Meanwhile in the Greenhouse - Martlothistella uniondalensis

I promised my brother ( the one who loves cacti ) that I.d post a picture of my Marlothistella uniondalensis  , to see how it has grown , over what must be about six years since he gave me the little rooted cutting from his .
 It has become one of my most treasured succulents , I look forward to seeing it's pink daisy flowers which appear between November and February .

It is a Winter growing mesembryanthemum  from the Little Karoo  in South Africa.                 Although said to be cold hardy , I keep mine in the greenhouse .
 I,m going to take a closer look at it tomorrow , with a view to getting a rooted piece off it to give back to my brother who has lost his .
   I also read somewhere that the caudex / fat root of this plant can be raised up , to make it look even more cool ...so I will take a look at that and see what I can do  .
 Anyway , I love having this one in my collection  ,  its a little charmer .
 Have a great week all ! :)

Collecting Seaweed for the New Pumpkin Patch

So I,ll start again . Here we are down at Gunwalloe . There's rain coming in , but who cares ? !

The tide is going out and has washed up some lovely fresh clumps of seaweed .

I usually bring a black bin sack for us to sit on , but today it is coming in really useful ,  to gather some seaweed for the veg garden .

I filled it to about half way , since it is quite heavy and we had quite a walk uphill to the carpark . I can always come and  get some more another day .

Back home I empty it into my wheelbarrow and wheel it up to the veg garden .

              Seaweed is great in the veg garden , it really makes things grow !

I,m busy getting the new Pumpkin patch ready for next year , layering up newspaper , grass clippings , cardboard , horse manure ,  hoover bag contents , Autumn leaves , spent compost , shredded branches and seaweed  . The more effort that is put into the garden now during the Autumn , the bigger the pay off next year ....but this is no effort really , since it is our friends the worms that will do the work , chomping through it all .
 No hard , back breaking digging for me ..except just to gently turn it all over and rake it in the Spring .

                                                 Beautiful Cornish seaweed .

So the next  layer will be more cardboard ,then green stuff grass clippings, newspaper , I try to alternate it;  green stuff followed by brown stuff is how it really works and the air trapped within it keeps it all  beautifully light and smell free.....so no walking all over it !
     The worms love it !

It hard to see from my pics , but it is a fairly large circular bed ,but not so large that I cant reach easily into the middle of it without treading on the earth .
Not treading on the earth is very important , because in doing  so the earth  becomes compacted and the worms get squashed : (
   So there you are , my new Pumpkin Patch for next year . Hope I haven't put you off your tea ! : )

The new Pumpkin patch

I,m busy getting the new Pumpkin patch ready for next year , layering up newspaper , grass clippings , cardboard , horse manure ,  hoover bag contents , Autumn leaves , spent compost , shredded branches and seaweed  . The more effort that is put into the garden now during the Autumn , the bigger the pay off next year ....but this is no effort really , since it is our friends the worms that will do the work , chomping through it all .
 No hard , back breaking digging for me ...except just to gently turn it all over and rake it in the Spring .

Little trip up to Kent

I had a lovely three days away visiting my parents in Kent . I just had to share a few pics with you .
 There are the sweet foxes who always come to the back door, for a few scraps of food just before dark .
 I always love to see my brother's greenhouses orchids and cacti .....especially when given a very generous cutting of an unusual Aloe . I potted it up in some fresh , gritty compost with a beach pebble topping as soon as we arrived home , see bottom right photo .
 ( Thankyou to Stasha for the beautiful head scarf that you sent me just before I went into hospital . It is so pretty ! :) )
    My brother has a fine collection of Lithops .    I have a few of these too , but can never remember when they should  have their dormant period  and when they should be watered.  Also one of mine has been nibbled by something ..it's still alive . None of mine have ever flowered yet , but they are only a couple of years old .
 The weather has turned noticeably colder and today I put on one of my thicker jumpers. My hands hurt when they get cold ,so I,ve got out my trusty finger-less gloves and put them into my handbag ,ready for when I need them .
 I need to get some long burning candles for my greenhouse ...and rig up my way  of heating the greenhouse as cheaply as I can ....but I will talk about that another day .
  I,m sleeping better with these cooler nights , the hops and the pomander which my friend Jessica gave me and tonight I will fall asleep to the sound of the rain on my window .

Hops for a Sleep Pillow

 I am so happy ! I have quite a plentiful mini harvest of hops from my golden hop .

                    Well enough to make a couple of Sleep Pillows anyway .

 It is just an Ornamental Golden Hop  , Humulus lupulus aureus . I love its loopy latin  name too , Humulus lupulus which translates to Earth Wolf .

It is that yellow resin or lupulin , at the base of each  green bract which gives the hop its aroma and flavour .  Different varieties of hops ,have varying degrees of flavours and aroma and are used in the production of beer . A cup of Hop tea  with a little maple syrup is very calming . The scent of hops is well known , for when used in a simple sleep pillow can help induce sleepiness .  I,m going to add some lavender to mine  .

                          First I am going to dry them off on a sunny windowsill .

 I think these are ready now ,they have a hoppy fragrance , not too grassy and are papery to the touch and springy ...and I can see the yellow lupulin resin between the bracts .

                                  So here they are hanging up in the sunshine  .
We had a dreadful storm yesterday and I was worried that  my hops would be ruined , but I think they  are going to be just fine . While they are drying , I will have time to make up some muslin sachets for the sleep pillows .
           Whoever sleeps in this room will sleep very well indeed !

Happiness is .......

