Tag Archives: Penny GoLightly

Belfast sinks and taking cuttings

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We’ve a couple of weeks off work so we’re trying to get some jobs done around the garden, weather permitting. The first job was done on Monday, which was getting rid of a load of roots of a climber that had taken over a large Belfast sink. Once they were taken out and transferred by a B&Q quid bucket to the wild area at the bottom of the garden, the massive sink was moved by hand using some bits of wood, a garden fork and spade.

The sink is now in its new position and we’re using all the space to the maximum. It now contains three tomato plants (complete with canes found in the street), a couple of Defender marigolds and some freshly sowed free herb seeds (thanks to Penny Golightly for the marigolds and passing on the information of the free seeds from the Wildlife Trust as part of their 30 Days Wild initiative. By the way, the offer is still on here.)

And now after years of not doing so, we are finally getting to realise that taking cuttings isn’t that hard, all you have to do is keep your fingers crossed that they take. Here’s some cat mint (nepeta) that has now taken and even flowering.

 

This evening going to hit the sack early as we’re off to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show tomorrow, we’ve never been before and have no idea what to expect. We’ll be bringing you a report as soon as we can. We’ll be the ones walking around the site with the large framed rucksack on our backs.

Please don’t tell us “summer” has ended

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We’ve heard today in true British Bank Holiday style, that the current lovely weather we’re having is coming to an abrupt end this weekend. Typical! But to cheer us up here’s a couple of great photographs.

The first (above) is Rich in the Lake District’s back garden. Doesn’t it look great! As he said, “The bluebells are really high now”. That’s one chilled out view there Rich, we bet it’s a nice calm place to relax in!

And above is Debby H‘s garden in north London, more specifically the cosmos bed. Debby told us “I can’t believe the number of flowers that we have already on our cosmos plants. They’re only small, about 30 cm high. We planted them out about 3 weeks ago and most of the flowers have come since then. In previous years we haven’t had these many flowers till late summer.”

“I planted the seeds in mid-February, whereas I have done it in March previously. I kept half indoors on a windowsill, and the other half were moved to our plastic greenhouse. It doesn’t seem to have made any difference to how they are growing.” It’s always good to experiment and see what happens. Thanks for the report Debby, we scattered our cosmos seed all over the garden this year and not sure if any have come up or those damned slugs have had them. We will keep you all posted.

And thanks to the great blog from Penny Golightly here’s news of some free herbs seeds here. Cheers Penny!

Local news

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Thanks to Penny Golightly, here’s news of a great little plant mart in Lee next Saturday May 17th from 2-4 p.m. outside 2-6 Micheldever Road, Lee SE12 8LX and the event is a fundraiser to get money to plant more trees in the area. There’ll be a wide range of plants for sale at a good price as well as lots of other stuff (cakes, books and CDs, cream teas and 2 botanical watercolour workshops at 2.30 and 3pm). Looks great! Cheers Penny!

Out with the bubble wrap, out with the bubble wrap!

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Sometimes it’s small things that make you think. We were just reading the “What to do in the garden in May” piece on Penny GoLightly’s excellent blog here. She mentioned “The month has started with a mini heatwave, but I’m not rushing to plant out most of my seedlings too soon” and we have a bit of a realisation and checked the weather forecast for SE23 and thought “Ahh, she has a point”.

Its looks likes there’s going to be a little bit of a change in temperature this weekend to say the least. From those glorious summer vibes to a humbling 13°C tomorrow. Funny enough we just found a pic (above) from May 17th 2020, look at those sophisticated forms of frost protection and thats in mid-May!

To be honest we did get a bit carried away and put a couple (and more to be honest) of tomato plants out and yes there are some chillies seedlings that have been repotted and left out overnight. We’ve even dismantled a cold frame (aka took the bricks off holding down the polythene and folded up said polythene and chucked it in the bin). Looks like all of that will have to change this evening, alongside the flip flops and shorts going back into the wardrobe.

We’ll be bringing the chillies in tonight just to be on the safe side as it may drop to 4° C and we have a massive roll of bubble wrap purchased initially for selling stuff on eBay that will come in very handy.

We feel a bit sorry for the bloke on Facebook the other week who put out all his 30 odd tomato plants saying there won’t be a frost. He may be alright, but it does seem a bit nippy in the evenings next week. Good luck and may the (frost) protection be with you and enjoy those rays of sun rays today as you may have to put the jumper back on tomorrow.