I have peppers!

I'll get to the peppers further down, first a quick round up of the last couple of weeks. Don't forget to click on the photos to enlarge them if you want a closer look.




Potatoes behind, onions in the two round pots and the two long tubs are still waiting for carrots.






The azalea has finished but the Michaelmas daisy is growing well. The fuschia had a good prune last year and is nice and healthy with quite a few buds already on.




The alium are coming into flower, I'm really pleased I bought these.




This is the hosta that normally is the first to flower. We've never seen it so healthy. It normally has 19 flowers every year but there's no sign of any yet, hopefully we'll see some sign soon. The Curly Red behind to the left is in flower for the first time, it seems to like being in a border more than in a pot!

The bedding begonias haven't grown much, maybe they're not very happy as we've lost one. Another fuschia is coming back healthy after a good prune and the lillies are doing well and have self propogated. We started off with three we bought from Aldi last year and we now have four big ones and six smaller ones. It will be interesting to see what we end up with. The other hosta seems very happy too.

From left to right - miniature rhodedendron now in flower, not sure where the lone bluebell came from, miniature fuschia also in flower, four more lovely alium (there should be five but one hasn't got a flower, just leaves) and the clump of montbretia are coming up well. These were dotted all over the garden last year and I moved them as I thought it would look better if they were all together.

The arum lily is growing well and has three buds at the moment, doing well considering the frost nearly killed it off. The rhubarb is growing well also, this was the new plant.



These are the older rhubarb plants which we split, not doing so well as the other one but this part of the garden is very very dry with sun all day.



From left to right - the corkscrew hazel is coming on really well now that it's out of its pot and in the ground. Dwarf sunflowers, then the gooseberry bush - new this year, hopefully it will do well but it doesn't seem to have grown much. There's a few onions and then the gladioli and a few dwarf lupins at the front, far right.

Cranesbill geranium, we should have some pink flowers on that in a few weeks. The paeony still has only one bud but is growing well and staying healthy despite it's move. The pink dianthus in front of the paeony is in flower, the lobelia in the corner is coming on nicely and will eventually be about 3' high, the bluebells in the pot have finished


Plenty of flowers in the alpine bed and a great increase in size of some of the other plants. The thyme has spread into a really big mound of green and smells lovely when touched and the sedum Ruby Mantle is looking lovely. Not sure of the name of the yellow and pink flowered plants or the others as all the labels seem to say "Sempervivum".



The strawberries have plenty of flowers and the parsnips and carrots are still doing well. The bedding plants on the floor have been out for a few days now hardening off.





The round pots have got leeks in which aren't doing very well at all. The lettuce is growing nicely in the white trough. In the border in the wall are three cuttings off my favourite geranium we brought with us when we moved, they did very well at the old house so I'm hoping for a good show here too. The geranium in the tall cream coloured pot is Paul's favourite, another one we brought with us.

So, what have I been up to today? We couldn't wait any longer to empty the sun room as there was evidence of ants coming from the pots the marigolds were in. It's warmed up a bit so everything has had to come out and take a chance. If they don't survive so be it.

The pots on the pillars have trailing petunias, trailing verbena, nepeta and trailing lobelia. I've left a space in the middle (by putting a 3" plant pot in there for now) for some lovely new geraniums we have sent for. Hopefully they'll arrive within the next week. The tomatoes have come out, (four big ones and two cherry tomatoes in the black pots) along with the runner beans which aren't in the picture, and we're hoping it doesn't go too cold for them.



This pot again has the same petunias, verbenas, nepeta and lobelia, and again waiting for the new geraniums.






Same again for these two pots at the end of the path (beyond the battenburg cake is our neighbour's garden). We're hoping to have the hard landscaping replaced later this year, along with the battenburg cake on the balcony.


And here, in all their glory, are my first peppers. I can eat red peppers like apples so I'm thrilled to see the fruit coming. I've got three healthy pepper plants and these will stay in the sun room. I tried growing them outside last year and did succeed but the peppers were quite small so I'm hoping for better things this year.

At last the jungle has gone and we've got the sun room back. Beyond the chair are the steps up to the store room which son Neil was busy rebuilding for us last week. To the side is my computer desk. We're not sure when he can fit us in to level the floor but we're looking forward to having that done some time this year so that we can get some carpet tiles down and make it a bit cosier underfoot.

Progress and a possible disaster!

I thought I'd do a short update as it's only 9 days since the last pictures, but then I realised "short" and Susan don't really go together in the same sentence, I admit to being quite wordy at times! Plus quite a lot has progressed in that time, well that's my excuse!

So what's happened in the seaside garden over the last week? Good news and bad news really. First the bad news, I'll get it over with. We had visitors on Sunday and we needed room for four of us in the sun room so I thought I'd plant out some of the bedding plants as it was a lovely day and it had warmed up over the last few days. So I put the African marigolds out into their pots as they were looking healthy and strong but it looks like I made a mistake:

Oops! The nights must still be going too cold and marigolds must not be as tough as some other plants. So, we've carried them back into the sun room this morning and I've given them some Rescue Remedy and keeping everything crossed that they recover. Note to self - try to be a bit more patient in future!



