🌿🌿Waiting 🌿🌿🌿

 Waiting for tomatoes .

Waiting for Epiphyllum Curt Backeberg  and Epiphyllum Clown buds to open .

Waiting for Grapes .

Waiting for my Cosmos cuttings to take root . 

I pinched out the tops of all of my Cosmos seedlings  and stuck them all in two 3" pots of compost .

 I watered them in well .

 They are standing in an old washing up bowl with about a quarter of an inch of water at the bottom .

They are so delicate . I didn't quite believe that this would work ....still not sure !

  I did this two days ago and thought they would have passed out within half an hour ; but next day , they are still standing !

                                                     🌿☀️ 🌿    

The Tomatoes are coming ! 🤩

                                     🌿 🍅    Oh ! I am in love !   🍅🌿

                                                    🌿⛅🌦️⛅🌿

Dash to check on the Tomato plants ! 🌿🌦️❄️🌿

 

Beautiful sunrise this morning after a very cold night . Heavy rain with hail through the small hours .

I dashed up to the greenhouse to check my newly transplanted tomato plants were o.k. 

            All is well ! 

   

                       Jess's Giant Echium is getting taller everyday ! 

                                        🌿🌦️🌈❄️🌿

Update  -

Spent most of the day making space in the greenhouse for my Sweet Peppers and Cucumbers .

I had to move out everything ,mostly cacti, that were underneath this bench and relocate them to the other end .

Then put down these trays . The Cucumbers are going under the bench and will grow up and scrabble about amongst the Epiphyllums . Last year they were up the other end and no matter how I tried to get them to grow around the strings , they just wanted to grow along and be in with all the Epies ! 

Tomorrow is Cucumber day !

Today I just wanted to transplant my Sweet Peppers into larger pots and clear a space for them here beside Lord Buddha . 

   I took all the Pelargoniums out from here and down to the shed and gave them all some more water .They will be for hanging baskets and window boxes .

 Took some time out to have a walk over at Kynance and really enjoyed my pasty for lunch !

  The weather has been beautiful again today after that cold rainy night .

                  Sweet Red Peppers 

Now in their bigger pots and final position in the greenhouse .

Tomorrow I will also check how the ferns are under the bench at the back . 

There are buds coming on several of the Epiphyllums . One of which I have never seen bloom before !  Quite a rare one !

 There is a chair in there but I have had no time to sit down !

My arms are aching and I am so tired , but pleased with what I've achieved today .

 Yep , tomorrow I'll move in the Cucumbers , which means I can start thinking about sowing my Sweetcorn , Beans and Squash .

                                    🌿☀️🌤️⛅🌿

       

 

Goodbye Winter ! Welcome Spring !

 

                       Goodbye Winter !                               Welcome Spring !

I decided to sow another lot of mixed salad leaves .three more Lettuce Red Romaine , Parris island , Freckles , Fennel , lemon coriander , Long Red Florence onions .....these all leaves for mixing up in the salad bowl .

I'm not sowing beans , courgettes, squash , sweetcorn just yet .  Towards the end of the month for those .

     I topped up the bird feeders  and put in a few peanuts for the woodpeckers and my squirrels .

                     Breezy , but we've had plenty of sunshine today .

The Buzzard sat watching me while I tended to things in the greenhouse .

I was thrilled to find this self sown Pelargonium seedling , coming up in another plant's pot . 

              I plucked him out and potted him up .

One happy little Pelargonium . I wonder what colour you'll be ?  

           And a Lemon scented Geranium which needed the next size up pot .

Enjoyed a cup of tea and some nice music in the shed , then I had to make room in the greenhouse for the Tomatoes .

                       Everyone does their Tomatoes differently .   

This is how I do mine . I have never had any success growing them out in the garden . I grow mine in the greenhouse in these black plastic pot/bags . I have reused these pot/bags five or six times now .

 To begin with I roll them down and only fill to about a third with a good compost .

Under the strict instruction of Peter my physiotherapist , I rolled the bag of compost in and then a little at a time filled each bag to about a third full . 

He said I can do it a little at a time and gradually build up my strength again .

 I can squash in four or five of these in this first section of the greenhouse .

                           Like this !   🌿Ooh ! I just noticed that Pregnant Onion ......

                                     She's got a flower coming ! 

I actually left one of these outside over Winter . I wasn't able to bring everything in under cover with my spine injury. But It is o.k. it survived , I'll show you that one tomorrow . It is in the same pot as a Dasylirion .....which also really should have been brought in ...and has also survived the storms . 

