julesgardening

[julesgardening]

My favourite little friends who live in the polytunnel. Tiny little zebra jumping spiders. Absolutely fascinating and intelligent little arachnids.

[julesgardening]

Planting my potatoes today. Main crop Maris Piper first two rows then First Earlies Red Duke of York. Also will be replanting the abundance of garlic I have right now. We missed a few last year that have been hiding from us until now.

[julesgardening]

Just checking on some of my seedlings. Always exciting to see new plant babies emerging!

These are on the south side bedroom window of my house as I’m running out of space in other rooms XD

The first photo are Brussel Sprout seedlings that I have just uncovered from the bag they are in. They only need it to germinate, and leaving them inside for too long once sprouted will lead to rotting from the moisture build up, so as a precaution I roll down the bag on good weather days.

The second are my marketmore cucumber. Good reliable cucumber variety. They are sprouting nice and strong. I’ll leave them in the bag a day or two more to let all the seeds have a chance to germinate.

The bags btw are just freezer bags from Tesco. But you could also use food bags or cling film. I do this for most of my seeds.

Basically you want the container to be air tight and transparent for the sun to warm the soil inside and for condensation to form. This helps the seeds to germinate. Then once seeds germinate you allow a little air just enough that they aren’t exposed. Once the true leaves appear they can be fully uncovered.

Of course there are exceptions, such as with the Brussel spouts that are hardier anyway, or the opposite being the fig babies that need that little extra protection for longer to allow them to be big enough to handle the world without their safety blanket. :)

[julesgardening]

It's been a bonny day here for once. Warm enough for me to venture out and make the most of it. Firstly I potted a dragon plant cutting (Dracaena marginata). It was started off in water until it started showing a new growth spur and tooth like roots. After that I repotted the sweet pepper seedlings into their own pots. Nine all together. Next I positioned some recycled tires on some recycled cardboard. One I covered in some recycled glass from a couple of thifty find picture frames. Yey for recycling! The next houses a whole cloves worth of garlic (I've forgotten the type already). I still have four whole cloves to split up and plant out somewhere. I do love my garlic XD. Another has my new rhubarb and my old transplanted rhubarb. And I later added a third, not pictured, that I added some lettuce seed to and covered in some pea netting to keep my cat out (no it's not your new toilet kitty!). After all that I still had some day light left, so potted some peas seeds to start off in the polytunnel. I also potted a load of other different seeds for starting off in the house. Basil, coriander, parsley, brown turkey figs, lemon seeds, cucumber marketmore and some Brussel sprouts. Now I'm aching all over, so time for a cuppa.

[julesgardening]

I've discovered what looks suspiciously like a 'Minnesota Midget' cantaloupe plant! These died back last year, and with the cold we have in Scotland I certainly wasn't expecting them to over winter in the polytunnel. But I guess I was wrong! haha! Tough little melons!

[julesgardening]

This was my scariest moment this year. Potting on my Orchids. I've been putting it off because they have been flowering profusely, and also because they are one of my favourite plants and I've been afraid of killing them. But as soon as the compost parts arrived I just went for it! I made a mix of coir, mini bark chippings and activated carbon. I decided to go down that root, as the last time I used orchid compost my first orchid faded away. It just didn't seem happy in the commercial mix. My custom mix was put together from tips on the web. I really hope they are happy with the custom mix. I carefully removed as much of the old soil as I could, trimmed flower spikes, dead roots and tatty leaves and then repotted them. As for the flower spikes, they are now sitting in a vase. I will enjoy them while I can!

[julesgardening]

This is my Swiss cheese plant (Monstera deliciosa). It's not been repotted in over 10 years, and lately I've been feeling it needs a new pot. It's certainly quite actively sending roots all over the landing floor! My concern is how big I need to go as far as pots are concerned. The one it currently resides in is 30 litres.

[julesgardening]

These are my first earlies, Red Duke of York. I started chitting them in January. They are looking good, have plenty of eyes and so will need planting out soon.

[julesgardening]

Christmas Cactus (Schlumbergera) Trying my hand at propagating cuttings from the parent plant shown in the first image. As you can see I started them off in water, skewered on a toothpick with the end touching the water. I checked today and three have finally rooted (luckily on the same toothpick), so today I potted them on. Hopefully they will establish some good roots in their new home.

[julesgardening]

Lots of baby plants slowly taking over every south facing window I have. 1 - Sweet pepper plants desperately awaiting their own pots. 2 - Brown Fig seedling finally showing their true leaves. Exciting! 3 - The cramped mini greenhouse full of tomato plants, as well as some nasturtiums plants and rose cuttings.

