Going potty with more Easter seed sowing!

It was Easter so I got an extra day off work, and my Mum bought me "Mr and Mrs Duck", which are so lovely I can't bring myself to eat them.  They've got bonnets on!!!!

We went to Brookside Nursery on Good Friday and I found a new section of the garden centre I hadn't been in before that sells lots of little plug plants for cheap prices.  To my delight I managed to buy some lysimachia and helichrysum for only 49p each.  I'd been trying to find seeds of these but not had much luck (perhaps they're propagated from cuttings rather than grown from seeds?)  Anyhow, they've been potted up into larger containers now and they're destined for my hanging baskets.  I also got some ivy, verbena, and other hanging basket trailing flowers. Chris bought lots of fuchsia plug plants and splashed out on a large blueberry bush.  Plug plants are so cute - and so cheap!

Chris got busy with the obligatory Easter DIY session and fitted a new floor to ceiling cupboard next to the front door, and made 4 bird nest boxes for his Mum's birthday.

Lots more seeds got sown this weekend, mainly ones for the front and back gardens, I used up a full bag of compost.  Varieties included cat grass (for my cat Mr French - he loves having a chew on all the plants in the back garden. In fact, I daren't sow foxglove or delphinium, as they're toxic and I'm sure he'd probably have a a graze on them), cornflower, borage, lots more sweet peas (the ones I got free with the Gardeners' World magazine), nemophila, teasle, valerian and Nicky's Nursery wildflower window box mix.  I put these in pots outside rather than sowing direct, so I hope they'll all be OK.  I'll move them into the soil once they're a bit bigger.

The primulas in the back garden and doing well - the purple drumstick is ahead of the white one.

I sowed more nasturtium jewel cherry red and some more microdot black eyed susan.  I also sowed some melon seeds and popped these in the propagator, along with 6 pots of sweetcorn, this time 2 seeds per peat pot (and the correct larger size of peat pot this time, rather than the silly small ones I used the other week).  I'll remove the weaker seedling in due course.

The nasturtiums' roots had already started growing out of their pots, so I got these repotted into bigger pots on their own.  They're vigorous growers and smelt peppery when I repotted them.  I love nasturtiums, they remind me of my childhood.  Some of the tomato seedlings were beginning to look cramped, so I repotted these too.  I pinched out the top of my spencer sweet peas.

Something has eaten four of my aubergine seedlings and there's only 2 left, so I'll need to resow some more seeds.  I'm guessing it was probably a slug so I put some pellets down in the greenhouse.  I hope no more seedlings get eaten!

On Monday I got round to a job I'd been meaning to do for a while, creating a small cacti garden in a large terracotta pot, which I think looks cool, but maybe a bit too symmetrical, so I might see if I can break it up a bit with a small succulent or something.  I guess it will look less symmetrical as it grows.

A new word entered my vocabulary this weekend - pelargoniums.  I was fascinated to learn these plants come in scented leaf varieties, and I remember my parents having a lemon scented pelargonium as a child, and rubbing its leaves to release the smell.  They come in a wide range of fragrances, including cinnamon, orange, peppermint and rose.  I found a supplier of bare rooted small plants online, they're £3 each but there's a minimum order of £10, so I'm not sure if I really need four of them.  But I would love to order them.  I guess I could give some away as presents, and they propagate easily from cuttings so I could use them to make lots more plants.  I think I need a few houseplants that aren't cacti and that flower and smell nice.  I shall ponder a little longer on this one.  I dreamt about pelargoniums last night, the word seemed to be stuck in my head.

Another weekend of gardening

We were busy down at the allotment on Saturday.  I mulched around the bottom of the damson tree with some bark chippings.  I did this for two reasons - to attempt to suppress the weeds under the tree, but also to make the tree stand out a bit more and look cared for.  I don't want the tenants on the other plot accidentally trampling on it.  It's a damson 'Merryweather' tree, about 1 metre tall, and is probably one of the last things my Dad planted down at the allotment, so I'm keen to make sure it's well looked after.