Happiness is finding a book that I read as a teenager and also then finding the other great one he wrote , which, I had been told , was a really hard to come by  book .
  They arrived in the post today  and  I cant describe to you how good these two old paperback books feel in my hands !  Goosebumps !
 That beautiful old familiar picture on the cover and so much wholesome wisdom and goodness inside !
   It is going to be interesting reading again after all these years .

The Vision of Glory   John Stewart Collis

The Worm Forgives the Plough   John Stewart Collis

Baby Agaves

 So yesterday the man came round to let us know that he was coming today to fix the fence . The fence that runs along behind my gravel bed with the Agaves in that is  ...

 Well , I had planned to let the little Agave pups grow a bit bigger before pulling them out  but I cant take the risk of the man trampling on them ..... sigh ..... : (

                                     So I had no choice but to take them out now .

They all have a little bit of rootage  on them , but these here are all connected ,so I am laying them down together in this tray . I added some gravel to this compost , by the way, for good drainage . There were also a couple of teeny weeny shoots which I nestled in there , they are hard to see .

                                             Some more gravel around on top .

  All done and into the greenhouse . I think there may be a few more pups around the other side of the mother Agave . Oh the weeds ! ..and now the leaves are beginning to tumble off the trees all around too ! Can I ever catch up with it all ? !!!

Dreaming Buddha

Agave Potatorum update

 For those who don't know I grew this Agave from seed  from the British Cactus Society , on my bedroom windowsill 15 years ago .
  Well it began to put up its inflorescence or flower spire  about a year and a half ago .

 Agaves often throw out runners with babies (or pups ) to some distance away from the mother plant , but the strange thing here was that , this one began to flower too !

The bees just loved the flowers and I had hoped they would then produce more babies up in those branches .....but it seems that they don't  ...instead they become seedpods .

So I saved a few , hoping to let them dry out and get the seeds ...but  it was around this time that I got seriously ill with cancer and everything became a blur .
 I cant remember what I did with those seed pods !     Sigh ....

Anyway  , now it had finished flowering and the green seed pods were beginning to drop off ....and  then usually  , they die  :(         I began to wonder if I could save the mother plant , by chopping down the inflorescence /flowering spire , also known as a "mast " ...so it wouldn't put all it's energy into it .
 Winter was fast approaching , we'd already had one terrific storm , which brought down some of my favourite pittasporums.
 I put a large cloche over the Agave and threw the branches over the top to hold it down .   Every night I would cover it and every morning I uncovered it . Also keeping it totally covered if and when we had really bad weather .

 The garden was such a mess and recovering from my op  , I couldn't do as much as I would  have liked .

 This old cloche is like an umbrella. I bought it about ten years ago and at the time my husband was away and I couldn't get the spokes into the pockets of the cloche properly ...so that is why it looks so wonky . I really need to get another one if anyone knows where I can get one or one that is similar ?

 Here it is with all the branches holding it down against the winter gales  !

 So here we are today  , over the winter it did begin to get a bit yellowy  but it certainly picked up again through this Spring and Summer .
 By the way , the Agave behind is Agave Americana , a much hardier one  and in fact probably the toughest one , I don't usually cover it unless it is really cold and wet .
 It is usually the wet that kills Agaves rather than the cold , hence all the flat slabs of slate tucked in under it's leaves and all around ...and it is also in a bed of sharp gravel , which helps drain away rain water from it's roots and also keeps the slugs off .
 The gravel bed is a complete mess now and needs serious weeding and even  totally replace the weed membrane underneath the gravel and another fresh load of gravel .
 It was so lovely when I first created it......now I look around and feel sad .

                                             ....but what is this ? !      Look !

                          It has begun to push up more babies / pups all around !
I am so happy ! I will be taking these up and potting them on . You know ,  Agave potatorum is such a lovely bluey Agave !
   Well , we are once again heading into Autumn and I am wondering if I can get the mother Agave through a second winter  ?  
 Cheerio for now .. Daisy Debs is off to dig out the big umbrella cloche again  .... somewhere in the shed I think ........

August into Setember - Veg garden update

 Sorry , August has been such a busy month......so much going on in the garden !
 Anyway , remember the late end of July Kale seed sowing ? Well they grew away fast in their seed tray , I decided to hold them back as the space was taken up with other things .

 Here are the other things ... dwarf french beans , cucumber , tomatoes , Romaine Cos lettuce , beetroots and basil . ..and I,ve picked lots from them . I noticed that the few remaining lettuces are now beginning to bolt and the beetroots are certainly ready to pull .

    Kale seedlings waiting in the wings . I do have another patch of Kale which I grew earlier in the year at the other end of this bed . I will check on those tomorrow .

Notice how small a space I have  grown all these tasty vegetables in ! Just from that little brown patch of earth ! I am leaving in the Dwarf French beans , cucumber and the tomato plant as I think there could be more to come .
 The baby Kale plants are going in here .

 Tomatoes - well the best ones were the ones my husband grew in his Solar Shed .
 The next best were the ones in his VegTrug . The Cherokee Purple Toms that I grew were sown too late in the greenhouse but there is still time !

         From my veg garden I have pretty much filled this bowl every day from this seasons growing . So I am very happy , something tasty  for us to eat and fill our tums  every day  is all I want . I am not growing to sell at the market  , nor am I trying to grow prize-winning monsters .

         So , I planted up the baby Kale , scattered my crushed egg shells ....

          ......scattered some horticultural grit .....and put back the luminous lizard .
                 

Give them a good drink to settle them all in and fix up the plastic chicken wire again .
 The only other thing is that I may need to find some environmesh to cover from the Cabbage white butterflies . I haven't got any at the moment and it is so expensive .
  So I,ve got to go away and think about it .