Gerberas in a tin
During last autumn (or Fall for the Americans amongst us), Mud and I added manure and a thick layer of mulch to the vegetable beds, with a view to enriching them. For the most part, the beds had been rested for a year and with the addition of enriching materials, I had anticipated the healthiest of healthy plants, thriving on the nutrient rich soil. Unfortunately, things haven’t worked out quite like I’d planned.
Plants thrive in the strangest of situations.
Looking around the garden and I can see that the plants aren’t romping away in the manner I had expected and, to be blunt, the Courgette and Butternut Squash plants are not looking happy in the least. I suspect that not long after we planted them out, a prolonged series of cold but not quite freezing nights, did damage which is only now coming to light. That said, some of the plants are starting to make a recover and are putting on growth and are looking much, much greener.
The first female flower.
Where I can, I have resown replacement seed BUT for the likes of the pumpkins and squashes all I can do is work with what we’ve got, feed them copious amounts of water and plant food and hope that they recover sufficiently to produce at least one squash or pumpkin apiece.
I’m king of the castle!
But one pumpkin plant didn’t get a cosy spot in a well tended bed. It didn’t get a nutrient rich bed of soil to sit in. Instead this pumpkin plant, the one we simply couldn’t fit anywhere but didn’t want to discard, this plant got a pile of spent compost from three of last years potato tubs, which had been dumped on top of a small mound of the mulch which the Mudlet and I had cleared from one of the beds ……. and under the mulch? Under the mulch is a small, ailing Rhubarb plant, no doubt happily rotting away and delivering fresh nutrients into the soil around it. And THIS plant is doing best of all of the pumpkins and squashes, sitting high up on its’ mound, king of the castle and has even produced the first of the female flowers for the year which sent me scurrying around the garden this morning, looking for a freshly opened male specimen to harvest the pollen from and gently place into the female flower. Fingers crossed that the pumpkin will set.
Mini Bell just forming
The remnants of the flower was hiding the tiny new fruit.
Other exciting developments in the garden include the formation of the first of the mini red sweet peppers. I spotted it this morning when I was carrying out my usual survey of the greenhouses and garden. It still had the tired petals of the flower from which it formed, creating a skirt affect around it and I carefully removed these to help prevent rot and scarring of the fruit, as it grows.
How weird are these?
Meanwhile out in Middle Mudlets’ patch the Asparagus Peas are starting to form and look distinctly weird with their frilly edges but we are all excited to try them and Middle Mudlet was thrilled to pick her first runner bean, in fact the first runner bean of the whole year, and is desperate to start harvesting the first of the Pentland Javelin potatoes which are ready now. Unfortunately we have a bag of bought new potatoes to use up first. so it may well be the weekend before we can justify digging about in her potato bag.
One final note on the ‘Flowers in a Tin’ Gerberas, Middle Mudlet grew. These are now starting to flower and the first few have produced lovely little white blooms, much to her delight.
The Land Rover Owners Ex Wife 