Simple pleasures

Today was a good day, although I wasn't expecting it to be. It was the day of the teachers' strike and I had one grandchild at school and the other at home.

We did lots of things, I tried to make them enjoyable and educational. A bit of writing practice with stickers because he needs to improve his writing and I slipped in some reading too, because he needs to improve that too. He did really well and didn't complain.

Later we went for a walk and I tried to get him to remember all the things we'd seen, heard and smelt so he could tell mummy later.  Like the sound of the crickets in the grass and the butterfly which I couldn't identify, the smell of the blossom in the hedges and the newly cut grass of the nearby playing fields. Even the sight of a police car and later the sound of a siren, because he seemed to be obsessed with robbers today.  We had a chat with a lady who was sat on a bench and fortunately he commented on the fact that she had a funny voice when she was out of earshot!  Although I didn't think she had a funny voice.

He didn't complain when I suggested we did some gardening after lunch and was over the moon when I produced some new gardening gloves specially designed for little people. 
I deadheaded and he put stuff in the trug. We went round the garden looking for plants which were nice to touch or smell, like swishy grasses, soft fluffy flowers and scented herbs and lavenders.

I don't know if he will remember much of today, but I will, because it was a good day.

Selling plants in the rain

It poured with rain for the school summer fair.  Our plant stall was out in the school yard, in between the bouncy castle and the barbecue. My daughter and I coped as best as we could, sheltering under a gazebo, taking turns to go inside school to try out the bottle stall and  the tombola, get ourselves a warm drink or try to persuade people to come outside and buy some plants.

There seemed to be very few customers.  Some came to chat to us, some to just look, some to shelter from the rain.  But this being the third year we've done a plant stall, we now have some regular customers.  Amazingly this turned out to be our best year yet for takings, we raised over £100 and money is still coming in.  I don't know how we did it, but we were pleased.  It made standing around in the rain for several hours worthwhile.

Now I'm wondering what to do for next year. I feel it's time for something different, but what that is, well I haven't decided.  So watch this space.

Campanulas

I walked round the garden yesterday, as I do every day, and I noticed that the campanulas were in flower. 'Well how did that happen?'  I thought, 'when I walk around every day and notice what is about to start flowering'. They had surprised me. One day they were just buds, the next they were a mass of flowers.

Perhaps I'd not really taken much notice as the weather has been pretty rainy of late. Maybe I've rushed around the garden not looking properly.  Well, it doesn't really matter does it?  Because they are there now, and looking so lovely, tall and dainty, moving gently in the breeze. I will look every day now and enjoy them.

Plant stall

On Saturday it's the Summer Fair at my grandchildrens' school. For the last 2 years, since the eldest started school, my daughter and I have run the plant stall.  The first year it was a bit of a last minute thought that we could do it and we gathered together what plants we both had to make up a decent stall. I always have plant cuttings potted up around the garden ready for those requests from church coffee mornings, so we didn't do too badly.  The next year I was much better prepared, with more plants, perennials, annuals, vegetables, herbs and  we had 4 tables almost collapsing under the weight!

We've had great fun each time, selling our plants and talking to people about gardening. We even encouraged children to get gardening.  When they arrived at the stall with 50p to spend we gave them courgette plants, strawberries, sunflowers and anything which was easy and fun to grow.  I had a couple of jam jars with flowers I'd cut from the garden, just to decorate the stall and one little girl bought them for her mum!

Each year when we've finished, we think about how we can improve things for the next year. I start potting up cuttings in the autumn and then again in the spring.  I find plants sell better if they are in flower. Perennials are the most popular, although some annuals sell quite well such as cosmos and sweet peas.  It can get difficult finding more variety of plants to sell as I am limited to what I have in my own garden. We try to save vegetable plants from our own allotment planting.   This year we  have some purple sprouting broccoli, kale, squash, courgette, tomatoes and climbing beans.

We found that people wanted to leave the plants to pick up later whilst they go around and enjoy the fair.  So we now have a 'Plant Creche' so they can 'buy now, collect later'. Pricing the plants is difficult as I know how much they would cost in the garden centre, but at a school fair, people want bargains. So the big healthy looking ones I price slightly lower than the garden centre and then there are others which may not look as good which go cheaper.

As the day of the Summer Fair gets closer, I am looking forward to getting my garden back.  For the last few months there have been plants all over the place, along the paths, on the potting benches, stacked up in the grow houses. It will be great to be able to walk through the garden without falling over boxes of pots.  I just hope we manage to sell them all or at least most of them, I don't really want to have to bring them back home.
And looking at the weather today, with the rain heaving down, I'm hoping for a dry day.

Busy at the allotment

Our allotment visits are usually just at weekends unless we need to harvest or water midweek, so when we go at the weekend we can see what a difference a week makes.

Most things were doing really well when we visited at the weekend. I'm pleased with the brassicas they look really healthy and hopefully well protected by the new netting  frame which my husband made.

 
The broad beans were amazing and looked to have grown at least 2 feet, but probably not!

The peas are doing well too but I must take more notice of planting distances on seed packets as they were very overcrowded.

The climbing french beans were looking a bit sad and some had died since last week's planting, so I planted some of my 'spare' plants in the spaces left.   I don't know what the problem is, maybe poor soil or cold.  I also sowed some dwarf french beans in between the  fruit bushes. I planted some celeriac which I've grown from seed. I've  never grown or eaten it before so that's something to look forward to. Also sowed some oriental radish in between the rows of celeriac. Another new plant to try out.

