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Post by Moonlight on Feb 1, 2013 12:30:52 GMT
Diary of a bizarre erratic gardener.
Not sure if I should confess my sins in the gardening department but suffice to say that when my daughter asked me what my New Years Resolution would be I told her:
To try and grow more 'plant' plants than weeds this year. With emphasis on the word try.
My dream this year is to go for the Novice Cup at my local 3 shows (please don't ask where.)
What I don't want to do is to mean well. Lots of ideas and good intentions and nothing planted. I want to achieve, have some sort of personal pride in my garden and no longer be embarrassed. Anything that I plant and it grows will be something of pride and to me, will be a success (even if it was one thing)
I've put that back up to give me a bit more of a push and drive to do more. I want to loose the erratic bit and push myself on to do more.
So I am going to start with a bit of a 'confession'? not really the word that I am looking for but I want to say it how it is, turn it into a how it was and not be so distracted on my dreams. The goal needs to remain, I want a garden that I have personal pride in. Reality 1st, dreams later (but I will allow myself to bear them in mind).
ok, Starting with a how it is 
When we moved in we had a shed, a green house and a play house for the girls (although we only had 1 at the time and she was less than 12 months old  )
The garden had begun to get over grown before we moved in and it got progressively worse, major problems with bramble. It became a bramble jungle at the bottom of the garden. By fluke I met up with a close friend of mine who had a garden maintenance business and so because I trusted him, he tackled the brambles. This led to him knocking down our shed where the green house was, he moved our greenhouse and made a base where we could have a cabin built. A company that specialised in log cabins built one.
When my friend was making the base for our greenhouse, he spent ages digging soil out to concrete the base but I told him that I wanted it to have a soil base so that I could grow tomato plants etc. So our greenhouse sits on a concrete edge with soil inside. HH was concerned that with soil inside the weeds would grow if I did not maintain it. He was right and we have ended up with a greenhouse ruled by stinging nettles to the greenhouse ceiling. HH is was right but I wish he wasn't, things just did not go to plan, everything was on hold.
Now this is where the erratic was part of me is going to change. HH has said that if I strip the lounge of the girls' and my toot in the lounge, he is going to tackle the greenhouse. He has planned what he wants to do with the floor, weed membrane and covering it with pea shingle.
He wants the cabin painted with wood preservative and a magnolia in a garden. He asked me to ask here about how to do these which I did elsewhere here. (He did mention that if I didn't he would join Garden Friends as well.  )
So that's my task, tackle the lounge reading for decorating which is something that we have been wanting to do for years. Any man that offers to do battle with stinging nettles unpaid must love his wife very, very much. I just hope that I can prove to him that this is not a fad hobby and that we can achieve a house and garden that we can be proud of and I am sure that he will carry on supporting me chasing my dreams.
The seed swap packets are here and the girls and I have some sowing planning (with a cheeky eye on the show classes). I'm hoping that HH will be curious and suggest a packet or 2 in the swap.
So there you go, honesty is the best policy. Erratic part 'confessed' time to move forward and achieve. Time to crack on......
Oh, and I want to grow some Honesty to. |
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Post by Moonlight on Feb 1, 2013 12:39:01 GMT
Past tense is wrong, I still trust him. What I meant was knowing him and him knowing me, it was a little less embarrassing letting him see the mess that our garden had become. Without him starting it all off, I hate to think how bad a mess it would now be.
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Post by Moonlight on Feb 1, 2013 14:53:50 GMT
HH came home for lunch. Always nice without the children, time for grown up talk  today it was greenhouses, weed membrane, pea shingle, stinging nettles, cold frames, extra long heavy duty gardening gloves, seeds and HH laid down his ground rules re. shows.
(He brought the subjects up for once I was not guilty )
This is what he has told me:
You pack the car (I don't want the stress*)
I will drive
I will help you carry stuff in but I would rather not. (I don't want the stress*)
I am happy to sit in the car, sit in costa, go for a walk
I will drive you home again.
