Fruit Garden (Week 28).

In the fruit garden we still have plenty of Raspberries coming on and then later there will be the Autumn ones as well. The ones you see in this picture are the main crop variety, or at least I think they are. I'm not sure because they are the original ones that were here when I came, since then I've added a row of earlies and a row of autumn fruiting ones. If you look closely in the picture you will also spot an early variety of bindweed that I have growing in that part of the garden.

Also ripe for picking at the moment are the Cherries, these are another addition made since I came here, I would like to add another tree on the north facing all sometime so as to spread the fruiting season.

The Wallflowers Are Coming On.

Hello everyone, the other week I told you I'd sown my Wallflowers so this week I am going to show you the results of my labours. As you will see there are quite a lot of them and very soon now I will have to dig them up and transplant them at around four inches apart so they can grow on for the summer ready to be planted out in the right place for spring. Also I will soon have to be making a sowing of Pansies which are also for next spring. Pansies do best if you can keep them cool which isn't easy to do at this time of year so if you only want a few its best to buy them at planting time. If you're buying from seed catalogues or similar then it doesn't hurt to get your order in now.

Some Answers

Over the past week or so some of you have asked me questions which I will answer tonight. The answers to the questions are next to and under the name of the person who asked them.

EB Said in a comment about the standard Rosemary getting top heavy and prone to blowing over. I think she is right and a problem I have all the time with my standard Fuchsia’s.

Yes Tippy did like the soft food I gave here instead of the pork pie, she had rice pudding which is one of her favourites.

The weather station is okay, it links to my computer. I got into recording the weather because of blogging, to give people an idea of what the climate is like. The trouble with the weather station is that we only have a small sheltered garden so you don’t really get proper wind readings, the rain gauge is accurate and temps are okay although again because the garden is sheltered I think they are a couple of degrees higher than out in the open.

Sara asked if dead heading Day Lilies makes them produce more flowers. I’m not really sure to be honest. When you look at the flower spikes it seems that the flowers are already there so taking off dead ones won’t make much difference to the amount of blooms produced. One thing removing dead flowers will do however is make the plant look tidier. I will tell you now that I don’t take off any dead flowers as a rule but that’s because of a lack of time more than anything else.

Matron has asked me how doing my own garden compares to doing the one at work. Well it’s a lot different. For one thing Vicki does most of the work in our garden, I cut the lawn and the hedges and plant up some of the pots, also at home I’m not as fussy. From reading about my work you probably think I’m a right fuss pot going round making sure everything is always neat and tidy but away from work I am totally opposite, it doesn’t bother me the same if everything isn’t just so.

Training The Passion Flower.

Hello everyone, today I have been doing a bit of work at home, one job in particular was training the Passion Flower to go up rather than down - that darn gavity playing havoc again.

It had got so you could hardly see through the sitting room windows so I put some wire on the wall and fastened all the lose ends up to it.

Then quite a bit of this afternoon was spent watching the qualifying for the German Grand Prix tomorrow which was quite interesting in that it kept on lightly raining so this caused everyone to have to get their thinking caps on as to what tyres to use.

Lazy Bob.

Hello everyone, I had a good day today. I started off by doing some potting up because it was raining or at least it was to wet to make a start on the mowing. I start potting on some cuttings and then there were some pot plants in need of climbing the potting up ladder and to finish off I saw this Rosemary plant I had raised from a seedling and I suddenly got the urge to try and train it as a standard. I can’t recall having seen one as a standard although if it can be done no doubt it has and if it can’t be done for some reason then I guess I’m wasting my time trying.

The Rosemary, it may appear to be just a stick but I dream of a great future for it!

As things had dried up by tea break I cut the main lawn and all the public lawns. Mowing the lawns always seems to be a bit of a challenge one way or another, (which is what I enjoy), usually because it’s such a close call trying to get it all done in the day, last week of course there was the tremendous heat to contend with, wrestling with big bertha on the main lawn had me sweating cobs as she is definitely a heavy metal kinda girl. This week the challenge was to get done what I had to do before the next shower brought things to a halt. I got the main lawn cut but ended up finishing the courtyard with the rain bouncing down. Thankfully it was now time for lunch so I was able to get a change of shirt. This afternoon I spend sitting out in the sun in the deck chair in the potting shed yard listening to music picking off black currants.

I always used to pick them straight off the bush but someone told me you can prune off the shoots with the currants on and pick them that way. I was a bit dubious at first, it seemed too easy but it seems to work, the fact that I was picking off berries today proves it as I did the same thing last year, and I’m not boasting when I say this but since I came here the currant bushes have improved no end so I must be doing something right. Of course you have to be sensible, I don’t wade in hacking the whole bush down, I do prune back to a new shoot and all the usual stuff. If I remember right the currants are produced on new shoots put up for the base of the plant so removing the old wood with the berries on encourages the new shoot so I think that’s basically how it works. Anyway I enjoyed my lazy afternoon in the sun. By the way red and white currants grow different to black currants so don’t try this with either of them or you would probably have no fruit next year.

Day Lily Close-up.

Hi Everyone, I hope your day was as good as mine. The day started with an interesting new project for me and finished with getting some weeding done and there were lots of other gardening done in between which was good as I hate things to start backing up on me.

Vicki is out tonight so I got my own dinner and sat for a bit watching the World Touring Car race that I had recorded from last weekend. Its not my favourite series to watch but its okay to pass the time.

Vicki wants the Passion flower training up the front of the house and I'm in two minds whether to do that now although I tend to think I won't as I have to take Tom for his walk yet which usually has two options, a short walk to the farm and back or a full two mile spin round the block, I sorta favour the latter tonight.

I did take you load of pics of todays proceedings but I can't really be bothered with them so I will probably put them on some other time but I will post a close up of the Day Lily flower as I promised I would last night.

Day Lily (Hemerocallis).

Hello everyone, how are you all doing today? This week from the flower garden I’m going to show you some of the Day Lily (Hemerocallis) that we have growing. These flower throughout July and in to August. If planting some yourself anytime do so spacing them 18 inches apart. They will live in most types of soil and in full sun as these are, or in partial shade. They don’t like dryness at the roots so add plenty of compost before planting and if the weather is dry you may water them well. Other than that you should have little trouble growing them. Sorry for the lack of a close up but my batteries went dead after I took this but I will try and remember to get a close up tomorrow.

Thank you those who wished Tippy well, she is much better tonight and was even after a piece of pork pie, I had to refuse though as I didn't want the hard crust to hurt her mouth. she had a couple of double rooted and one triple rooted tooth out besides the five single rooted teeth at the front so as you can imagine it must have been quite sore so I'm giving her soft food for a while.