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Mid June
My plants, garden and allotment are in a weird place – not at all where I wanted them to be… I seem very behind on the blooming of flowers and I am beginning to doubt if they will flower at all TBH. Well not a lot I can do about it now – but I need to make a note to be more prepared 2023. I am tending to only sow seeds of plants that I love – for me at the moment they are too tricky to grow if I don’t really like the flower or plant I just don’t enjoy it. I am sowing my biennial seeds this…
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Ideas For Planting Biennials 22
Pencilled in to my seed planting diary June 21st Summer Solstice – Biennials are sown usually end of June-ish and should flower the following year. I am going to try sowing these in the soil blockers and Lupins I just love Lupins and I have too many seeds already really but I am going to order more – what is they say to plant a seed is to believe in tomorrow… So I have PinkFairy Sunrise (these are annual so I will not sow these now but spring to flower in the summer) I am going to order and sow in June The Governor (Navy Blue) Mixture of all the…
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Allotment Update
So as the weather warms up I feel like I can finally spend more time down at the allotment – its not that you can’t go in the cold! HA or wet! HA its just that I really really can’t do cold mainly – wet is ok if its warm (doesn’t happen really in the UK, warm rain… ummm). In the bed below I have nigella and delphiniums Here I have Carnations and statice white in the small cell tray and then apricot in the round pots. The beds are wooden sided – made from dismantled pallets – they are 1m wide by 2m long the base is cardboard in…
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Geums
Yet another flower I adore! This year (2022) is the first year I have grown them from seed and I am very impressed I have sown Lady Stratheden seeds from here. Also sown Blazing Sunset seeds from Chiltern Seeds . Many of the other variety seem particularly difficult to find seeds for – I have now found out that this is because some can only be propagated so I will need to invest in a few plants, or get some more plugs when they come back in stock – keep them healthy and then propagate like a crazy lady so I have plenty and also back ups for frost and…
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Dahlia Order
All the pictures of Dahlias are ones that I ordered in a crazy mad shopping spree (retail therapy) – by the time I ordered them it was basically the end of ordering season so we will see how they are… the prices were just too good to walk click past and I went and bought too many for me really. Anyway scroll down to see what I ordered and I will hopefully photograph some of my own as and when they flower and see how they turn out. The above 2 photos are how the tubers arrived – some are smaller and some bigger… they all have an eye which…
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Mid May Thoughts
I am playing catch up BIG TIME – I didn’t autumn sow this year/last year… 2021 because my Autumn sow 2020 left me feeling huge over whelm both while sowing and then in the spring when supposed to be ‘bumping up‘ most of the negative feelings came from the house move we had to do – it wasn’t my choice and really wasn’t a happy experience. So Autumn 2021 the decision was made not to autumn sow – I purchased seeds and basically got myself somewhat ready for an Amazing spring sow – with the idea of succession sowing – limited seeds / flowers not in numbers as in plant…
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Planting Equipment
There are so many shopping lists and so much equipment you can buy out there for planting seeds – below I will share with you what I have trialled and where I got most of it from and share some links to helpful advise you may like to look at too. So if you haven’t already read here in previous posts I started my seed sowing journey in earnest in the Summer of 2020 -yes like so many millions of others… a direct connection with Covid-19 (or Rona coming to stay as I say! – good ol Aunty Rona HA HA) Lockdown hit and we were house bound – I…
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Soil Blockers
In 2020 when I first started planting seeds in earnest I used the below seed trays and last year (2021) when I ramped up and started planting seeds like a mad crazy woman – packets and packets at a time – I decided that the small trays… were just not really working for me for various reasons… I will do a more in-depth round up of equipment I have trialled for you. Above seed trays are about £4 for 5 trays from most garden centres and stores… You can get other brands at varying prices. So I began to look into alternative methods and solutions – I decided on 2…
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Tulips
Autumn 2020 I bought a fair few bulbs – Tulips are one of my very very favourite flower I just adore all stages of them. It was the first year that I actually ordered any particular ones – previously I have bought bags from the garden centres and never really considered types or colours. 2020 I changed my mind and poured over the catalogues and order certain ones – you can see what I ordered and read about it here and also part 2. After disappointment and just generally feeling meh about growing them I decided this year (21-22) I would just see what happened to the ones that I…
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Daffodils
I have never planted or grown daffs – I always thought I would if I had a garden of my own – the garden I have at the moment is with our house that is rented and they have lovely daffs, which I am enjoying seeing this spring. Also general daffs are so so cheap in the shops it seems a shame to cut them from the garden – however during the last 2 or so years I am realising what huge range / varieties are out there that I am just loving that I am going to make a list and grow some of the more unusual ones for…