Just wanted to wish everyone a 

Merry Christmas 

and a 

Happy New Year!

I am also sorry I have not done many post's! 

Has you can guess work and that have got in the way!!!

The Rose

In June I started to secretly search for the rose my mum fell in love with - called rhapsody in blue! 

We first saw the rose while spending the morning down at Groves Nurseries in Bridport, back in January.  Mum fell in love there and then, which I don't blame her - as the scent is wonderful and the colour is beautiful! 

At first I couldn't find one, until I came across a rose company based in Cornwall!  Then the second week in August came and I thought to my self " what am I doing???" - I keep going on about supporting local business's even the family run business.  So I decided to email Groves at Bridport to see if they had any in stock.  A few days later I received a reply back, to say that they had one in stock.  So the next day after I had popped into town I phoned Groves to make my ordered.  I had a lovely guy who answered the phone and took my ordered, I also decided on having the rose gift wrapped! 

I really wanted it to be delivered on the 21st, which was a Tuesday, but they only deliver to my area on a Thursday.  So I opted for the Thursday before!

The 16th of August arrived and I waited hoped and prayed that they would deliver before I went to work.  I had just sat down at 11:30am to start drafting up a blog post, when the door was knocked.  I opened the door and there was a young lad from groves holding the plant that I had ordered. 

After I took the rose off him and said thank you to him. I knew I couldn't hide it from my mum, so I gave it to her... She was over the moon with it, She didn't even say "you shouldn't have"

Picture below of rhapsody in blue! 

Just after it had been deliver

The picture below is of one of the flowers! 

The Veggie patch!

Sorry this is a bit late, as you all may know by now my laptop died so I have had to re-write this out. I'm hoping I do not forget anythink, only time will tell :-) 

Tomato's

To be honest I have had fun with the Chocolate tomato plant's, at first they were happy growing.  Then I planted them up in those black pot's.  After that the cold and wet weather moved in (sorry I know I'm mourning about the weather again), growth stopped.  So I made sure I kept them in the lil green house and fed them extra food! The ones that grew faster I put outside, I only had one chocolate tomato plant left in the green house. 

Not long after the plant's decided to product flower's and stopped growing all together again.

So I decided to experience and remove the flowers from the tomato plants that was outside.  They started to grow again... Yeppie - I finally thought!!!  They grew that much they were way past me in height. 

Maskotka and sweet peas

In my new little greenhouse I had five 'Maskotka' tomato plants growing.  Which I got the seeds from a Gardener's World magazine. 


On the 6th of July I braved the rain to attack the slugs/snails to find one of the Chocolate tomato plants had been eat in half. So I took the top of the plant and pushed it into the soil.  Knowing that the plant will re-shoot roots. 

All the tomato plants re-flowered and product fruit. We didn't get much sun so the tom's did not ripe. 

So around the 23rd of September I decided to harvest the tomato's and put them into a box to storage them. 

Picture is of the ripe tom's

The three Vegetables

My Curly Kale did really well.  But I lost some of the cauliflowers and cabbages.  I think we can guess what had them - yep a slug/snail or maybe a cabbage white caterpillar. I've had one caterpillar this year a bright green thing. I think he escaped when I was busy removing the larva.. So I bagged him up and put him in the rubbish.

If you know me, you will know - I hate killing any think.  You will also know I love snail's, butterfly's, ladybird and bee's. Well most animals, apart from slugs and spider's. 

After the flood on that Saturday, the next day I spent clearing and mopping up. Once the house was sorted out I braved the out sided.  I decided to harvest the curly kale.

Mum was in the down stairs cloak room, so I pasted the kale through the window to her.  I also decided to leave the stokes of the Kale, to see what would happen.  Would I get any more or not? I only got a few more leave, not that much to write home about.

Charlotte Potato's

My Charlotte potato's did really well!  Well........ When I say 'really well', I mean to say only three tubes out of five did really well (which you can see in the picture below).  The planter with bare soil in the corner of the picture had the other two tubes in. That vanished into thin air, I ended up digging down to find out what happen to them and of course they had rotten - yuk - the smell!!!!