I'm going to leave these now to get up to the ambient temperature of the greenhouse ....and maybe wait until next weekends storm passes over ..... well ..they are saying it's going to be unsettled and could be pretty blustery . Or maybe severe gales .  So the tomatoes are looking quite happy for the time being , but I am keen to make space in the shed to bring on other seedlings .

The greenhouse is unheated .  The compost in those black bags will heat up and give out warmth during the night .

Yes Dad if you're looking in , yes that is your old hockey stick . I have no idea how it came to be in my greenhouse !   🤣

              So that's that job done !  

Next ...

                      My washing machine makes me so happy !  🎵🎶🎵🎶😀

              I did a big load of washing and got it all dry on the line !

Then back up in the shed ......

       

The sun still shining in !

Then I cleaned up this beautiful old chair that Ricardo didn't love anymore and now he loves it again !

....... but now ...it's mine ! 

Then we both went for our eye tests over in Helston with lovely Aldo and the lovely ladies .It is just wonderful and we should all be so grateful for the technology they have to give us good vision and to see if there are any medical issues .  Everything looks to be fine . I'm upgrading my glasses for my embroidery work . All good .  💖 

  I decided to bring the Lemon scented Geranium in doors , it can go onto my bedroom windowsill .

   One last thing ....I sowed a pot of Cosmos seeds ....also on my bedroom windowsill .

                     So it's been a busy old day !  Happy busy though !  

                                  Warmer days are coming soon , hang on in there !

                                Thinking of you  🙏🏻

                                                           Peace and Love 🕊️🤍

                                                                              Debbie  💐 x

                                                    🌿☀️🌿

🌿Tomato Plant Hygiene 🍅🌿🌿

 

So far , everything is going well with the tomatoes in the greenhouse .

Lots of lovely shiny green fruits coming .

So today I am going to take off some of the leaves under the bench  , primarily to let more air in .

Cushion to sit on and another to rest my elbow on as I have to lie down to reach in under the greenhouse bench .

                   Look at that Bowiea volubilis !                   It's one crazy plant !

Put some nice music on and got on with the quite therapeutic job .

  🌿    That fragrance of tomato leaves mmm ... 🌿 

Now then , everyone has different ways of doing things . I think it is best for newbies to learn "the proper way of doing tomatoes " and then gradually learn how to adapt it to your growing conditions .

Some people grow them in the ground outside , some in pots , some in the ground in the greenhouse , some in sheds , some in polytunnels  .

My best success  is growing them under cover in pot/bags , both in the shed and greenhouse . 

 

We have a very humid and often mizzly and rainy weather here in the far south west of Cornwall . Often severe gales and big storms . ..which then if the tomatoes are not under cover ...brings blight !!

There's plenty to read about it on line , you choose your way .

This year I have tried to get away with using as little shop bought multi-purpose compost as I can get away with .

Pot/bag rolled down only half full of compost . 🍅  Pot/bag rolled up. Thinking about topping it up .

You can see in the above picture that I have not topped up those pot/bags . They are about two thirds or half full and a couple of them have two plants in . So I've been really mean ! lol !

It's about trying to save money !!  ..but still getting as much out of these plants as possible !

 But the plants are doing really well , healthy , lots of flowers and tomatoes coming on them .

This one is a new lovely variety to me Cocktail Crush . It is trying to climb out of the pot !

It is also putting out arial roots ! 

So although it's getting nutrients when I water with feed in it, I am thinking I may top this one up and a couple of the others too .  It wants MORE !  🌿🌿🌿🍅

The other thing I do is I leave any new shoots at the very bottom . There was one year when one of my plants  , one growing by the door , which I sometimes leave open when it becomes very hot ...but this one plant started to look as if it might have the dreaded blight . I cut the top off and let the lower healthy shoots take over and it worked a treat , I didn't lose the plant and a bit later than the others, but I still got a good harvest   .

I will do the above bench tomatoes another day , but did pull in the vines to the paracord I'd tied up .

While I'm down here on the floor I dragged across this Crassula muscosa plant which has been almost smothered by the flaming nuisance Oxalis corniculata ...which is very pretty with it's dainty yellow flowers, but which can very quickly spread through a cactus collection . I can't even see my  Crassula plant it has become so swamped by it !

Here it is ...also known as "The Watch Chain Plant "  It is very fragile plant and I am cross that the Oxalis has found it's way in .

So there we are ! I had a little sweep up and it got too hot to do any more work in the garden .

So I harvested a couple of cucumbers and picked a good cupful of nice fat juicy Blackcurrants .

Very surprised to find them already !

                                   Hope you are all enjoying the nice weather .

   

                                                   That's all fer now folks !

        

                                                              ☀️☀️☀️