Anyway, on Monday I finally got them out, and how splendid they look too in their neat little rows. I even managed to put the fleece barrier round the peas to protect them from pigeons etc.

Needless to say, following Tuesdays strong winds, that is now ripped to shreds, so I’m now working on ‘plan B’ whatever that is. I’m still pleased though, just to have got them planted out at last.

I now have a bit more room in the conservatory, which is still over flowing with seedlings of various sorts, but the forecast for the remainder of April is poor, so they will have to wait a little longer for their freedom.

Having said that Spring is my favourite time of year, so I shouldn’t grumble, but I must be in that kind of mood, because I’m now going to grumble about something else.

I wrote a few days ago about sowing Sylvia’s Sunflowers. I sowed a lot more than I needed as their germination rate had been so poor last year. I then sowed twice as many again as part of my ‘black’ or ‘white’ experiment.

Well guess what? There seems to be no difference in the germination rate of either. In fact they’ve all germinated like fun. I’m now the proud owner of 23 ‘Sylvia’s Sunflower’ seedlings! Only 1 white seed has so far failed to germinate.

Goodness knows where I will put them all. I might give some back to Sylvia!

One of my favourite ‘new’ plants of last year was ‘Sylvias’s Sunflower’. A bit temperamental in the beginning (I nearly gave up on them several times) they eventually grew and flowered beautifully and so became a plant I want to grow every year.

To that end, I collected lots of seeds last year and stored them in a jar in the fridge. This morning I decided to sow some.

I was going to sow 12, with the hope of maybe getting 6 to germinate. As much as I would like more, they’re tall and top-heavy, and our garden is very windy, so there is a limit to where I can plant them safely.

I hadn’t taken much notice when I was collecting the seeds but when I opened the jar there were 2 distinct kinds. White ones and black ones.

“What’s the difference?” I wondered to myself. ” I don’t know” I replied, “let’s find out”. So, instead of sowing just 12, I sowed 24, 12 black ones and 12 white ones.

Will they germinate? Will there be any difference between them if they do? I don’t know, but it will be fun finding out. Tune in later for the result.

That’s the kind of gardener I am. (I should probably get out more!)

Why the sudden interest? Well, as my plan this year is to do more flowers, I had done some forward planning and collected seeds from this mystery plant last Autumn. It produces them in huge numbers, tiny black seeds.

A few days ago I scattered them quite freely on to some compost, covered them lightly and placed them on the central heating boiler for ‘bottom heat’. Seeds seem do well with this method, so I’ve concluded they prefer heat to light in the early stages of germination.

The mystery seeds are germinating like fun, and in their hundreds if a quick glance without my glasses is anything to go by. I don’t know if they come true, but if they do and I get a lovely big clump of them, I’ll take a picture.

Yesterday I planted my onions and shallots, and today sowed 60 Broad Beans, hoping to get the 54 required for one full bed.

I also moved a few things around in the consevatory to make room for all these seedlings I’m going to have. When I moved the Flymo, for the second year running (presumably because the door still isn’t fixed) I discovered some tiny creature had been storing it’s winter seeds under my mower. How do they do that?

I once lost a kitten under the kitchen units, but at least there was a small hole in that case. The Flymo, as far as I can tell, is in contact with the ground all the way round.

Not much to do outdoors then, though I have prepared a couple more vegetable beds in the last few days, ready for the onions and shallots.

Some indoor seed germination has also begun. White daisies are the best, yellow daisies not so good. I don’t know if either will come true, but it’s fun finding out.

The ‘bought’ Salvia Patens seeds have also germinated giving me 7 out of 10. I’ve now sown 24 of my own collected seed and I’m treating them in exactly the same way, so it will be interesting to see what result I get.

No sign of the antirrhinums or nicotiana germinating, but there is just a hint of larkspur.

It won’t be long now before I’m sowing tomatoes, peas, broad beans etc. I’ve decided to concentrate more on flowers this year and still have dahlias, cosmos and verbena to sow at the very least.

The 12 ‘Lucifers’ that I potted on the other day are looking a bit sad. I hope it’s just a phase they’re going through.

All winter, one of the fuchsias in the conservatory has been flowering it’s socks off, but sadly the weekend of the burst pipe hit it hard. I hoped it might rally when the temperatures improved, but it’s still looking sad.

I was going to prune it in Spring and take some cuttings, but all the soft new tips I was going to use have withered and died, so I think I’ll just have to prune what I can to make it look neater and hope it pulls it’s socks up in the coming weeks.

Oh the joys of gardening in England.

PS.  Never mind ‘high ground’, it was snowing here by teatime!

First I weeded and tidied the existing strawberry bed, then dug over the site of the new strawberry bed that I’m going to plant up in the next week or so.

In the conservatory I potted on 12 tiny  ‘Lucifer’ seedlings. I sowed 48 last September, so not a great conversion rate. There would have been more, but the same cold snap that did for our plumbing also did for a few baby ‘Lucifers’.

My dozen or so Rudbeckia, that I sowed last August as a bit of an experiment, are looking interested at last. They’ve been in the conservatory all winter and had been looking a bit sad, but seem to be responding to the rise in temperature and longer days.

