Busy Fingers

It might appear that, whilst I have not been typing, my fingers have been idle. But no... they have been very, very busy fingers; busy in the garden, pulling up weeds, sowing seeds and generally tidying up. The day we spent cleaning the greenhouse motivated me to continue pushing forward with the garden and whenever the sun has been shining my Little Garden Helpers have been bundled into their dungarees and wellies with a trowel in hand.

We have been helped along the way by Garden Dad taking a long weekend to finish the painting in the house once and for all. He was joined by Grandad South, whose help meant that Garden Dad was free to use some of his time off to build some greenhouse staging. This isn't entirely finished yet but he assures me he will have it completed at the weekend and I am certain he will write a post about his design and workmanship when he has finished.

We were also joined on Monday by our friend who has regularly come along to get stuck into the hard garden graft and I doubt she was surprised to find herself faced with an overgrown patch of weeds filled with big roots. The task was too tough for me at just 7 weeks away from due date, so I was incredibly grateful to have someone offer help and create a lovely patch of ground out of the wilderness for our three fruit bushes (Gooseberry, redcurrant and whitecurrant).

With the fruit bushes settling into their new home, and some greenhouse staging available for seed pots, our Little Garden Helpers and I have been pulling up weeds, removing large stones and sowing seeds. So far, half the garden is weeded and ready for planting and we have planted our onion and shallot sets, interspersed with beetroot (Boltardy and Pronto). Garden Boy made a good attempt at sowing beetroot seeds in a straight line, very carefully picking up one seed, slowly moving his hand to the exact position and then, at the last minute, throwing the seed in the air to land anywhere but where it should have been. He was ever so proud of his attempts though and as our pathways are just mud, who knows, some of them might actually grow into fully formed beetroots. We did have quite a few spring onions and spindly leeks growing in the pathways last year!

Garden Boy did much better with the shallots and onions, as I made very obvious holes for him to drop them in and he really loved doing this, counting the holes as he filled them. He had to start counting again when he reached the number three but he tried his best to count a full row of eight.  Garden Girl was at playgroup when we doing this but has since joined in enthusiastically with all the pot sown seeds, taking great care to place the right amount of seeds in each pot, equally spaced and well watered. She really is an expert now and it hasn't taken much for her to remember everything she learned last year. She also delights in passing her knowledge on to Garden Boy, who receives the instruction eagerly at first, but eventually, after too much telling, will start to shake his head, shouting a loud 'no, no, no, nooooooo' before walking away till Garden Girl apologises and agrees to let him do what he wants.

In amongst all these fun and games we have managed to sow;

Aubergine; Black Beauty
Cucumber; Conqueror and Telegraph
Chilli Peppers; Hot Caribbean Blend
Sweet Peppers; Sweet Tamar Mix
Tomato Seeds; Gardener's Delight, Saint Pierre, Tigerella, Mirabelle Bianche, Tumbling Tom, Totem
Brussels Sprout; Noisette
Lettuce; Roxy, All Year Round

All these need slightly higher temperatures than our unheated greenhouse will be providing, so are currently sitting by the loft window enjoying the sunshine until they germinate, when they will then be put into the greenhouse.

In the greenhouse already, however, we now have

Coriander, Santos
Sweet Basil
Dwarf French Beans; Cannellino
Courgette; Gold Rush

And we even managed to sow a selection of oriental salad leaves in the ground including a 'stir fry mix', Choy Sum Hon Tsai Tai and Mizuna Japanese Greens, although I fear the wood pigeons have already found the seeds. Last year we didn't manage to successfully produce a single salad leaf so when they are not busy sowing seeds or pulling up weeds our fingers are firmly crossed for some salad this year.