In late may I potted on the peppers.
Over the bank holiday weekend at the end of the month I potted on the sunflowers, as they needed extra space, plus the cucumbers (which seem to be struggling a bit to be honest) and the sprouts and cauliflowers that I have (only 6 of each).
The tomatoes I have been given are doing ok, bit I am conscious that a lot of stuff sprouted, and then seems to have ground to a halt in its development. I don’t know whether that is due to the strange weather, and/or the drop in temperature.
The Asian lilies are about to flower, as are the first of the peruvian lilies.
To be honest, a lot of garden stuff is merely holding actions, as I am having to do decorating at the same time.
Last weekend of May/start of June – I spotted the first balloon plant flowers! The wisteria has several flower buds on it, which is pleasing. We’re hoping that over the course of summer it spreads all the way across the pergola. The Asian lilies are flowering, and look nice (except some beetles are having a proper munch of their leaves). I planted out some sweet pea, morning glory, cosmos and marigolds into some big planters, as they really needed moving on. I have other flowers that will need planting on really soon, so need to find a way to make some time.
I also spotted the blackcurrant plant seems to have a really positive crop coming along on it. I also purchased a few strawberry plants, and the fruits from those are being enjoyed (though at the moment they’re not as abundant as we’d like!)
In the first week of June I potted on a single pepper someone gave me, that is growing really well. My own peppers seem to have stalled – they sprouted, but then nothing. They just stayed the same height.
I potted on the basil, as these needed more space (I should have done this much earlier to be honest).
I started going through a few trays, and potted on the cornflowers, echinacea, lavatera, all of which were also over delayed actions.
When I split the big daisy a couple of months ago there were a few snippets that fell to one side. I popped those snippets into a pot to try to save them, and it worked, so that’s gone into a bigger pot.
I potted up the lupins as they were growing bigger – next stage will be to plant them out.
I potted up 4 of the rose cuttings for multi headed flowers that I took over a year ago. The rest will stay in their (too small) pots for now, but I’ll get round to them eventually
Someone gave me an aloe vera plant a few years ago. It’s now too big for the pot, so I have tried to take some cuttings from the shoots it has. I also am growing an excessive amount of spider plants, and have been potting some of these up recently too.
The section of the garden where I usually grow veg (but in recent years has seen more flowers end up there) is very overgrown. Needs a solid weeding session and stuff must be planted out there soon. The rain is welcome, but is delaying me doing this (alongside the much mentioned/moaned about decorating project…)
I had a busy weekend on the 2nd weekend of June – must be a sign that progress had been made with the decorating! I finally got around to weeding the veg patch. Owing to limited sowing/success this year, there are more flowers in there than veg. Before getting down to planting out I started picking blackcurrants. An hour later, I was still there picking blackcurrants. Definitely the biggest blackcurrant crop we’ve ever had (the bush appears settled finally, and the cuttings I took a couple of years ago are settling down). The raspberry bushes are also absolutely covered. Whilst collecting blackcurrants, noticed the wisteria is looking really good this year – lots more flowers than previous years, and starting to spread over the pergola we built.
I then planted out a number of the sunflowers we’ve sown. I moved some cauliflowers into some big individual pots.
I harvested a good batch of spring onions, and sowed more seeds for autumn.
I planted out the sprouts plants that have survived this far, and then planted out a series of flowers that were overdue in being planted out – cosmos, rudbeckia (though badly, and don’t expect them to do well), different types of marigold)
Obviously the cat and dog will lie in the veg patch now and ruin it all. That is, if the forecast dry weather doesn’t kill everything off.
Which reminds me, there are numerous plants which seem to have sprouted this spring, then simply “stopped” growing. Several things seem odd – the peppers did it, the cucumbers also seem to be struggling, a few of them dying off. Even a few of the bulbs in pots started, but seem to be smaller than previous years? It seems really weird.
July saw a bit of a lull in garden work, aside from potting on some basil plants (again feels exceptionally late to do so) and potting on a pepper. There’s a lot of watering happening with this heat, just to keep stuff alive. Appreciating the rain today, but it doesn't look like we're going to get the prolonged downpour they forecast.
Jasper).
. Tried to copy my text and nearly dropped my phone in. Somehow deleted it and just copied the word late