Back to the potato's that grew really well, (which you can see at the back of the picture above.)  I got up one morning to find flowers on the plant's. I went back indoors to get the camera - the picture below is what I took!!

You can really see that they are a relative to the Deadly Night Shade Family.

After taking the picture above, I went back indoors to look on-line to see how long until the spuds are ready to gdig up.  I learnt 13weeks from planting tuber to digging up.  So I worked out on my calendar when I was due to digup the spuds (as we call them) it was the 3rd of August.

The 3rd of August came and I went outdoors with my lil spade and started to dig.  I have to confess I was like a little child when I found my first potato :)  The picture above are just some of the spud's I got!

White Lady's - runner Beans

Only picture I got of them.. shamed to say!!!

There is one thing I have not told any of you about the 'White Lady - Runner Beans'.  A week after my plant marathon one of my uncle's popped around with six runner bean plants.  That he had grew - he wanted to give me some think to say thank you the birthday card I made him! 

I got those famous black pot's out and potted them up.  I lost one to a snail/slug, but the rest did really well. At on point I felt like it was 'Jack (Em) and the bean stalk' they grew and grew... Gosh I knew runner beans grew but not that mad!!!  I ended up trailling the stem's around the washing line... The harvest wasn't that big but I did get enough for six meals.... 

Rainy Day's!

What a terrible June we all had the weather was rubbish.  The sad thing is I can not say the start of July was any better.  August arrived and at last it's nice and sunny, with an odd wet day.

Saturday 7th of July was the worst day - my area I live in got flooded, also the outer area's of the town got flooded too.  If you wanted to leave the town you couldn't!

I thought while I have a day off work I'll give you a update on the flowers in the garden.

I am also working on the Veggie plot post too!

Rosa - Patricia



The rose I bought my mum for Mothers day's have grown really well, which you can see below.  Either thou I have left the it in the same pot it came in, we had six buds on the rose and all of them came out.  

I did have a little trouble with aphids (greenfly) but I took myself out side with a tissue and removed them by my fingers.  The picture's above are of two of the flowers.  I had to cut the last flower off on the 3rd July.   By the end of the July the rose started to re-flower again!

The wall box's & green tub

 After three week's the plants below looked fantastic, then the rain moved in.  Just to let you all know I have not taken any of the green tub,  as at the moment the plants as gone to ruin, from Saturdays flood.  But I will keep you all posted on how they all get on, including the green box!

Pictures below!

Since then the green tub as perked up.  Some of the Lavateria and Cosmos that my uncle grew got ate by you guessed it a snail/slug.  But the one I have saved have done okay, not as tall as they should be.  I have also sowed some wildflower mix, in between the gap's in the green box.

I'll get a picture of the green tub tomorrow!

 

O' Christmas Tree

The Abies Nordmanniana have grown since the last time I wrote about him. I have also kept him in the pot I bought him in too! Even thou it as been hammering it down with rain here.  I have been going out and watering him - as I know his branch's save's the water getting down to the roots.  Plus I do not want him to dry out either!

Rhododendrons

My rhododendron that flowered on the 18th of December (2011).  Finished flowering again the second week in July. By the end of July there was buds on it again. 

On the 20th of this month the rhododendron is re-flowering again!

While the other one I have that is at the top end of the garden, finished flowering at the end of last month.

Please find picture below!

 

Hydrangea

On the plus side of all this rain we have had, my hydrangea as been loving it.



The New Adventure!!!

At the end of April I put an order in at Thompson & Morgan .

This is what I ordered!

1. Oca - New Zealand Yams
2. Fuchsia 9 jumbo plugs - 3 of each variety

On the 4th of May, my postman handed me a parcel bearing the Thompson and Morgan logo on.  After talking to him for a little while and wishing him a lovely day!  I took my white parcel into the living room.

I was so exitced it felt like it was Christmas. I opened up my little parcel to find inside the New Zealand Yam's Oca had arrived. My Fuchsia's to arrived a week later, they are now all planted up in the garden.

Picture's below of the Oca.

 I first heard of the New Zealand yam (Oca) on  The Alan Titchmarsh Show.

After Alan had done his gardening tips of the day.  Alan then went on to talk about the edible garden show, and to talk to one of the stars of the show Botanist James Wong. 

