April in Your Garden - Page 6

KG each year I say this will be my last attempt but I am trying to recapture a taste of childhood but my grandparents did have a greenhouse.

My dad sows GD from seed each year and always gives me six of his plants.  I grow mine on the patio and he grows his in the greenhouse.  They both produce crops at the same time and the fruit tastes the same but my plants always look happier.  It is quite sunny where I live and the patio gets a lot of sunshine.

Wintersong-I have non-gardening neighbours -one side is just grass that gets cut for 3 hours every 4 weeks-the other side is a numskull,who allows his cat to mess everywhere and doesn't know a dandelion from a rose-I fail too see the point of buying a house with a biggish garden if you don't use the garden.

I do belt and braces - each year I grow some in the gh, and some outdoors. Last year I grew 3 GD in a border, 2 San Marino in pots next to a sunny wall, 2 Brandywine in 1 gh, 2 GD and 1 Alicante in the other. For the first time in years the outdoor ones didn't get blight (hurrah), but given the choice and the weather, I do think that outdoor ones taste best. As my ghouses are on hard standing, I grow them in pots filled with a mixture of growbag and home made compost, and stand them on a long tray filled with gravel - just seems to make it easier to water them. I also didn't pinch out the outdoor ones, as I read that it makes them more prone to blight, and the GD got enormous. THis year I've got 6 GD on the go, and 3 Alicante. I'm also trying to get some rather elderly moneymaker seed going for a tetraplegic friend - MM certainly wouldn't be my first choice.Right, off to get in bath (got soaked in hailstorm bringing in the washing). Bloke and I off to the seaside as fish 'n' chip shop there just been voted second best in the country. Somehow think we won't be eating it outside...

I cannot believe it another sunny morning, I have moved some plants around and transplanted some seedlings. I am nervous to do too much in case the weather does get a lot colder.

I am a tomato growing failure 

I had a nice chat with some men about the watchtower mag, they liked my views on the afterlife.

Chips are yummy 

Kate-you could rig up a temporary structure to protect your tomatoes and bring them on a bit with canes and some clear polythene-in a square -does that make sense?

It is no good talking to the watchtower people -they are so set in their ways you cannot convince them about anything different-I have tried

Fancy chips now

Just stumbled across this

http://www.gardenersworld.com/galleries/

dahlias

Or this

http://helengazeley.typepad.co.uk/gardenwriter/2010/08/how-stop-tomato-potato-blight.html

That is a bit mean taunting me with Dahlias in April.

I know but I thought it might be nice to look ahead-some of those varieties look strangely familiar.

So how about a tomato shelter?

I had a tomato house but it did not work that well, difficult to water, difficult to access. I may need a rethink, I could try the spare room

Kate - I still have lots of different tomato seedlings left if you would like to try any-cherry varieties always seem to do better outside for me

Pam it is a lovely thought but I have just sown another 12, thank you. I will consider cherries though.

It's been mostly sunny here today apart from the odd 5 second short sharp shower.  I've been pulling up yet more forget me not seedlings and hand weeding the lawn.  I like daisies but hate dandilions so I just take out the latter and leave the former.  I've also chopped about 3' off the top of the monster rosemary because it was encroaching on the washing line again.  I smell strongly of rosemary now (just in case you wondered where the smell was coming from).

I usually grow Sweet Olive cherry tomatoes too but this year I didn't get around to sending off for any seeds.  They are are bit expensive and the garden centres don't stock them. 

Geoff - Is there way of telling if people are online now that we don't have any **'s?

The washing is in-got fed up with wet,dry, wet,dry,-now of course it is sunny and breezy.

There seems to be no indicator of who is on the board-one for the tecchy guys perhaps??

I have noticed that I am always signed in.

KG did you not do Geoffs freebie seeds?

I think what KG means there is no indicator about who is on the board when you are-might be useful or not -dunno

On beeb site I would have to sign in if I shut the comp down, here I am always logged in, it is useful for a late night chat but not necessarily accurate.

Neighbour is doing stuff

It's mostly been sunny, bright or a quick shower today so I've been landscaping a patch of land at the very, very bottom of my garden that housed my cuttings, compost bins and one large veg bed which I halved for crop rotations. Oh, and stuff that needs to go to the tip, shame on me. My excuse is that I can't drive, but I can dig.

So, I now have a total of six veg beds although the two newest ones need good soil added yet, so I will fill them by next spring with compost and manure. I also dug over half of the paths between the beds to clear the perennial weeds and smooth it all out, (it slopes slightly) and I'll finish it off in the coming week. I don't have anything to make paths yet, but I really can't stand another year of mowing the lump weedy patch. I'll sort out some paving in the autumn probably. . Anyhow, I'm a very happy bunny, hope you guys are also.