Garden furniture

We had a whizz round ikea and homebase this weekend, mainly to spend hundreds on a lawnmower and other garden stuff, but also to look for garden furniture. (We got a lawnmower - an electric one, after deciding that the petrol ones were too pricey even if they are more practical and powerful. Anyway).

Why is garden furniture so expensive?? Ok, why is decent garden furniture so expensive? We had a look in ikea, and saw a table and chairs which were a possibility, but even for ikea I thought they were a bit much. In the end we settled on a couple of lounger chairs in black and white plastic. They look cool but I don't know if they'll last outside. Our shed isn't big enough (yet another expense). Maybe we should hold off on the furniture - it is only April and the sun might be shining now, but give it a couple of weeks.

Sowing the seeds

The sowing has begun. Now we put the veggie beds to use. So far the weather has been very dry - we haven't had any rain for weeks so the soil/manure is looking pretty dehydrated. We'll have to help the seeds along then (hopefully they wont introduce a hose pipe ban). In fact this is pretty freaky weather at the moment.

Mr made little trenches in the beds and tried to sow the seeds "thinly" as per the instructions. Yeah right - easier said than done. These things are the size of dust particles. We're only using beds 1 and 2 - the 3rd will be used for the runner beans, french beans and sweetcorn (which will be started in doors).

Beds 1 and 2 contain onions (spaced according to how large we want the onions - bigger spacing = bigger onions), spring onions, beetroot, broccoli, pak choi, rocket, spinach, salad leaves and many more things I can't remember.

The indoor seeds (chillies, sweet peppers, basil, mint and lemongrass) have been getting on quite well. But the basil, mint and lemongrass look quite crowded as I didn't thin them out earlier. I have grown attached to the little seedlings and didn't want to kill them off. So now I am paying the price as it makes it difficult trying to re-pot the seedlings without "hurting" them.

However I have managed to separate out 5 chillies, 5 sweet pepper and 4 basil seedlings into their own homemade pots. I am quite proud of these pots as I made them out of newspaper (following the instructions onhttp://www.wizer.co.uk/?p=29) . I have learned the hard way that the best size newspaper to use is the "G2" supplement section of the Guardian followed by any tabloid size paper (such as the local rag or freebies you get on the tube in London). Anything bigger falls apart when you put the soil in.

The idea is that the seedlings establish themselves, then you can pot them straight out (still in the pots) without disturbing the roots. The newspaper breaks down in the soil - recycling at its best.

A pic of my raspberry plants (before separating out the canes). Doing quite well after being home for 3 weeks. I've covered it in netting - although I don't think I need to as there are no fruits for the birds. However we have a lot of squirrels and foxes which are nosey so I like to keep them away. (The squirrels had attacked the bird feeder - prising open the metal in order to get to the seed!).

Fruity

I've decided to grow raspberries and blackcurrants in pots on the patio. I'm a bit dubious because I'll have to protect the fruits from birds, make sure that they get support etc etc. But hopefully I can pull it off.

We bought the raspberry canes and blackcurrant bush from a garden centre in February and I left them outside wrapped in bubble wrap in order to acclimatise them (although I don't know if I needed to as they were already outside when we bought them). Then I transferred them into large 30cm deep pots. However after reading the gardening book I realised that I needed to separate the canes (of raspberries) as each one was a plant. How was I to know - the label didn't mention it and there were no signs of shoots! The raspberry plant(s) had got used to the pot so I was a bit nervous about rooting them out again and separating them - but it had to be done. So now I have two pots of raspberries and so far (after a day) they haven't died of shock. But we shall see... I have erected a make-shift "post and wires" support system for the raspberries. Basically two canes, one in each pot, with parallel wires joining them. As the raspberries grow, they'll be supported by the wires. Mmmmm.

Unwittingly, I have chosen a summer flowering raspberry - which don't look as pretty apparently (because they need wires for support). Well we will just have to see how they turn out.

In order to stop the pots of fruit drying out, I've put a layer of bark chippings on the top of the soil. It hasn't rained much lately so they need all the help they can get. I also mixed some manure (not fresh!) in there too (before potting).

The third vegetable bed

It was a dry day on saturday, so we spent the whole afternoon in the garden digging and weeding.

Mr dug the third raised vegetable bed and did a very good job too managing to get most of it done in a matter of hours. He cut the grass first to make the digging easier (a 12'x3' bed is a big job).

As you probably can't tell from the first picture, it is very hard work and the digging is actually quite methodical (I would have just dug in any old fashion). Mr used the "single digging" method. It would be better to use a spade with a wooden handle and wear gloves to avoid tearing your palms to shreds.

So after marking out the bed, cutting the grass, doing the single digging, the next stage was to put the gravel boards down (which we used as edging). The longer 12' edges were made from two 6' boards hammered together with a shorter off-cut. The shorter 3' edges were ingeniously made from one 6' board cut in half (which is why we chose 12'x3'). The boards were joined at the corners by posts about 6" long driven into the ground by a mallet. After trialling different methods of putting the boards in on the first two beds, Mr settled on nailing the posts to each end of the longer boards, hammering them into the ground and then nailing the shorter boards. The next step will be to mix in the manure and it is pretty much ready for planting (we think). Luckily Mr had had two chances with the other two beds - his dad came over and taught him the art of digging. Very impressive it was too!

Seeds!

The seeds have germinated and they are popping up through the soil which is exciting. When they were put in the sun, they went mental (ok, they didn't turn into full grown plants), so we have decided to move them from one room to another depending on where the sun is.

The top pic is of the lemongrass, basil and mint. The other pic is of the"Spring Marchen" flowers, sweet peppers and chillies (from top to bottom). This is after about two weeks. We used Suttons seeds for all apart from the Marchen, which are Mr Fothergill's.

We used compost especially made for seeds, which seems to be working. The "propagators" are very basic, but again, they do the job. I've not had to water them yet as the compost was very wet. There seems to be a lot of condesation on the inside of the lids, so every now and again I wipe it off to make sure there is plenty of light getting through.

The seeds that came up first were the flowers (Marchen) and the basil. The lemongrass seeds have been doing really well - I may have to thin them out! The mint, chilli and sweet peppers have taken a little bit longer but they are now well on their way.

The next step, once they are stronger is to transfer them to modules, then to the pots in which they will finally be growing. I'm going to use 3" pots for the chillies and sweet peppers and bigger pots for the basil and mint. I may even put the mint into the ground (but within its own pot as apparently it can get out of control). The flowers will go into our border with the shrubs. I'm going to be doing some research for cold frames as I'll need one into order to harden the seedlings (introducing them to the outside world) as I'll be annoyed if they die off!