I will even come and look around if I have to at the end but only on the condition that you don't get upset if you don't win.
I am not going to listen to you sobbing all evening if you have not won anything.
He laughed and said "So basically I'll drive you there" which is the one thing that I could never do.I laughed and told him that I don't have a problem with anything that he has said because:Anything that I plant and it grows will be something of pride and to me, will be a success (even if it was one thing). If anything grows that I am not embarrassed about, I'll have won anyway.  *He hasn't got over breaking part of our wedding cake putting it into the car.He said he is going to read this later as knowing me I'll have posted it up here by 3pm and he'll let me know if I've forgotten anything.
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Post by Moonlight on Feb 2, 2013 0:29:04 GMT
Seed Swap
The good thing about doing the seed swap is actually going through my vegetable seeds and discovering what I had that nobody in our family likes e.g. turnips and those where we had identical varieties in different seed suppliers packets.
I wanted all 4 of us to go through the seeds, include everyone. It took ages deciding which vegetables to swap with and I have not even started sorting my flower seeds.
Luckily I've managed to reason with them that we really don't need 7 packets of tomato seeds, if there are 30 seeds in a pack, so we have a couple of extra packets we could use to swap. Trying to get children to understand that each seed = a plant which = lots of tomatoes. Trying to explain to my Vegetarian* daughter that 'Beefsteak' tomato was not meat  (yes dear you are right beef is meat but a beefsteak tomato is a tomato) and negotiating with HH that we needed anything other than cherry tomatoes and we do eat a lot of those but I do like the big beefy ones, lovely for cooking. Fried tomatoes, yum!
Choosing which flower seeds to swap with has been very controversial in our family. HH chose 5 but 1 was foxglove and I am sure my Dad said that it was poisonous, so even though the 3 of them assured me that the girls were big enough to understand not to touch some plants and promised that they wouldn't, I put them back in the swap bag. All 3 were not impressed but with a heap of flower seeds (my nice neat piles soon went) in the middle of the table nobody could argue that we don't have anything to choose. Far from it Pirate Yellow Wellies was clutching her 4 packets and Fairy Pink Wellies was stressing because she did not know how to cut her own pile of about 12 packets to less.
We decided that the best thing would be to stop, put all the packets of flowers back in the bag and carry on tomorrow. We are going to go through my flower seeds before we start, that way we will know how many potential swaps we have left and can haggle from there. I had been through the flowers searching for flowers that will bloom in April and it has been agreed that Daddy's 1st choice of pansies has been swapped because we all like pansies and we normally buy pansies plants. "I was thinking that they look nice in pots and hanging baskets........" I was told with a smile .
I am hope that with no school and no work and a little less over excitement it will make it easier to choose. I want to get it all packed, posted and delivered as soon as possible. HH bought his new heavy duty gardening gloves, got his wellies ready to go and picked his gardening top (it's got long sleeves) because he wants to tackle that greenhouse. I think my purple wheelbarrow will be given its eviction notice from the lounge (sniff, sniff), there is no way in the universe that I could get away with sowing any more seeds in the lounge.
I think that I should change my title from:
Purple wellies tiny steps Diary of a bizarre erratic gardener and her mad family![/b][/color] *FPW's, PYW's and myself are all Vegetarian but HH isn't.
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Post by Moonlight on Feb 2, 2013 11:51:48 GMT
Seed Swap
Choosing which flower seeds to swap with has been very controversial in our family. HH
We decided that the best thing would be to stop, put all the packets of flowers back in the bag and carry on tomorrow. We are going to go through my flower seeds before we start, that way we will know how many potential swaps we have left and can haggle from there.
