Time to start some Gardening

I am itching to get out in the garden and start sowing seeds, predominantly to start with some herbs and salad stuff.  Thinking along the lines of items such as radishes, spring onions, different lettuces and salad leaves and some beetroot.  Have a lot of seeds to choose from and some compost although will need more in due course.  I need a proper compost bed and am hoping to get this started soon.

On checking my garden the Fig trees seem to have survived and are budding as have my Purple Sage, Lovage, Chocolate Mint, Black Peppermint, Apple mint, my two tubs of Chives which I also want to add a couple of more planters of these to the garden.  Very useful fresh but also to dry and this year I hope to have flowers so that I can make some Chive vinegar.  There is then Lemon Balm, some of the Lavender, and Rosemary.  However have lost my Lemon Verbena (cannot see any shoots at the moment it may surprise me yet), my French Tarragon and my Thyme plants.  I have also lost my standard green Sage.  Will have to replace those and probably add some other herbs as well.  I have found two bonus plants though which I think are either Chervil or .  I thought I had lost those too, but fingers crossed I am right about this.  Have found two plants at the moment.

I also plan on some potatoes and some onion seed.

I would also love to have some different Hydrangea plants.  I used to have a couple but managed to lose them.  I have the planters ready just need to source some replacements; however they are expensive. My Nan always used to have Hydrangeas dotted around her cottage/bungalow.  I am going to have to have a look out to see what I can locate as cheaply as possible.  I want them for planters in the garden. I just love the range of different colours and the fact that even when the flowers have been dried they look stunning.  That would be a bonus for me to have this year if it happens.

Weather is supposed to be good for the best part of this week although it is pretty chilly tonight.  At least the evenings are getting lighter and we change the clocks on the 29th March so the clocks will "Spring Forward" an hour and we lose an hour in bed! However that does mean that will be able to do some things in the garden of an evening.

G is fishing again this coming Sunday and if the weather is fine enough I intend to get out into the garden for a spell to try and start sorting out some of the planters, tidy up generally.  Greenhouses need doing before I sow seed, although saying that I have some polystyrene boxes with lids and I may be able to get some seeds started in them, as I still need to sort the greenhouses.  It would enable a small start though.  Need to go through the seeds now.

I managed to get out into the old herb garden for about half an hour this evening, which runs down the side of the house by my kitchen window. I have commenced a little tidying up around there. So far my Black Peppermint is starting to show, the Grape vine is starting to bud and I have a rogue Lemon Balm in there which I will dig up and put into a side border. Still a way to go but a few things have been dealt with, and quite frankly if it is only a few items a day it will soon build up and that will be one less area to deal with.

I also found a Horseradish root in the back of the fridge. It has started to sprout and so I have done a little reading and apparently you can gets food shop roots to grow. Advise for them to be planted into a separate deep pot to stop them going rogue.  Apparently have to leave for a couple of seasons before harvesting.  So I am going to have a go at this.  The same as I have some Ginger root sprouting.  I can but try.

Last night was an unexpected frost went down to 1 degree. Today started cold. I went to Home Bargains and bought a few bits including 4 packs of Charlotte potatoes, 4 packs of King Edward potatoes,4 packs of Stuttgart Onions.  I also bought in 2 small strips of Viola and two strips of Pansies.  In addition, two packs of mixed seed; one with Herbs and Chillies (contents Chives, Peppery Rocket, Thyme, Chilli Cayenne, Chilli Serrano, Italian Leaf mix, Basil and a Herb mix).  The second packet contains Super Veggies (contents Radish Mix, Coriander, Footlong Chillies, Carrot Mix, Tomato Tigerella, Beetroot Mix, Mizuna mix and Chocolate Pepper).

On top of this, I also bought in 5 packs of Dahlias (there should be 10 plants [2 per pack], and all mixed colours. It will be lovely to have a start to my own flower garden.

I am therefore looking forward to a little planting and sowing and sorting session. G I believe is going fishing again on Tuesday and so I may go out for a couple of hours then. The Pansies and Violas are going into some planters.  Some of the Dahlias are and the rest will go into the garden. This should be a nice little start to the gardening year.

And I have started looking through seeds!

Catch you soon.

Take care.

Pattypan

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