James was on to give a bit of a taste of what to expect from the show. With some new and cool things to grow. Some think a little different to what we all normally grow in the UK.

Did you know: There are about 15-20 things we grow on a regularly basics. But there are 6000 thing's we can grow out door's in the UK.  A most you would think are tropical, exotic and you had no idea you could grow in the UK.  (Source: J.Wong)

The six plant's James talked about was.

1. Kiwi - Cocktail (Actinidia Issai)
2. Oca - New Zealand Yams
3. Shark Fin Melon
4. Stevia
5. Electric Daisy
6. Sweet potato

(Please note I have research some of the information below)

The Kiwi - Cocktail (Actinidia Issai) have edible skin and double the sugar on the in-side.  You can harvest upto 400 fruit per plant.  The Actinidia Issai comes from Sibera and is a Hardy. Also the Actinidia Issai can handle temperature down to minus 35.


Oca New Zealand Yam's  you can eat root like a radish or cook it like a potato.  Also you can use the leaves in a salad too!  The Oca is also bligty resistant!


Shark Fin Melon  is commonly used in a soup. If you cut the melon in half and cook the flesh.  The flesh separates out a bit like a spaghetti squash.  The melon as the same texture as Shark fin in Shark fin soup. You might also think the shark fin melon would taste of fish. But actually the shark fin melon tastes of melon and cucumber. In Spain and Latin America the people make sweets and jams from the melon. Also you can harvest up to 4 melons from one single plant.


Stevia  are 300 times sweeter than sugar and have 0kcals. You might of already heard of Stevia - as there are sweeter's out that use the plant e.g: Truvia (Which I sometimes use).  You can buy the plugs and seeds from Suttons


Electric Daisy  (Sechuan Buttons) is a member of the daisy family.  If your brave enough to try a electric daisy. The daisy is like licking a 9v battery. ( Not sure if I want to try this one)

Sweet Potato is not a potato. This root vegetable is a member of the Ipomoea family, the same as the popular flowering climber Morning Glory.  (source: Thompson & Morgan)

           
You can buy sweet potato slips from most good places.  The sweet potato 'slips' are tubers cut into large piece then placed into water and left to spout leaves, then separated and left to root.  Until now that was the only way you could grow sweet potato. But now Sutton Seeds have developed an sweet potato plant...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On Thursday 10th of May I decided to pot up the New Zealand yams (Oca).

 But first I wanted to get some new plant pot's to put the Oca in, so I went down to my local Wilkos store.

  Once I had return from Wilkos, straight out side I went with my new plant pot's and the Oca!



I put the wrong date on the label! :(

The Oca I had was small with a three medium size one, so I potted them all. Gave them a nice soak of water and sat them in the greenhouse.  I wanted to put them on my windsill in my bedroom, but the plant pot's are a tag bit to big to fit on!  While the Oca where out in the green house the frost came and I kind of worried a little! But there was no need to worrie, on the 29th of May I had little green leaves popping up.

Since the picture above the Oca have grow that much I have been hmm and arr in when to plant them and how too.  I got some advice from one of the guys at T&M on how to plant them.
Some mad reason I thought you would have to treat them like potatos. Do not know why I thought that.

So on the 9th of June I decided to plant them out side.

So I found one of my potato sack planter's that I had left over from planting my potato's and got some pebbles to cover the holes.  Then I opened up my last sack of compost and tipped the compost into the planter.  I then planted the Oca, I also had a bit of compost left in another bag.  So I used the last bit to fill in any gaps.

Please find picture below

I will keep you all upto date...

Please let me know what you think?

Sowing!

Since the 3rd of March I have been busy with experiencing and sowing seeds.

Here is the list of seeds I sowed on the 3rd of March.

(apart from the chocolate tomato seeds.  I sowed them on the 23rd of March)

 

Broccoli

Curly Kale

Petruna's

Marigold (Grand-da)

Cauliflower

Pak choi

Cabbage

Quince

Tomato (Chocolate) 

Sweet peas (Royal Family Mix)

Nastrutras

Buzy Lizzie (mix)

I keep being asked how do I get some of my seeds to germinate.  Well this is how I mainly get them started.  By putting a make-up remover pad on a saucer.  Then I pour some water on and sprinkle the seeds on, then pop a clear cup on top.  Simple really!