I think that I should change my title from:
Purple wellies tiny steps Diary of a bizarre erratic gardener and her mad family! [/b][/color][/quote] Seed Swap Update 2
I have managed to negotiate an extra 2 potential swaps from my own vegetable pile, I have argued the case that a family of 4 do not need to 2 packets of broccoli seeds and that Fairy Pink Wellies has con seeded to my suggestion that we let her choose her favourite yellow pepper and if she thinks it tastes good, we can save seeds from that one (so that we get an extra potential swap choices). Fairy Pink Wellies has dancing to go to soon. HH can't wait for her to go and come back, he just wants to crack on with the Greenhouse. Me I've got a combination of helping FPW with her homework and sorting out the lounge. |
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Post by Moonlight on Feb 2, 2013 21:01:38 GMT
Saturday sweet pea growth update:
Fairy Pink Wellies pot of T&M seeds all through.
Pirate Yellow Wellies pot of T&M seeds
Hannah Beth (Lavender on white) has
Dave Thomas (red)
White Frills (white) all through.
Linda C (blue)
Zillah Harrod (lavender) now
Gwendoline (magenta) all
Anniversary (picotee) has woken up with with 1 more just poking up.
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Post by Moonlight on Feb 2, 2013 21:23:17 GMT
Seed Swap Update 3
All chosen and bagged. I gave up on my packet of alicante, as Fairy Pink Wellies pointed out we don't need those as well as Gardener's Delight (Daddy's favourite), my beefsteak ones & the packet of yellow tomatoes seeds. She was right and it is not fair if I get all my choices and their choices don't count. She obviously been listening to me makes a change . Flowers are all chosen but as a family we have decided to put the packet of courgettes in, Daddy cooked veggie Cottage Pie for dinner, Fairy Pink Wellies picked out all her courgettes and as HH had only used half of 1 whole courgette seemed a bit silly to grow them.
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Post by Moonlight on Feb 3, 2013 0:25:02 GMT
I feel more than a lot of embarrassment but I must offer credit where credit is due.
From this.......
To this.......
So forget the purple wellies, tiny steps, today was HH's green wellies and massive strides all in the right direction. I know he will read this. Thank you my Love. 
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Post by Geranium on Feb 3, 2013 7:25:09 GMT
Wow! All cleared and ready to go. ;D He deserves a medal. May I just ask if you have an opening window or vent in the roof? You'll need an air-flow once you get things growing in there, and I can't see one in your photo. I have another at the far end of my greenhouse, too - a panel with louvres in it. |
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Post by grindle on Feb 3, 2013 8:37:48 GMT
definately worth a pat on the back, he did a good job ;D
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Post by Cherry on Feb 3, 2013 9:28:40 GMT
There was a sneak preview of the seeds in the swap Moonlight and I need tomatoes. Looking forward to it now, but there is no hurry.
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Post by Moonlight on Feb 3, 2013 10:33:03 GMT
There was a sneak preview of the seeds in the swap Moonlight and I need tomatoes. Looking forward to it now, but there is no hurry.  Don't know the etiquette. Really sorry. Ignore my wafflings and I might be bluffing anyway??? .  |
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Post by Moonlight on Feb 3, 2013 10:53:17 GMT
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Post by Cherry on Feb 3, 2013 12:20:22 GMT
There was a sneak preview of the seeds in the swap Moonlight and I need tomatoes. Looking forward to it now, but there is no hurry. There is no etiquette needed. I meant it. There really is no hurry. Enjoy swapping. |
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Post by Moonlight on Feb 3, 2013 14:34:13 GMT
HH is a man on a mission, we've come back from Wicks with 10 bags of pea shingle. Guess where it is going to go.
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)
) 
today it was greenhouses, weed membrane, pea shingle, stinging nettles, cold frames, extra long heavy duty gardening gloves, seeds and HH laid down his ground rules re. shows.
(yes dear you are right beef is meat but a beefsteak tomato is a tomato) and negotiating with HH that we needed anything other than cherry tomatoes 
and marched back upstairs clutching pots to show me.
.
Don't know the etiquette. Really sorry. Ignore my wafflings and I might be bluffing anyway??? 