I sowed some radish and spring onion in the bottom greenhouse and planted the baby greenhouse lettuce plants from home next to the garlic, which is coming on nicely.

The first blossoms have set on the peach tree in the top greenhouse, they're lovely pink flowers, very pretty.

The rhubarb seems to be taking to its new home, and the forced rhubarb is growing a little faster.  Crumble here we come.

Chris started a new strawberry bed with six plants we bought from Aldi for £2.99.  He also replanted the onion sets that I mistakenly thought were over wintering sets and planted in October - they've only just started coming through!  So he rescued these and put them into the bed with the shallots and planted some more red and golden (Stuttgarter) onion sets next to them.  He also sowed some more spring onion seeds and beetroot seeds.

We watched a great bluray film on Saturday night - Up.  I've fallen in love with the dog from the film, Dug, he's a real cutie.  It's well worth a watch.  In fact, I think I'm going to buy it I liked it that much.  One of the extras on the disc, called 'Partly Cloudy', and about cloud people was particularly great.

I weeded and tidied the front and back gardens on Sunday.  I spotted a rogue bluebell that is about to bloom.  It's set up home in a crack in the paving just in front of our house.

One of the forget-me-nots has got its first flower.

And the primula out the back have come to life, and lots of purple and white flowers have appeared from what looked like miniature cabbages!  Still no sign of the daffodils, anenomes, tulips, snowdrops and bluebell bulbs that I planted, although there are lots of green shoots in place that look promising.

Our cacti collection has been dormant since October, and I haven't been watering them, so on Sunday I stuck them all in the bath and watered them and gave them a spray.

My Amazon delivery finally arrived yesterday, so I read some of Alys Fowler's Edible Garden last night.  At first glance it looks great, and true to her usual form there are lots of new ideas in there, rather than a re-hash of the same old gardening advice.

I borrowed the Virgin Gardener by Laetitia Maklouf from the library and I'm liking all the projects in there too.

I went to a meeting on Thursday last week about a project I'm involved with to set up an eco-shop/cafe in our town.  We've got 3 months to get things moving and people were going to look at premises yesterday.  I need to research suppliers and products in time for this Thursday's meeting.

I bought a purple Aubretia alpine plant yesterday to fill a gap in the flower border in my front garden.  I wish I knew if I could dig up cyclamen bulbs and store them until Autumn, or if I should leave them in the ground?  I can't seem to find an answer online, but the plants have died back to brown bulbs now and I need to re-utilise the space they're taking up.

I planted some night scented flower seeds on Monday night.  Phlox and two varieties of night scented stock (starlight sensation was one of them).  I love the idea of flowers that smell gorgeous at night.  The night scented stock was really potent last year. I also planted half a seed tray full of star dust seeds - these were so pretty last year and got lots of compliments.  They're lovely tiny little flowers.  I took the viola, heliotrope, lobelia and Chinese forget-me-nots to the greenhouse.  Stupidly, I managed to drop the seed tray containing the Chinese forget-me-nots, and only managed to rescue 2 seedlings (only one had popped up through the soil anyway).  That'll teach me for rushing and trying to carry too many things at once.  I'm a bit disappointed with the heliotrope.  I sowed a small seed tray full of them at the beginning of March but only 5 weakish looking seedlings have popped up, although on the back of the packed it says germination time 21-30 days, so I've put them in the propagator now to try and speed things up. Heliotrope are better known as 'cherry pie' and smell scrumptious.

The greenhouse is already looking full, and there's lots more to sow in April, so I'm hoping it will be OK to plant the sweet peas and nasturtiums outside to free up some space on the staging.

Snow is forecast for today, as crazy as that sounds, what with it being the end of March.  I hope we don't get any because it could play havoc in the garden.

It's a full moon tonight, and it's descending too, so it will be nice and large.  I would have been able to watch it rise from my bedroom window, however I think the clouds may put an end to that idea.  Nothing new there then.