Farewell to the blog

Back in 2010 when I started this blog this is what I wrote:

Every year I am frustrated with the amount of seeds I have to buy, at about £1.99 a packet, to get the dozen or so plants I might want.  Seed will keep (in a cool place) for a year or so but to be honest, when it comes to vegetable seeds, they are better bought fresh each year.  As I am gardening for two, hundreds of the same lettuce seed are not needed.  Multiply this by a couple of dozen different vegetables and I end up with thousands of seeds going to waste.

I am also a belt and braces type person and therefore sow double the number I need in case any any duff transplants need replacing.  For example I sow a dozen runner beans individually in pots for the six I really want. Multiply this by a couple of dozen and a few weeks later I have hundreds of beautiful baby plants going begging.

I need to find people locally who could make use of them.  How to find them?

A blog?  I've come up with the idea of a gardening blog for gardeners who live in and around Bury where we could arrange to swap seeds, plants, ideas, information etc..  

I have gardened for getting on for fifty years and am happy to help people with gardening advice and, hopefully, this blog will become a forum for helping each other.  It is the best kind of help because it is local.  Much of what you find on TV, in magazines, and on-line is very 'Southern' based; up here we are as much as a month behind their timing.  Also locally grown/sourced plants thrive much better and we have a knowledge of what does and doesn't flourish in this area.

I've started a collection of 'useful links' which we can add to.  I also thought people might like to recommend local companies who have proved reliable.  I'm very keen on Summerseat for example as my local garden centre but maybe you prefer somewhere else?  Have you had any landscaping done by a good company?  Do you have anyone doing gardening work for you on a regular basis that you could recommend?.... and so on.

As this blog is in its embryonic stage I'd love you to check it out and send me any suggestions as to how we can make it work.  Who knows, by next Spring, we can have something really useful up and running.

None of this has come to fruition and it really has just gone on as my own record of my gardening.  As such I have decided not to carry on with it.

I am sorry if there is any living soul out there who does follow along and has found some 'help' and will miss it in some way....  but I think that's unlikely.

Farewell to the Lotty

Here is my last haul from the Lotty...

2 bags of potatoes, 3 bags of rhubarb

they were gorgeous

I have decided to quit on the Lotty so Ken and I went over to take our last pickings and tidy the plots for whoever takes them on (or digs them up).  

The raspberries were a joy.

Where did the green fingers go?

I love gardening and I do OK, but I really don't have that magic touch like my mom who could grow an oak from a stone.

I planted a tray of oriental poppy seeds and eventually just chucked the soil on the garden - not one appeared.  Not strictly true a few appeared and had one day in too much sun and fried.

Similarly, the foxglove tray did the same but they have about a half dozen clinging on to life.  I am hoping they will prick out into little pots soon and go in the garden next year - who knows.  So a fiver's (!) worth of seeds and if I manage to get a foxglove from it I'll be lucky.  Mind you I saw foxgloves last year in pots at £6.99 a pop..... so I'd still be in pocket.  Just not the vision of a garden full of oriental poppies and foxgloves that I dreamed of.

foxgloves

I also saved seed from and sowed some hellebores - doesn't look like they've made it either.

hellebores

This is the best pot as I haven't a clue what I put in here......

the mystery pot

Flowers in my garden

These were the flowers which were at their best on 29th July.  We had a deluge of Noah proportions the previous day so they may look a little battered.

James Galway is flowering his sicks off right now

All the astilbes are fully out right round the garden

the first achillea 'pretty belinda'

one of my favourites crocosmia Lucifer

day lily - might be 'Bonanza'

last of the orange and yellow red hot pokers

star jasmine - glorious perfume

Cucumber and Tomato trials

I grew some tomatoes from seed and kept four of the plants - two of which I left in the greenhouse and two went in a pot outside.  I also grew some cucumbers and kept one in the greenhouse and planted one in the tomato pot outside.

here are the results so far:

Tomatoes in the greenhouse: tall, thin, anaemic looking but with flowers and starting to fruit

Tomatoes and cucumber outside:  dark green and leafy, only a few flowers and no fruit.

Cucumber in greenhouse doing OK

It seems the outside tomato bushes do just that - they make large dark green very vigorous and healthy bushes but they are only just starting to flower, so I suspect I won't be getting any ripe fruit off those this year.... again.  Unless you have a really good spot in your garden I think outdoor tomatoes need to be grown much further south than Bury.  I have never had a crop of tomatoes from them and as this is year five (!) that is an end to my outdoor tomato growing.  It is worth your having a go though as I know several people who do OK.  My garden is particularly 'late' with stuff.

I might have a good go at greenhouse ones next year though.

The cucumber needed its own pot to make it a fair comparison with the one in the greenhouse.  Basically it is strong and healthy but miles behind it's sister under cover, who has two cucumbers forming and more to come.

Here is my 'fruit' so far......  not quite a bounty!

cucumbers

aubergines

tomatoes