Ravendale House

Have I spoken too soon about getting rid of the old tree? I do hope not, but it’s now 10 days since I was feeling smug about it, and no sign of further progress.

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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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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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Another sunny, if cool day and I did one of my most favourite gardening jobs. Planting things that I’ve grown from cuttings or seed out of their pots and into the ground.

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Today my plug plants arrived, 40 begonias and 40 geraniums. First impressions were good, well packed in strong cardboard boxes, 84 little modules. (They send extra to allow for casualties).

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As predicted, today was little better than yesterday, so I decided to pot up some of my 126 hardy perennial seedlings.

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Frantic bitter lemon drinking and a rummage in the dark recesses of the garage have provided some more Schweppes cloches, so today I planted out 12 cauliflowers. My idea is to leave them about a week so their roots can get established and them I’ll remove the cloches and cross my (green) fingers, as they certainly are a bit wimpy looking.

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They were right, there was a sharp frost last night. The poor daffodils were on their knees this morning, but had rallied by lunchtime. How do they do that? First the strong winds and now this, they really are having a rough time this Spring. Good job I covered the gunnera.

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Today I dared myself to check out the root situation on the fuchsia cuttings. Not brilliant news I’m afraid, but with a bit of luck and not too much of a following wind (don’t want them to dry out now, do I!) I should have about a 50% success rate. Not bad but could do better.

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