The azalea has past it's best and is starting to die off. The bees have loved it, we've had loads of fat furry bees busily buzzing about!




So, what's progressed?

The hostas have come on a bundle in a week and I've planted out the bedding begonias which don't seem to have suffered the same fate as the marigolds.






The allium are doing well, standing tall and straight like soldiers, I can't wait to see them in flower.







The arum lily is growing on nicely, still some signs of the frost damage but plenty of new growth so all should be well.





The rhubarb is doing very well, not quite so good as our neighbour who was lucky enough to have some "proper" manure to put on but it's still a good show. What a shame we're not supposed to pick much this year!

The bluebells in the pot are in full flower, the paeony behind is doing really well and there is one bud on it at the moment, hopefully we'll get some more but can't expect too much as we brought it with us from the last house and they really don't like to be moved.


The alpine bed is looking very colourful and these plants have grown a lot in one year.





The potatoes are now fully earthed up and the leaves have again broken through and are looking pretty good! The round pot in front has some red onions in, I've also dotted a few around the garden filling in spaces here and there. It's my first time with onions so I don't really know what to expect (or what I'm doing!). The long tub is ready for some more carrot seeds but I'm spacing these out into four tubs over a few weeks.


We have two of these planters with strawberries in, they're doing OK and flowering at the moment. If we look closely we have a few small fruits forming.





The carrots and parsnips already in are doing well and there are a few lettuces/salad leaves in the white tub.





So, what's left in the sun room? Plenty!


The nepeta, trailing verbena (already starting to flower!) and trailing petunia are gagging to get out and be put into their pots.





Two cherry tomato plants looking healthy enough.





The tomatoes are now 4'8" high with plenty of trusses that have started to flower. The runner beans have all reached the top of the poles, have been stopped and are flowering. The red peppers on the window sill behind are also flowering and are needing a bit more room as they've almost doubled in size. Once the jungle has thinned out a bit I'll be able to put them on one of the little benches in front of the window.

Well, I think that's about it this time. Told you I don't do "short"!!!

I have a jungle!

Well, here we are, another two weeks gone and goodness, what have we here! The sun room's resembling a jungle!



Three of the four beans in this pot have reached the top of the canes, the fourth one was a late addition, planted a couple of weeks ago and is about half way up.





The tomatoes are now 3' high and all have two or three trusses on, one truss even has flowers. We were putting them out in the daytime to harden off and bringing them in at night but last week, despite the most glorious sunshine, the wind was very cold and it affected some of the leaves so we're keeping them inside for now.


The three red pepper plants on the window sill have now been repotted into their final large pots and are looking very happy. In front of them, on the little bench (we bought two shoe racks from Asda, £5 each, perfect for putting the trays on!) there are, in the black tray, two cherry tomato seedlings I've grown waiting to go into their permanent pots, the poppy seedlings we've kept inside for now (the ones we planted out are doing OK), plus five leek seedlings I've grown (one didn't make it) waiting to be potted on. To the right, on the small green trays, are the African marigolds I've grown from seed, very healthy but again got a bit of "wind burn" when we tried to harden them off last week. They're fine and we'll plant them out in the next week or two. In front of those, in the two black trays, are the petunia, verbena and nepeta plug plants we bought from the garden centre last week. They're waiting to go outside into their pots but again it's still a little early. We also have some begonia and trailing lobelia bought yesterday ready to go out into tubs.

There's plenty going on outside. The primroses have now finished flowering and are obviously very happy from the amount of fresh new leaf growth.



My little azalea (Mother's Day present last year) is in full bloom and looking gorgeous!




The two hostas have come on a bundle in a fortnight:

It's quite surprising that they're almost at the same stage as normally the one in the top photo is quite a bit later than the other.




The rhubarb's doing well but as Paul split the crowns this year we can only pull two or three sticks, we must wait until next year before we can harvest it properly - that's really sad as Paul was looking forward to rhubarb crumble!


The paeony's doing well, as is the tall lobelia behind, and the bluebells in the pot started to flower a few days ago.




Miraculously the arum lily seems to be recovering well from the frost damage, not sure if it will give us such a good show as last year but at least it's still alive! Lesson learned - protect from frost if we have another winter as bad as this one.

You can just about make out the two red sprout seedlings I planted out this week. Apparently they prefer a shady spot and in front of the fence is the shadiest place in the garden.


The potatoes have been working hard and I've had to earth them up every few days. Today I earthed them up for the last time and as the soil's at the top of the pot I can now leave them to just grow.


Parsnips and carrots in these two tubs. The tub in the top picture had seeds directly sown into it a couple of weeks ago. The tub in the second picture has parsnip seedlings grown on in the sun room and carrot seeds planted directly this week.


I managed to catch Paul while he was clearing out the fence planters, he's taken out the daffodil bulbs and we can get them ready for summer planting. I'm not good at balancing on the little wall to reach the planters, it was hard enough for him!