we were passing Barnett Hill garden centre and they happened to have them in, on special offer as well!

Cut out one of the broom’s main stems as well as that was getting a bit on the large side. I read they are difficult to prune, so I thought taking out the main stem was easier. Re-staked it as well to pull it back upright.

Also planted up some hanging baskets at last. I never really get on well with baskets, I think I leave them too late and then don’t water enough. Basically just trailling lobellia and some left over petunias as well. We’ll see….

Popped up to the plot for a quick watering session today. The sunflowers and sweet peas are looking a bit  worse for wear. I think they’ll recover OK though. To more of the winter onions are going to flower, so I broke the flowers off again. Think I’ll have to lift them soon before they all go!

Bit worried about the sweetcorn, its been a dry week and it gets shocked if it doesn’t get watered properly and then stops growing. Hopefully at least some of it will survive!

The beans are looking OK, and the climbing French ones are already better than I managed at all last year! Radishes I sowed in the gaps are also starting to sprout already!

Really need to find some space to plant out the last beans I still have at home!

I’ve got a big bit of plot that I need to clear the grass on, but its just too hot to go about digging properly. Its the last bit that is infested with couch grass. I should have done it last autumn, but failed to be motivated to do it. And this year I wanted to clear some of the bottom where the soil is less dense clay and actually get plants in rather than spend the whole time removing grass!

Planted our sunflowers, corn flowers and sweet peas into flower bit.

Picked my first crop of the year! Admittedly its only radishes (French Breakfast), but still a crop!

Remainder of the corn is now out as well as the leeks… not sure how well they will do, but they are covered by scaffold net to try to keep onion fly at bay.

Back at home, the hedge had its first trim of the season, gave it quite a hard cutting at the top to try and push it back a bit.

Planted on rubens peppers in the green house.

Tried to mow the lawn today, part way through the mower just died on me. Its obviously been burning a bit of oil recently from the slight smoke coming out of it.

It looked low on oil so I topped it up with some shiny new oil. Ran for about 2 mins with a big cloud of smoke before dying again. I guess more oil in the engine. Probably getting it up and down the garden steps has got oil well and truely round the engine.

I think a new on is in order! Electric this time!

Weeded brassica section, what it left of the plants that is.

Planted runner and 4 climbing French beans, as well as a row of dwarf French beans. Added a row or two of radishes between poles for fun…

Earthed up the spuds, feeding with pelleted chicken manure and potato feed. Well, more sort of raked the peaks between the rows over the plants.

Red onions finally got weeded, and the Kale has now been planted out. Though it looks really bad. Will be surprised it if makes it!

Disaster has struck at the plot! The cage covering the brassicas has blown off in the wind, meaning the birds have had a good go at the plants. Hopefully not too much damage yet and there’s plenty of growing season for them to recover, as long as the growing tips haven’t been nipped out.

Not just the bassicas though. The cage has landed on some of the sweetcorn, squashing and bending it!

Potted on lots of bits, melons, tomatoes (both bush and tall), chilis and lobelia. The lobelia were bought as tiny plugs from work – 50p for 12 plugs. The ground-service obviously grow huge amounts of bedding plants for the estate, and annually have a sale of all the overstocked stuff, which was this week. Its pretty cheap, and quite good quality – got marigolds, geraniums and a hardy fuchsia as well from there.

Second attempt at growing climbing french beans, moved the runners to the cold frame to harden them off.

Planted up a second tomato growbag with Moneymakers, grown from seed. Some of the plants are getting but, others are still tiny! – Selected the bigger ones to plant on. Will save the rest just in case though!

Dug over the flower bed (rock solid!) at the plot, adding several bags of soil improver and compost. Its still pretty hard clay, but a bit better now. Added in Perlka to a bit of it as that’s where the Kale is going.

Started acclimatising corn and squashes by moving them to the cold-frame. The kale has picked up a bit since being replanted into different compost, though still not looking great.

Planted more sweetcorn and a second round of comfrey seeds – need lots for the allotment as a compost accelerator and liquid feed (though apparently it stinks!).