Now this hasn’t happened for ages, but nothing was going on this weekend. No cinema, no bell ringing, no seeing family. It was just me in the garden for the entire weekend. Obviously there was the usual shopping and household chores to do, but most of those were done on Saturday morning. It was then just me and my plants….it was beautiful.

Mark and I fixed the top of the wooden box which our oil tank goes in and I gave it another couple of coats of paint. The hinges had broken and new bigger ones went on. Yes we have oil based heating and hot water, and gas canisters….we live out in the sticks. We do have mains water and electricity, but sometimes the water gets switched off and we’re not told, and we have frequent mini power cuts. But you get used to it after a while and I never reset the timer on the oven or fridge freezer because it’s pointless.

But we do have wildlife all around from bunnies hopping around the back field and round the front and scooting across the road in front of the car, peacocks calling to each other, sheep and lambs in the field down the road, rhea’s grumbling as you walk past and a myriad of different birds flitting about, some small, some medium and some marsh harriers and the occasional owl and bats. The local swans in the stream are now teaching their babies about the Green Cross Code. Us locals drive sensibly, it’s the out of villagers that drive like idiots. Drive past them really, really slowly and carefully.

I got loads done in the garden so here goes. I know it’s early, but I’ve checked the weather and we are not due any more frosts in the south east of the UK so my Runner beans can now be planted out. The French beans are quite large enough so I’ll leave them for a little longer.

Here’s a video showing how I plant out mine…..

I then planted out my Cucumbers, all the varieties I have are outdoor ones so the beans are growing one side of the arch and the cues are growing the other. Hopefully they’ll meet at the top and make friends. I want to walk under my arch harvesting cues and beans all summer long. I have small dreams and little things make me smile.

When planting out your cucumbers, dig a hole a little larger than the pot they are growing in, carefully remove the plant from the pot and put it in the hole. Fill the soil around the plant and lean it against the bamboo cane. As it grows it should cling to the cane, but you might have to help it to start with.

The greenhouse needed another water, and now after the rain we had on Friday all my butts are full!! Yay!!

I wanted to get as many veggies planted out in the raised beds this weekend, because I’ll need to pot up my peppers, melons, and tomatoes very soon.

I planted out the remainder of my leeks. Planting these out is different from most other plants, so here’s a video explaining it in more detail…..

My Celeriac is growing really well. It started off slowly, but once I’d pricked out the seedlings and put them in individual pots they suddenly had a growth spurt. I’ve planted each one about 6-8 inches apart from each other so hopefully I’ll have something to harvest later in the autumn.

Celery went in next. I’ve planted these on the other side of the bed to the celeriac so I don’t get them confused. They look exactly the same, well they are closely related to each other. I suppose you could call them second cousins. This is the first time I’ve grown celery so it’ll be interesting to see how they get on.

The last bit of space in the back bed is for the Sweetcorn and the cucurbits (courgettes, pumpkins and butternut). This year the first lot of Sweetcorn didn’t germinate so I sowed some more a week ago. One has only just started to pop through the soil. If no more has arrived next weekend, then I’ll sow some more. Doesn’t matter if the sweetcorn goes in a little later as I can just fit it in amongst the cucurbits.

Here’s a little video on how I plant out mine……

Apart from a little bit of weeding that was it for this weekend. The greenhouse has a little more space in it now, but I’ll soon fill that up when I plant my peppers, melons and tomatoes in their final pots, but that’ll be a job for next weekend.

Hope you had a wonderful weekend and a wonderful week.

TTFN

Claire xx