Wednesday, March 7

The Garden Greenhouse

Just thought I'd give a bit of a summary as to what is happening in our garden greenhouse. If you read Martyn's blog you may already know about some of our recent acquisitions so bear with me.

You may remember our peach/nectarine mix up. Thompson and Morgan sent us a peach tree - Avalon Pride - instead of the nectarine - Fantasia that we ordered. We picked eight fresh peaches from it last year so weren't really complaining - who would - when we asked T&M if there had been a mistake or whether we had acquired a fuzzy nectarine. Anyway the result was a promise to shop out a nectarine this year. It's arrival caused a bit of concern as the delivery man said he had 'found' it in the back of his van where it had apparently been languishing for over a week. The arrival of the nectarine was closely followed by the arrival of an apricot tree - Flavourcot that we ordered last year.
Both of these are destined to be grown in pots in the garden rather than risk the precious fruit on the plot. So each had been potted into a large pot both of which will stay in the greenhouse for a spell of convalescence after the trauma of transportation - thankfully the buds of the nectarine are showing signs of green which is an indication that it has survived its long stay in the back of a dark delivery van!

You may also remember that last year we bought a miniature kiwi - Issai and that after a promising start it began to look a little unwell. We hadn't high hopes for it's survival but when we saw tint signs of life we (well Martyn really) discovered that it prefers an acid soil and so it has been repotted into an ericaceous compost and it is producing lots of healthy green shoots.

Then there was our Lazarus fig (renamed by me as it rose from the dead!) Well that is actually shooting too.

The new perennials I have mentioned before - they are already beginning to produce more shoots -  but I also took some perennial cuttings last year and most are still alive. The salvia in the front flower bed that I was concerned wouldn't make it through winter looks doubtful and unfortunately the cuttings that I took from it that were growing so well look as though they haven't managed winter in the greenhouse either. On the plus side my lavender cuttings are starting to grow away.
I also have several arum lilies which are beginning to shoot. I dug up and split a large clump that was growing in the garden last year and if all the pieces grow will have my work cut out finding space for them all.

Onto vegetables - the garlic is still growing well and the shallot and onion sets that have been started off in small pots and cells are beginning to sprout. This method worked well for us last year.
Instead of growing salad leaves under the indoor growing light which will soon be used just for seed germination and the raising of seedlings we now have some leaves growing in the greenhouse. These should take over once we have harvested all the indoor salad leaves.
Our first set of broad beans - Witkiem Manita - have been sown in pots - again a tried and tested method. As we do have a bit of a field mouse problem the pots are being protected under a propagator cover which will hopefully keep the greedy creatures from digging up and eating the seeds. They are pretty resourceful creatures though so fingers crossed.
The seed potatoes are also quietly doing their thing and chitting nicely under their fleece covering.
I know not technically the greenhouse but I'll mention here that we sowed celery and celeriac last month. We haven't ever had any success with attempts to grow either of these vegetables so we are trying to stick by the rules this time and sow the seeds early. Something we rarely do as our seed sowing tends to be held off until March at the earliest. The germinated seedlings are sharing the growing light with the last lot of our indoor salad leaves.

Don't forget to enter the competition here - I have had some entry forms submitted but it may be that some of you can't get the form to submit (it may depend on the browser being used) so you can email me your answers if you have a problem. My email address is on the side panel.

24 comments:

  1. I wish I had more room for fruit, I love the idea of a peach, nectarine and a kiwi. I would also really like an apple tree, I'm thinking of acquiring one this year and espalliering it onto the fence. Then I really will have run out of room.

    ReplyDelete
  2. We only have room by keeping them in pots, Liz. If you buy just one apple make sure it's self fertile or you won't get any apples.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I wish I had a larger greenhouse, you have so much going on in yours. It'll be exciting to see how all your new fruit does this year.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm watching the peach tree closely, Jo - it has green buds swelling which may be flower buds - I hope it doesn't disppoint after last year!

      Delete
  4. Wow! Looks like you both have been busy!

    We would love to grow some of the more exotic fruit, but we will be leaving that for a few years I think and just concentrating on getting our new allotment in to shape and getting some tasty veg on the table!

    Great post as always!

    Martin :0)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Very wise to decide on what you want to get sorted first, Martin - it's taken us years to venture into the more 'exotic'

      Delete
  5. Your greenhouse looks to be getting pretty packed - will you have any room for tomatoes? I have never tried these fruits as our garden is pretty open to the elements and I'm not sure whether they would survive the winds that rip through it. Would love too though.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There's still quite a lot of room Elaine and most of the stuff in there at the moment will move out in a month or so.

      Delete
  6. Wow, so many seeds coming up already. I feel behind! P.S. Your flower photos / collage in your last post are so pretty!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Good Luck with the celery and celeriac this year. We have many volunteer celery just sprouted because we left some plants to flower. Your greenhouse fill with wonderful stuffs.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Volunteer celery, Diana - Wow and we can't even get the invited celery to produce - maybe this year

      Delete
  8. Beautiful! Spring is such an exciting time - full of hope and the miracle of seeds/plants/etc.! All the best for your growing season. It's always exciting to see what's going on in other gardens. Especially as we are slowly entering the cooler time of year over here. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I love spring too VG and as you say we can experience it twice - Once for real and once virtually

      Delete
  9. I really need to look into some dwarf fruit trees to grow in pots on the deck. I have a two really big ones that would work well.

    Everything looks good as always Sue!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We have to decide where to pop the trees when they come out of the greenhouse Robin. It's a policy of buy them first and find somewhere for them afterwards. A strange way around but we hadn't banked on a nectarine AND a peach!

      Delete
  10. You certainly pack 'em in! I was very tempted to buy a miniature ("Patio") fruit tree the other day - the sort of thing that only ever grows to about 3 or 4 feet tall. Might succumbe next year - depends on whether my minarette apple tree survives this year.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I can't see any reason why your apple shouldn't survive Mark - I'd give in to the temptation.

      Delete
  11. I have greenhouse envy ... mine is still a building site inside whilst I make new staging. Of course it should have been finished six weeks ago (like everything else round here!)

    To dissuade the mouse from coming into the g/house, try spraying WD40 across the doorstep, apparently they hate the smell. Haven't tried it, so no guarantees expressed or implied :}

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm not sure they come in via the doorway though BW - there could even be one living in there as there are lots of hidey holes.

      Delete
  12. You seems to have most of the fruits and vegetables in your garden! Excellent job with the plants! Spring is most welcome in your garden i geuss! ;)

    ReplyDelete
  13. Everything looks so great...i really need to get my backside into gear and get some seed sowing done!! :-(

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for visiting and leaving a comment - it is great to hear from you and know that there are people out there actually reading what I write! Come back soon.
(By the way any comments just to promote a commercial site, or any comments not directly linked to the theme of my blog, will be deleted)
I am getting quite a lot of spam. It is not published and is just deleted. I have stopped sifting through it and just delete any that ends up in my spam folder in one go so I am sorry if one of your messages is deleted accidentally.
Comments to posts over five days old are all moderated.