A change of plan….

A few pics of our back garden in progress.

Raby Hall Garden Centre

I love, love, love this place and always manage to bring home an abundance of plants.  Yesterday Mum decided she needed some trailing plants and bedding plants for her hanging baskets, so I tagged along.

Having no intentions of buying anything I managed to come home with:

Jacobs Ladder

Alpines

Pretty Alpine

Thyme & Rosemary

Strawberries

So, if you’re ever on the Wirral and looking for a little cheap and cheerful garden centre then make sure you check out Raby Hall.  All money from sale of plants goes straight back into the Wirral Autistic Society, I couldn’t think of a better reason to buy some extra greens for the garden.

My feline safe herb garden.

Everyone knows that my cats and freshly dug garden spaces don’t mix.  Not even a little.  As much as I love my three furry monsters, I can’t stand it when they decide to do their business on my freshly planted out lobelia.  Just makes my blood boil.

So, after looking at the garden plan again and looking at my ‘in desperate need of planting out’ herbs I decided that I would have to take a different approach to the back garden space.  Armed with some bamboo, netting and garden wire I set to work on making the herb garden more of a herb garden and less of a cat crapping ground.

This is the end result:

Now, is this a tried and tested method?  I’m not sure.
Will it work? I don’t know.  But surely it’s worth a try?  I shall be on regular poo watch.

For anyone interested in what is planted out in the herb patch so far, I have: Thyme (Archers Gold & Creeping Red), Rosemary, Coriander, Dill, Sage, Fennel, Oregano and Parsley (I think), although there might be more.

How many of you have similar problems with cats and how do you stop them turning your garden space into toilets?

Goodbye Happy Pea.

Noticing that my first-born pea plants were looking a bit unhappy in the crowded pea planter, I set to work thinning them out and making room for the others to flourish.  Pulling them up and discarding the weedier ones is tough brutal, but I guess you have to be cruel to be kind when it comes to gardening.

I started tugging at what looked like two pea plants that had been sown right next to each other.  Only to find that the two pea plants were from the same seed.  It seems such a happy ‘twin’ pea, seems a shame to have disturbed it.

'Twin' Pea

What a day….

Lavenders & Lobelia

…. For getting down and dirty in the garden!

Salad Troughs

The sun surprised us by showing its face this morning.  Determined not to miss a good day of being outside I weeded the Lavender patch again – Seems like only yesterday when I did it last – trimmed the grass and sat back with a beer whilst the OH mowed the lawn.  Have to say our front garden is looking more like a ‘looked after’ garden now and less like a forest.  I did plan to do all sorts – finish digging the back garden, move my greenhouse, plant out the herb patch, lobelia, sweet peas and morning glories.  All I have managed to do is sow 4 troughs of mixed salad seeds (one of which is my BBC Dig In Salads), plant out the lobelia (bush blue and trailing white) in and around my lavenders (hopefully the ground cover will stop my cats from using the area as a toilet) and help pot on my Mum’s tree that we bought for her birthday.

Huge Lemon Balm leaves making themselves known by my front door.

Still, tomorrow is another day…..

Bank Holiday Diggin’

Making full use of the long weekend and armed with the lawn edging knife, spade, fork and some tunes, the garden is now starting to look like something usable and less like a forest of weeds.

5 hours later and I’m absolutely shattered.  The weather has been great.  Warm with a gentle cool breeze.  I’m just hoping it’s like this tomorrow so I can get a bit more done.  I’m dreading the task of relocating the compost bin though.

Everything in the greenhouse seems to be coming on strong.

Pea Planter, finally out of the greenhouse.

My one and only Iceberg Lettuce.

Lavender

My little helper.

Race for Life.

This lovely man here is my granddad.  Without this man, I wouldn’t be who I am today.  He was the most kindest person I have ever come across, ever.  Every day he filled my life with sunshine, happiness and lots of giggles.  I feel so lucky to have had someone as precious as him in my life.

In 1992 he passed away.
I miss him terribly.

This year I am running the Race for Life in his memory.
The event takes place on the 4th July.

If anyone is interested in sponsoring me and helping me raise my £200 target then please check out my Fundraising Page.

Every little helps! xx

Picture Perfect.

Monty snoozing on my bed.  Taken with my sparkly new camera.

Very happy today

Garden Blooms.

I promised an update and here it is:

My cucumbers, coming on strong.

The Forget-Me-Nots, I forgot all about loving their doorstep home.

Iceberg Lettuce.

Lobelia Crystal Palace.

New peas sprouting in my fab new pea planter.  Also showing a pea pod after flowering.

Peppers.

Rocket.

My one and only Rosemary seedling.  It seems that this year is not my year for growing Rosemary from seed.

Tomato.

My winter hanging basket my Mum did for me last year, blooming right into summer!

And finally some shop bought Lobelia Bush Blue.  Bought just incase the Crystal Palace didn’t germinate. I have also just bought some Lobelia Trailing White, thought they would look super pretty together in my brick trench in the back garden.

More digging planned for the next few days.  I aim to have the back garden veg space sorted before my trip to Paris.  7 weeks and counting….

New Camera

You’ll be pleased to know I will soon be the owner of a sparkly new Samsung.  Bought this afternoon, so should be with us in a few days.  The reason for buying it so soon after the Kodak died was that we just couldn’t deal with the way the old Samsung loved power.   We took the kids to the Zoo yesterday and after about 30 minutes the freshly charged batteries died.

I know this new one is only a 10.2 Megapixel, but that’s all we really need.

The Zoo yesterday was amazing, we managed to see most of the animals, the weather was lovely and the kids had a lovely time.  We’re all still pretty tired after all the walking we did.  We managed to get a little family pic in too

Lunch time, I’m starved! – Update on the greens tomorrow, I have lots of exciting things to show.