Ravendale House

Not much gardening getting done at the moment due to poor weather and a poorly cat. I can’t seem to concentrate on anything, and it’s been much too windy to be outdoors anyway.

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Yesterday I mentioned how the tomato plants in the conservatory are giving me cause for concern. It’s difficult to explain why, but they just don’t look as good as I would have expected them to at this stage, having been planted into their grow bags for several days now.

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As promised today I continued with the grass cutting programme, though to be honest I was so shattered after yesterdays exertions that all I could manage was the strimming. There is still a lot of grass to be Flymo’d, but that will have to be for another day.

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We have quite a lot of grass here, and for someone of my diminutive stature and great age, to cut it all properly takes 3 days. There are 3 elements to the process.

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Sweetcorn is such an amazing crop to grow. I sowed 33 seeds on Thursday and by yesterday morning 9 had germinated. This morning there were 26.

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The compost and grow bags arrived today as promised, 4 bags of multi-purpose compost and 6 grow bags. I stowed the compost and one of the grow bags behind the shed, and the remaining 5 grow bags went in to the conservatory.

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I’ve spent this afternoon preparing the conservatory for the tomato plants proper. At the moment they’re in small pots dotted along the conservatory window-sill, but they urgently need to be planted up into grow bags.

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They say ‘one swallow doesn’t make a summer’ and I’m sure ‘they’ are right, but we saw our first one today and it felt good. To be honest, ornithologically speaking, I don’t know if they’re swallows or swifts that we get in the garden. All I do know is they turn up each year without fail and are a joy to watch.

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It’s now almost a week since the plug plants arrived, and to be honest the jury’s still out. The begonias certainly look better than they did, but neither they nor the geraniums have done much in the way of growing. Perhaps I should just be glad they’re still alive.

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The dandelions are back. Sometimes it feels like I spend my entire gardening life doing battle with weeds. One particular battle which I’ve been fighting, and losing, for the last 10 years is against the dandelions in the field and now they’re back.

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