The brassica bed is full of weeds, so I started weeding there, but it really needs an afternoon just focusing on weeding and we didn't have enough time on Saturday.

We were pleased to see the sweet peas planted in old tyres are starting to take off. They had looked a bit sad for a few weeks but now they are racing up the netting.

The fruit is coming along fine and the rhubarb is looking good, but I'm not picking it as it is in its first year. Shame!

My husband started work on the compost heaps after the council workers had almost destroyed all the work we had done so far. They had been doing some cutting back of conifers and some weeding around the plots and just chucked all these perennial weeds and stones on everyones' compost heaps. He cleared all the unwanted weeds and stones from our bins and put old carpet down on top of the heaps.

Every time we've been recently I've meant to sow swede seeds, but either forget or run out of time. That's a job for next weekend.  I also think we need more flowers to brighten the place up.  We planted some nasturtium in each raised bed last week, and the sweet peas will look lovely when they are in flower.  I've got some calendula seedlings at home which I'll take along next weekend .

Plenty of jobs to keep us busy.!

Sorting out my houseplants

The other day for a change I did some indoor gardening. I'm not really good with indoor plants, I forget to water them. But the front porch was looking a bit of a mess.   It needed tidying up since I'd moved the geraniums back outside after their winter hibernation.  The remaining plants were a few pots of rather tired looking Christmas cacti and an ancient Swiss cheese plant.  By ancient I mean nearly 40 years old. I bought it soon after we got married. Although I don't particularly like it, I feel that as it's survived so long under my care it deserves to remain there for as long as it is able to. I wouldn't like anyone to throw me in the dustbin, just because I'm old and past my best.

After a good sweep up of  all the dead leaves and petals from the geraniums, a mop of the floor and a wipe of the sill it all looked a bit empty.  "More plants needed", I thought,  'Something new to liven it up a bit'. But they would have to be sturdy, able to stand a bit of neglect.  Well, lots of neglect, if I was to be honest.  They would also not have to mind being in direct sun as it's a very sunny south facing porch.

So off I went to the garden centre to have a look at their indoor plants.  There was a large selection of plants to look at, but as most of them said on the label, 'keep out of direct sunlight', they weren't much use to me.

Then I spotted the succulents, not the prickly cacti sort, but the big fleshy leaved ones. There was a large Echiveria with flower buds on it that caught my eye.  I grow them outdoors in the summer and bring them in for the winter.  I'd never thought of growing them inside all the time.  The other plant has big leaves, I don't know what it's called but it's interesting. The great thing is that they like being in the sun.

Back home with my new plants, I potted them up into terracotta pots, topped with a layer of gravel and placed them on the porch windowsill. They look good, but I hope they'll stand the neglect.

Garden visiting

I love visiting  other people's gardens. Partly because I'm nosey but also because I can steal ideas. So throughout the summer at weekends, when I'm not too busy in my own garden, I'm often to be found visiting NGS gardens, with whoever I can cajole into coming with me. That's usually either my husband or my daughter, but sometimes I go on my own.

I always bring ideas back from my garden visits, even though  the gardens may be much, much bigger than my own. It might be just a seating area,  a colour scheme, plants which I've not used before or an unusual container arrangement.

There are some wonderful gardens in the National Gardens Scheme and they are not all big gardens. Last weekend we went to a village where a group of cottages were open. There were 4 cottage gardens, and they were amazingly beautiful. Two of them were small, long narrow gardens. The design of these 2 gardens was quite inspirational as to what you can do with a small area.  The owners had divided their gardens up so that it gave an illusion of space, like going through into different rooms. The other 2 gardens were bigger and also had their gardens made up as different spaces, so that you didn't see the whole garden at once.

All 4 of the gardens were real cottage gardens, packed full of plants which tumbled over the edges of borders in a lovely informal way. I love this style of planting and try to create it in my own garden. There were a lot of oohs and aahs and gasps of admiration coming from me as we walked round.

I also loved the way they all had surprises around every corner, like a little seating area, a statue, bird bath or some other interesting feature tucked in amongst the plant foliage.

Visiting gardens like these could make me feel a little envious, but on the whole I return to my own garden bubbling with ideas and it often gives me a new enthusiasm to go off and create something new.

Too much to do

One day last weekend I had a bad moment whilst in the garden.  I decided that I was fed up with gardening. There were so many jobs needing doing I just felt totally overwhelmed by it all. Every time I turned round I would see another job which needed doing. And then there was more to do at the allotment too.
I should be enjoying the garden, I thought, not working myself until I dropped.

Well, a week later I'm feeling better about it all. I've had a good week, lots of jobs done.  I've even managed to sit in the sunshine and enjoy being in the garden, (not for long though).  Chatting to a couple of gardening friends the other day and comparing notes made me realise it's not just me who spends huge amounts of time working in the garden.  I've also done some garden visiting (that's for another blog post). Now those people who open their gardens to the public really have their work cut out. That would really stress me out, I'm sure.

So I will continue to garden because I know that you never get to the end of a garden jobs list and for the garden to look good I have to work hard. But I will try to find more time to enjoy the results of all my work.