Seeds

Today I sewed Marmande tomato seeds and some I collected from yummy fat cherry tomatoes from the shop. I hope they come out. A bit late but I was waiting to have some windows placed at the back where it is light enough. We'll see.

Some spring things

I started going to the gym and it's great, because my joints have improved to the point that I can even dig in the garden :D it's very satisfying. There are so many signs of spring! green buds and little growing leaves everywhere.

Hyacints

I dug a little around the roses and hyacints. I saw that the hop vine is alive and well, yay! Also signs of life on lilac, broom and elder in this area. I should fill in a bit with more soil, perhaps add mulch.

I started digging the stubborn, old grass tufts off around the fruit tree area as well. Some kinds of grass do not let go of the ground at all until they dry out completely, luckily we just have two mountains of soil from where we are excavating close to the house, so I just filled it up and piled the grass tufts nearby.

That's one mountain of soil

This weekend we had a look in Aldi and I brought back a cherry tree, six strawberry plants, a packet of peruvian daffodil bulbs and some seed packets (they're like 40 cents there) and a box with mixed bulbs.

The box is entitled 30X COLOUR COLLECTION, but I got it because all the flowers are white, haha. There's 1x Dahlia, 3x Lilies, 5X Freesia, 10x Gladiolus and 11x Anemones "the bride".  That's all the information in the box, apart from planting depth etc, Aldi as usual is a bit of a bet. I hope some of these come out, especially the anemones which I love, I planted some before but they didn't turn out. In the peruvian daffodil (Hymenocallis festalis) packet there were just three bulbs.

The cherry tree is "Rheinische Schattenmorelle" and it's supposed to be sour. We removed last year's dead cherry tree and planted this one, it just one thin stem of about a metre, but it had green buds and it was cheap so I got it. It is in the first picture on the far left.

The daffodils went in in between the other ones which are already up, but not blooming yet. I planted the rest of the bulbs and the poured the contents of three seed packets around the fruit tree area, these are white alyssum (Lobularia maritima), a mix of cornflower and Lobelia "Kristallpalast". I didn't cover or anything and it rained right afterwards.

Also planted the strawberries in between the others, (I've done some weeding but there's still some), and Pim planted the tree.

Strawberry mess

Today I also weeded what has other years been used as a vegetable bed, around the perimeter we transplanted the herbs that were evicted from what is going to be a terrace some time ago. So today there I sowed some peas: sugar snaps "Delikett" and mangetout "Norli" (Aveve), two rows of each. The sugar snaps are closer to the pallets. I also poured the content of a white California poppy (Eschscholzia californica) seed packet from Aveve around the fruit tree area.

I also "Speedy" beans. So I still have enough space to weed and plant a few of these beans...

Don't have pictures of this area yet. It's behind the soil mountain on the second photo.

Sowing a few things, bit of an experiment

Today I sprinkled a few violet seeds around the... "snowdrop bed", then sprinkled some compost on top. Same with some Eryngium seeds around the thyme and rosemary heap.

Also sprinkled spinach seeds around the empty (ish, it has some weeds...) bed where the courgettes were, and dug in some random pea seeds I collected this year (as an experiment), and some more chard seeds sprinkled in there and the bed next to the tomatoes. These chard seeds I got from a pot where I planted some this year and let it bolt.

Sowing

Today I sowed (?) stuff in the area Pim cleared away.

Tada

First, all along the perimeter I sowed a mix of seeds we got in a box, supposed to deter slugs. They're gonna be laughing all the way to the bank. In any case I'm at least hoping for some nice flowers, it's like dwarf nasturtium, borago, calendula and stuff like that.

Then I used some long bamboo sticks held in place with small bits of bamboo to make little "paths" limiting the "beds".

In order from the front towards the back of the picture, I planted a little bit of rucola (path), three rows of karina peas, which are low (path); three rows of paris market or something carrots [which are small and round] (path); one row of egyptian? beets [also small](path);  and two rows of radishes, one red and one white tipped, that came in ribbons (handy).

I actually ran out of peas (packet was like two years old) by the end of the first row (first in the picture) so I put in a few more beets there, closer to the wall.

We'll see!

We also replanted a Boston ivy at the front. Unfortunately last year's didn't make it :( I am afraid I underestimated how dry the conditions are on the front façade. At least the local garden center has just the kind I like.

New Boston ivy

 I also took a few photos with the camera.

Welcome to your summer!

Hi there smaller ones.

This dude hovered and I thought it looked more like a bee than a fly.
In the photo now the wings look like a fly's to me.

Loki as usual trying to chew on branches.

Violet sprout

Against all odds, a violet sprouted, and before anything else!

Viola odorata

No fridge, no cold frame... just a windowsill in April :)

Edit later: it wasn't violet...

Sowing 2014-04-10

Today I sowed some seeds I ordered from Nicky's Nursery. I got a free packet of wildflower seeds with my order!

I have to say I ignored the instructions in the package. Plenty of seeds left to try again if any of these fail.

I didn't plant all of the seeds I ordered (like for example myrtle which is probably foolish, since getting these to germinate is apparently quite difficult).

I sowed pak choi (Brassica rapa var. chinensis), birdhouse gourd (Lagenaria siceraria), catnip (nepeta cataria), violets (viola odorata). The violet needs to spend a cold winter outside (or some weeks in the fridge) before it germinates so it is probably useless!

Plantings 2014-04-02

I ordered two bare roots roses from David Austin (great service), they arrived a few days later in good condition, although the way they had been trained left us a little puzzled.

We hope we have planted them correctly! The two branches would have been completely against the soil (if not actually under it, if planting the spot where they begin growing several centimetres under, if we understood the French booklet correctly - so helpfully unhelpful, not all of Belgium speaks French! - so we planted the root horizontally, with the branches sticking somewhat upwards.

The picture is a week later, when some signs of life are already visible:

Rosa Mulliganii

These are ramblers, and they're meant to go up a large arch, eventually. We thought we could as well already plant them to give them some time to grow. Likely the wrong way to do things!

I chose them because they're white, scented, attractive to pollinators (the flowers are small, single and fragant), produce lots of flowers and then rosehips, and apparently very vigorous. I hope the locations are sunny enough!

I also planted seeds for sweet peas (from Ikea! I actually think I planted these around the end of March), ornamental gourds, pumpkin and courgette. A lot of Curcubita!