Thursday 3 June 2010

The heat, Carruthers, the heat!


Think the heat has gone to our heads. Hubby and I went out to some garden centres looking for the ball things to join canes together to make a fruit cage, and we ended up getting an alternative... a fruit cage. For the life of us we couldn't find anywhere locally that sold the connecting pieces, we've seen them online but nowhere seems to stock them. They sell canes, they sell the netting, but not the connectors. Daft. So we got a fruit cage kit, comprising the frame, the netting, tie-down-pegs, and zip ties. We also bought a second tomato shelter, as well as more compost and a trough to plant the radishes into.

We assembled the fruit cage, was a bit fiddly because the netting caught on the branches as we were wrapping it around. But with a bit of patience we got there. The redcurrant is now safely inside it, as are the strawberries, pot now filled with more strawbs and looking fantastic.

Potted up the radishes, probably planted then too close together, but hey ho, and there were some left over so they went into a pot.


New tomato house - tall toms need a tall house :-)


Here you can see the two raised beds and the smaller tomato shelter now on the smaller tomato plants. The radishes are alongside the raised bed.


We can't believe how quickly everything is coming together, it is mere weeks that the garden was simply overgrown and empty of any veggies, now it really looks like a productive garden. We've still got a lot of clearing to do, but we are getting there, rapidly.


This evening after I got home from work I discovered that hubby and son had been busy bees and had done a lot more clearing, the front garden was unrecognisably tidier than it was when I left this morning, you can see the path now! We haven't seen the path for the overgrowth for a long time :-) Looks great... I didn't take any pics of it tho because there isn't much to see except for the path. They had also cleared a huge amount of the thuggish hornbeams too, still a lot to clear of course but the brown (garden waste) bin is full!


While hubby had a well earned rest I did a wee bit of potting up and planting out... the peppers and chillis needed deeper pots, well they actually need bigger pots, but deeper will have to do for now. I also planted out the courgettes, I had 12 plants, and have planted 6 (yes yes I know they are overcrowded but we're taking a chance!) into 2 growbags up the side of the house.... they are on the free flagstones we got, my lovely hubby had laid the flags at the side of the house to give us a clean firm surface to put the growbags onto. The remaining courgette plants are potted into single pots, and will go to friends.



Talking of friends, my mate Lindsay has given us some thyme... lovely jubbly... still in its pot for now, to give it a chance to recover from being ripped out of her garden! In about a week I'll pop it into the herb planter.

This is such a satisfying hobby, I am getting such a kick out of growing things, and the fact that we can eat the produce, well that's a major bonus. This is FUN!

2 comments:

  1. Love the tomato house - where did you get it?

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  2. Got the one by the house from our local garden centre, and the smaller one down the garden from Argos :-)

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