I’ve also started sowing seeds. Just a few to begin with in modules on top of the central heating boiler. Assorted daisies, pale yellow antirrhinum and bright pink Nicotiana (seeds collected last Autumn) Larkspur and Salvia Patens (seeds from old packets)

I’m particularly interested in the antirrhinum and nicotiana, as I selected the seed specially from pale yellow and bright pink plants respectively. I have no idea if they come true from seed.

The only down side is that whilst preparing for a new (non-gardening) project that I will be writing about later, I noticed the big mower seems to be leaking oil on to the garage floor. Hey-ho!

I think that’s part of the problem, Xmas has lost it’s real meaning and become over-commercialised to the point where I think it’s getting dangerous. Pressure on parents to live up to the material expectations of their off-spring must be enormous.

Last year at this time we were snowed in but this year we haven’t even seen a snowflake. My Xmas shopping, such as it is, has been completed and all my cards posted, so I can now turn my attention to other things.

The conservatory, which was a no-go area for about 2 weeks last year, is once more sheltering my tender plants from the cold. The few geraniums that survived last winter’s onslaught, though greatly reduced  in numbers, (only 8 made it in the end) are looking quite happy.

The 48 ‘Lucifer’ seeds I sowed on 26.09.11 are beginning to germinate, only 12 so far, but it’s a start. My fuchsias are still flowering, so they are OK too.

The Rudbeckia seeds I sowed on 4.08.11, as a kind of experiment, have germinated and grown into about a dozen small plants. They too are in the conservatory, and I cover them each evening with plastic cloches (mustard and cress tubs for the supermarket) for a little added protection. I’m hoping this early sowing and mollycoddling will give them a head start when I plant them out in Spring.

Speaking of Spring, it can’t come soon enough for me. Bah humbug!

We brought hundreds of plants with us when we moved here. These are just a few of them.

The idea was that this book would track and record the progress of the new garden, a bit like ‘The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady’ but it soon became clear that this was going to be a task too far. What I’d failed to realise was that Edwardian ladies had staff, I don’t.

After the first couple of years a lot of the plants had died anyway. This could have been due to a variety of reasons, not least incorrect soil type which is how we lost our azaleas.

All the lovely primulas we put in Flower Bed 1, all gone. With the benefit of hindsight we should have planted them in the ditch where the ground doesn’t dry out in summer.

Anyway, loss of plants, the sheer size of the garden and the volume of work involved in just keeping it ticking over, meant that the penny soon dropped. Forget the book and stick to growing things that like it here.

So that’s why today I’ve been collecting seeds. Rudbeckia and Cosmos both do well here. As do Lupins and Larkspur. For some reason I can’t grow Hollyhocks or Delphiniums, though I have tried several times over the years.

Geraniums grow like fun and seem to stand the harshest treatment. Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ was doing OK until last winter which was just too cold and took out some of my plants. That’s why today I’ve just collected and sown 48 Lucifer seeds.

Add to these dahlias grown from seeds like annuals, bright red pelargoniums over-wintered in pots in the conservatory,  ‘Sylvia’s Sunflowers’, monada and nasturtiums, it’s not a bad selection to build on. Each time I find something ‘new’ that likes it here it will go on the list.

One plant that does really well here, and which I’ve tried to love over the years is Achillea ‘Gold Plate’ commonly known as yarrow. Sadly I just don’t like it. There were 2 huge clumps of it in Flower Bed 1 and today I ruthlessly dug them out.

Next year the space they’ve left will be full of Cosmos, and I can’t wait. I grew some from seed earlier this year and they are pretty as a picture even now.  So I’ll be sowing even more in Spring so that Flower Bed 1 can benefit from their long lasting blooms next year.

Even when you love it, gardening is hard work, so why make it any harder.

I’ve been sowing seeds and planting potatoes, onions and shallots. Sadly my knee is still bad and I can’t kneel down, so I’ve had to stick to mostly standing up or bending down jobs, which is fine at the moment, but soon I’ll need to get down (literally) to some serious weeding.

Germination rates have been pretty much as expected and the few surviving geraniums are beginning to look interested. I’ll write more later.

It was quite painful at the time, and I wasn’t sure what damage I’d done, so applied an ice pack and some Germolene and waited . Fortunately after a few hours all seemed well, except for the fact that I still can’t kneel down.

My right knee has been suspect since I was at school, now my left knee has gone to join it. Needless to say everything I want to do at the moment involves kneeling down.

I’ve roughly dug over the vegetable beds, but now they need to be tidied and their straight edges of last year rediscovered. I’ve developed a technique that’s not quite kneeling, but not quite bending either, but it twists my back, so I only do a bit at a time.

I’ve sown some seeds and had quite good results so far. Leeks, Salvia Patens, Dahlias, Larkspur and Rudbeckia.

I’ve also tackled the geraniums at long last. What a waste. I’ve ended up dumping 35 pots of various sizes. The plants were completely dead after the harsh winter. I now only have 6 that have survived, and most of them look pretty weak. Ah the joys of gardening in an English climate!