[julesgardening]

Tackling Gooseberries bushes

I have some very aged gooseberry bushes, three all in all. They where unceremoniously stuck in the ground far too close to each other years ago, neglected in the shady corner behind my polytunnel. Every year they fruit brilliantly, but are difficult to harvest in the tightly packed barbed cocoon they had made themselves into.

So today we decided we would make a start in getting them spaced out into better positions that allow for easier harvesting. And in our heads we thought it wouldn't take that long to do.

Well it of course took most of the day for me to sword fight my way in with my pruning shears until I had taken back all the branches to the thickest. This was something I hadn't planned to do, but in clearing back the branches I found a multitude of branches had rooted where they had touched the ground. So I figured I'd give the mother plants a good hard prune back to the base to make moving them easier. Even if they don't transplant successfully, I'll have lots of little replacements. But hopefully it won't come to that. The parent plants are over 10 years old now, and it would be good if I can keep them going. In the process of clearing I also found an old broken clay pot that will make good drainage material! Yey me. Lol.

The husband, meanwhile, gave the hedge a hair cut to allow the sun to reach the polytunnel. It wasn't too bad. He did a great job, even though he made a mess with the clippings on my cleared gooseberry batch! He also sorted my polytunnel door. It had been wedged shut for over two years, mainly due to high winds and the lack of a decent latch to keep it shut. Also last year my polytunnel suffered from overheating and some grey powdery mould on my cucumbers due to lack of air circulation, so I'm preempting it this year. Other then that we just need a couple of patch jobs on some small holes in the polytunnel plastic and it's ready for the year.

While I was out I also took some soft wood cuttings of one of my roses to see if they will take. It would be nice to have some new bushes.

I still have to plant my new rhubarb as well as transplant my old one to a new position. Then I have a garlic set to plant, weather permitting, and some Brussels sprout seeds to sow in the polytunnel. The tomato seedlings are looking good though. As are the sweet pepper babies. It's early I know, but I always start mine early in doors to get a decent crop. Our Scottish growing season is so short I have to make the most of the year. Luckily I picked up a mini standing shelf greenhouse that is situated beside one of the big windows in my living room where it gets sun all day.

My back is killing me now though, from potting all those baby goosegogs (gooseberries). So I'm back in the house tucked up on my sofa with a coffee.

[julesgardening]

Had a busy day in the garden mulching my apple trees for winter. It’s a great way of moving on some of the cardboard boxes and packing I’ve been hoarding all year.

First I wet the cardboard and packaging. This was an especially fun task for my daughter. Hoses at the ready!

Once it’s nice and wet I lay it around my trees and top it with bark chippings. I find some big rocks to weigh down the cardboard and wet it again. All done!

Then we collected pine cones from some branches that had snapped from the parent trees in the October winds. Our pine trees have a bad habit of becoming lush with growth on one side only and then being prone to dropping heavy branches. The winds are too much and those branches come crashing down. One tree was snapped in two from those winds!

Pine cones make good fire starters, and smell lovely burned on the fire and can also be used in craft projects. We collect as many as we can be bothered picking and put them in the garage to dry out. Now is the best time to get them before any snow hits us.

The only other thing we had left to do before we warmed up inside again was to top up the bird table feeder with food for our garden visitors. We have two little robins, a pair of blackbirds, great tits, wagtails, magpies, house sparrows and lots of other little birds that come and go.

Lately I saw a whole troupe of grouse near our home and a gentleman pheasant. So lovely to see.

Only a few more jobs in the garden before the frost hits, but otherwise it’s a very quiet time of year.

[julesgardening]

Here is a picture of a fuchsia flower in my garden.  I have huge fuchsia bushes that the bees go crazy for.  Notice those little holes?  Well here’s a little something you may not know about bees.

Bees have learned that they can save time getting nectar from flowers by cheating.  They simply make a hole at the base of the flower right where the nectar is!  

I’ve uploaded a video where you can see a bee checking holes other bees have made.

[julesgardening]

Helping myself to some of my organic homegrown peas.  The furry babies get some too.  Otherwise they try to help themselves.  Cheeky mutts.

[julesgardening]

Okay I’m up out of bed now.  Not being lazy anymore.  It’s raining outside but I’ve been out anyway to wake up a bit, but also because I had to water my plants that reside in my poly-tunnel.  I like to water them once a week while it’s raining or in the evening because the bees won’t be in there when I turn on the hose.  Bees don’t like hoses.

Took some pics and vids with my crappy old phone (so I apologise for the bad quality), I’m going to share them in the next few posts.