Garden 2013 no 6
As I said in the previous garden update, I spent the month of May in France. It rained a lot while I was in away, but this is Scotland, and I’m pretty certain it rained even more here. Thanks to the heavy rain throughout May, I came home to a jungle. I’m not complaining, every thing I planted before I left had grown, but so had every thing else.
The grass was knee high and took several attempts at cutting and there were more weeds than my little veggie plot had ever seen.
The pond looked lovely with forgetmenots all around and the water marigolds spilling out of the pond. But the water was so high it was overflowing at one end. 
On the plus side, the radishes were ready to eat as soon as I arrived home and the strawberries will not be far behind, they already have lots of flowers.
It took me a couple of days to cut the grass, weed the shallots and then weed the little plot behind the pond. I planted garlic sets, red onions sets and beetroot there before I went away.
The garlic and red onions have done very well but needed weeding and the beetroot, which was planted from seed, had done so well in the rain they needed thinning out as well as weeding.
This little chappie was my constant gardening companion for a few days.
The bags are all doing ok, the radishes are ready to eat. The rocket seems to be slower, I just hope it didn’t get too wet, the spring onions are looking good, they needed thinning out but they are fine and the beetroot I planted in bags also looks good. 
The carrots are coming up very well in the tubs. It looks as if I accidently left some potatoes in there because I have potato plants growing in there with the carrots, which I wasn’t expecting. 
I resorted to buying some little lettuce plants last weekend because the rocket is no where near ready and it would take too long to grow lettuce from seed. I bought a tray of green lettuce and a tray of red lettuce, the type where you can just pick leaves and leave the plant in the ground. I need some green to go with my radishes. 
And on the ‘non eating’ front, I came home to find the London Pride and the Bluebells in full bloom down the side of the garden.
Lastly…………….this beast of a plant nestling between the Pink Campion and the Bluebells is Mullein. I scattered seeds from wild Mullien on the ground two years ago and when nothing happened I thought the seeds were dead.
I didn’t know Mullien takes two years to grow. They are fantastic plants, described on good old Wikipedia as; ‘’a hairy biennial plant that can grow to 2 metres tall or more. Its small yellow flowers are densely grouped on a tall stem, which bolts from a large rosette of leaves’’. I first saw this plant growing outside a ruinous, abandoned farm building in rural France and fell in love with it straight away. I’m so pleased I now have these in my garden. Its old fashioned herbal name is lungwort which reflects mullein’s traditional use as a treatment for relieving cough and congestion of those with minor respiratory ailments. Mullein is recommended by herbalists for treatment of cough, sore throat, and colds. Not of course that I intend to use it, I just like looking at it and as it grown to its full height, I’ll be posting more pictures of it.
Monday 15th April was a rare day of sunshine and I took advantage of this all too brief window.
The shallots I put in last week were virtually unearthed by the heavy rain, they all needed bedding down in the soil again.
I dug over my other small bed and planted out the red onions in neat little rows.
After the onions the garlic went in. Or at least some of it did. I have another whole garlic to split into cloves and plant out individually.
There is a space left at the side of this small bed for my beetroot. I didn’t have time to put the beetroot seeds in because the weather started to turn but that is the next task on the list. Hopefully I’ll not have to wait too long for another window of opportunity. The important thing is that I get these few basic tasks done before heading off to France.
I put some carrot seeds in my big potato barrels late last year and left them to over winter. I wasn’t expecting much because I thought I’d left it too late, and then we had so much awful weather I thought what ever was there would be ruined, but to my surprise, I’ve now got more than a kilo of young sweet and tasty carrots. I intend to replace some of the compost, re-fertilise it and then grow more carrots in the same barrels. I think if I can keep this going, I could get two crops per year.
The ultimate plan is to get the beetroot seeds in, plant the rest of the garlic, prepare the barrels and get some more carrot seed in. Then I’m going to prepare a couple of the containers. The containers will be used to sow lettuce, radish and salad leaves before I leave, and if all goes according to plan, I’ll come home to fresh salad. I’ll also come home to weeding, grass cutting, tidying, fence painting and all the other routine jobs that badly need doing. Of course on the plus side………….being a retired lady I’ll have the time to do all these little jobs.
The pond looked lovely with forgetmenots all around and the water marigolds spilling out of the pond. But the water was so high it was overflowing at one end. 
On the plus side, the radishes were ready to eat as soon as I arrived home and the strawberries will not be far behind, they already have lots of flowers. 
It took me a couple of days to cut the grass, weed the shallots and then weed the little plot behind the pond. I planted garlic sets, red onions sets and beetroot there before I went away. 
The carrots are coming up very well in the tubs. It looks as if I accidently left some potatoes in there because I have potato plants growing in there with the carrots, which I wasn’t expecting. 
I resorted to buying some little lettuce plants last weekend because the rocket is no where near ready and it would take too long to grow lettuce from seed. I bought a tray of green lettuce and a tray of red lettuce, the type where you can just pick leaves and leave the plant in the ground. I need some green to go with my radishes. 
And on the ‘non eating’ front, I came home to find the London Pride and the Bluebells in full bloom down the side of the garden. 
