The scene was set Saturday afternoon after an impromptu trip to a small local nursery to buy a couple of plants. I came away with about 40 plants, which meant I was going to have to spend a couple of hours getting them all sorted on Sunday. So on Sunday morning we thought we'd have a drive out to a nice garden centre a few miles away and see what else we could find. Big mistake, I spent that much I qualified for a free bag of compost, I wouldn't mind but I'd only wanted a couple of packets of seeds. I got my seeds, along with tomato plants, strawberry plants, Dahlia's, various goodies from the farm shop and some strange tool for getting weeds out of the lawn. That's what credit cards are for right?
We came home and set about filling all the pots with the newly acquired plants. CC loves getting stuck in, in fact she chose quite a few of the plants, then decided which pots she wanted them in. She was on hand with the watering can to finish the job off with a good watering too. We spent the afternoon in the sun, getting a good helping of Vitamin D and making our little corner of the world look pretty. Topped off in the evening by eating our dinner out on the patio, admiring our handy work. There's a real feeling of satisfaction to sit back and look at what you've achieved. And even better we did it together, some quality family time.
As well as the pretty flowers in pots we also planted some strawberries and tomatoes. The tomatoes are really clever, two different varieties grafted on to one plant, so we get ordinary cherry tomatoes, and orange ones, all from one pot. I'm not convinced this will be a great success, I'll keep you posted. If I pull it off there will be photos to prove it.
I'm hopeful on the strawberry front this year too. My last attempt at growing them was thwarted by an elderly, slightly fat, very spoilt Dalmatian called Pepsi. We couldn't work out why we never had any ripe strawberries to pick, despite lots of fruit apparently growing. The mystery was solved one day when I peeped out of the window and found Pepsi munching away on the nice sweet ripe red strawberries, straight from the plant. He was fussy though, only liked the ripe ones. He seemed to think they were there for his benefit and I didn't have the heart to deprive him of his daily treat. I've had stern words with Leo the cat, and we've reached an understanding, so fingers crossed on the Strawberry front this year.
Last but by no means least, we planted some salad leaves and radish in pots too. I mixed three different varieties together, so it I'm looking forward to seeing what appears. The salad should be ready for cutting the first leaves in less than 3 weeks, and the radish hopefully shouldn't be too far behind them when we can start harvesting. I'm quite excited by it all. I didn't really get chance to do much at all in the garden for one reason or another last year, so I'm making the most of it this year. I thought I'd post a few before and after pictures, so I can see how it comes along.
Once it's all coming along nicely feel free to pop round for some salad and strawberries and ice cream on the patio!!\
We came home and set about filling all the pots with the newly acquired plants. CC loves getting stuck in, in fact she chose quite a few of the plants, then decided which pots she wanted them in. She was on hand with the watering can to finish the job off with a good watering too. We spent the afternoon in the sun, getting a good helping of Vitamin D and making our little corner of the world look pretty. Topped off in the evening by eating our dinner out on the patio, admiring our handy work. There's a real feeling of satisfaction to sit back and look at what you've achieved. And even better we did it together, some quality family time.As well as the pretty flowers in pots we also planted some strawberries and tomatoes. The tomatoes are really clever, two different varieties grafted on to one plant, so we get ordinary cherry tomatoes, and orange ones, all from one pot. I'm not convinced this will be a great success, I'll keep you posted. If I pull it off there will be photos to prove it.
Last but by no means least, we planted some salad leaves and radish in pots too. I mixed three different varieties together, so it I'm looking forward to seeing what appears. The salad should be ready for cutting the first leaves in less than 3 weeks, and the radish hopefully shouldn't be too far behind them when we can start harvesting. I'm quite excited by it all. I didn't really get chance to do much at all in the garden for one reason or another last year, so I'm making the most of it this year. I thought I'd post a few before and after pictures, so I can see how it comes along. Once it's all coming along nicely feel free to pop round for some salad and strawberries and ice cream on the patio!!\