 After two hours I noticed the Broccoli started to spout or should I say germinate.  Two weeks later I potted the Broccoli, Curly Kale, Cauliflower, Cabbage, Broccoli, Petruna's, Marigold (Grand-da), Pakchoi, Nastrutras, Buzy Lizzie (mix) and sweet peas up.  Then popped them all in my lil greenhouse.  A week later I noticed my Curly kale, Cauliflower, Cabbage and the rest of the above plants was doing great. 

But a snail had eat the Broccoli, I had found he/she on the pot.  Then the frost came and killed off most of the plants I had grew from seed. Apart from Curly Kale, Cauliflower, Cabbage and Tomato's.

Broccoli

Petruna's

Marigold (Grand-da)

Pakchoi

Nastrutras

Buzy Lizzie (mix)

Read how I saved my garden from the frost, in my plant marathon

But I have not yet seen any think of the Quince seeds yet!

I will keep you posted if and when they pop up!

Tom and the Potato's

On the 23rd March (2012) I sowed my Chocolate tomato seeds, that I had collected from last year tomatos.  At first I was not sure if they would spout or not!  So on 28th March (2012) I was exticed to see little baby seedling had come up.

A week later I took them out doors to to plant up for the first time in little white cup's.

Then on the 14th of May I planted the tomato's up in those black pot's from Morrisons (Supermarket) eight for 99p.

Like I have said over and over again in other blog post's, we have had frost and cold weather.

So the tomato's have not done so well.

This is how they look today (11 June)

I am hoping they will pick up soon, I'm giving them food every day just to get them going.

~~~~~~~~~

For a long time now I have been dying to grow my own Potato's. 

So this year I decided to get some seed potato's to grow, I got 'Charlotte'.

I had some empty tub's, so I put some kitchen roll in and placed the seed potato's in the tub's.

About three weeks went pass and the seed potato's had chitted.  So on the 4th Of May I took the chitted potato's out and planted them up.  A week later little green leaves appeared, I put some more compost on top. Then so on as the leaves came up, til they got to the top.

This is how the Potato's look today (11th June)

I will keep you all posted on how I get on with the potato's and tomato's.

Plant Marathon!

Over ten week ago I sowed Impatiens, Lobelia's, Petunia's, Nastrutras, just to name a few.
I popped them in my propagater's and  first time ever popped them in my greenhouse, because I sowed too many.  I noramlly put them on my bedroom windowsill.  Then the frost came and like most of us have found, it kill off any chance of life! :(

RIP Seeds/Seedlings

So yesterday (23rd May) I decided and I am a shamed to say. Today (24th May) I went and bought some plants and some more compost, has I knew I won't have enough.


Here is the list of plants below.

1. Geranium's Mixed
2. French Marigold's Mixed
3. Celosia
4. Petunia's Mixed
5. Lobelia - Regatta Mixed
6. Lobelia - Trailing Mix
7. Impatiens - Chelsea
8. Nicotana - Mixed

So after getting the plants and try to find local Honey (which I think needs to be another post!).  I came home which was at 12o'clock and set to work. Emptying the pot's on the wall's, cleaning them out. Pot up plants that decided to start growing where you don't want them.  But I still want to keep them, to see what they turn into.

Oh and kill the slugs and snails, the old fashion way with the beer. I use an old drink bottle with a drop of old (out-of-date) beer. When I see a snail/slug I un-do the lid and pop/drop the snail/slug in. I don't seem to have many in the garden anymore! 

Once I had sorted every think out, I started to pot up all the pot's on the wall's, then I moved on to the two black pot's and potted them up well. 

A couple of weeks ago my uncle gave me three pots of Cosmos and a pot of Lavateria that he had luckily growed from seed.  I found my big green tub left from my rose's, to use.  So I popped in some stones for dainage and fill the tub of soil!

I spilt the Lavateria up into four peices and planted that to the back, then I popped in the Cosmos's and nictiana's. What every I had left over I put in the pot too......

Here are the picture's I took these yesterday morning!!!












I love this one!