Posts Tagged ‘Just Starting’

Soil, Seeds and Seed Trays

Just how exciting can a seed be, have I gone too far?

You know it wasn’t that long ago that the mere hint of gardening would send me instantly to sleep, but things have certainly changed since then. I know this because I found myself bizarrely sitting in the dining room one evening with a bucket of soil, a bag load of seeds and some seed trays because I hadn’t gotten around to planting that day and it was far too cold (and dark) to go outside.

Enthusiastic or crazy? You decide!

So as you may have gathered I have really gone to town with the whole growing this year. I have started from scratch at the right time of the year and have even read all of the instructions on the reverse of the seed packets.

If that wasn’t enough I have also commandeered the kitchen wipe board and drawn up an instruction table noting all applicable planting and harvesting times.

Every window ledge in the house is now home to a number of different seeds. Taking ‘growing your own’ to a new level, we have onions and carrots in the bedroom, tomatoes, aubergines, courgettes, peppers and cucumbers in the study, seed potatoes ‘chitting’ in the kitchen along with some Dill and Rosemary growing in Hug Pots.

For some reason I get strange looks when I tell people that.

How odd…..

Eager to get the Cultivation Station raised bed up and running we went out into the garden again last evening to attempt a bit of planting – even though it was raining. That’s either very sad or extremely dedicated!

Now, following the lovely smell from yesterday and the lack of gardening gloves, I managed to dig out some plastic hair dye gloves which I was hoping would be just as effective. Even if I do look like some kind of surgeon.

Out with the tools I proceeded to dig a hole in one of the sections and went to claim my first victim, the strawberry plant.

As I stood there pulling at the plant, trying to yank it out of its pot, it was suggested that maybe I might be better off trying to loosen the pot from the soil base instead of pulling the plant to pieces.

I knew that….

Anyway so after some troweling (new term) all the pepper plants are now together at the back of the raised bed we had created, with the tomatoes and strawberry plant all complete with identification labels.

We decided to plant some broccoli and some onions too, red ones and spring ones, I think they are done correctly. Placing the seeds Daisyboots had kindly donated to us I started poking holes in the soil with my finger, putting in the seeds and then covering them over.

Now I was wondering, would I need a net to stop the birds eating the strawberries? I’m not sure.

We do have a lot of Mag Pies, and they are greedy Mag Pies. We recently bought some fat balls for the sparrows and alike and we would put one out during the day and by morning the whole thing would be gone – net and all. That was definitely not the sparrows.

For one of the corner areas Rich decided he would like to try and plant something. And so I present to you;

 **Rich’s Random Experiment**

 Will it grow?

Who knows.

Only time will tell!

Last night we gathered up the Cultivation Station pieces ready for assembly in the garden.  We were so keen to get going we started after dinner!

With four large pieces and four corner pieces I was actually surprised I could easily walk around with them because they are so light. I was also afraid they might blow away and I would have to spend the rest of the evening knocking on peoples doors asking them ‘please sir/madam, can I have my Cultivation Station back’.

After Rich made me do ten circuits of our garden we eventually decided to put our new growing plot near the patio. Assembling was easy enough although being on a slope didn’t help when it came to locking the pieces together. Some of them were a bit tight to slide together at an angle so I found assembly on the patio much easier to do as it was a much flatter and firmer surface.

I was told by Daisyboots’ (ooops that’s me in trouble again) to put the grow bags in first, water them and leave them overnight and then plant in the next couple of days.
So we got the bags and I decided opening them would be best done with a firm stabbing motion of the trowel. Granted, in hindsight it wasn’t the best idea, and I hadn’t prepared myself for the smell that was about to emanate from said hole.
 
‘Is it supposed to smell like this?’ I asked. (long pause) ‘Yes’.

‘Oh dear’, my thoughts soon turned to the rest of the unopened bags that lay before me and the lack of gardening gloves.

Planting tomorrow hopefully!

After talking with my colleagues including Natasha Daisyboots (that’s me in trouble) our resident office expert, well she knows more than me that’s for sure! We drew up a rough sketchy plan of what I could do in the garden and it was decided we would potter down to the garden centre and pick up some suitable plants.

‘What would you like to plant?’ They asked.
I responded with a blank look upon my face, and then gingerly said ‘pineapples?’
No response.

Our shopping trip ended up with a tomato plant, two pepper plants and a strawberry plant, without the terracotta pot as I have a phobia of them.
Stop laughing I really do.

Following delivery by a colleague my garden is now full of plants, compost and containers and I’m wondering what on earth I am going to do with them.