Another busy day

We had one or two short sharp showers here this morning but since then it has been a perfect day for gardening. So I had no excuse and spent the best part of the day outside.

Ornamentals

This week has seen a number of flowers come into bloom including Borage (photo), Passiflora, Verbena Bonariensis and Fuchsias Tom Thumb, Lady Boothby, Beacon and Ant & Dec. I moved three of the Tagetes plants into the greenhouse to join the Tomato Micros and hit on the idea of standing them in a tray of horticultural sand as an experiment to see if it will deter the slugs and snails.

In the sunny border I planted out three Centratherum plants behind the Aquilegias which I've cut back now they have finished flowering. The Centratherum is billed as 'attractive, fluffy, lavender-blue, button-like flowers produced all summer on bushy plants with unusual, pineapple fragrant foliage. Very heat and drought tolerant, attracting butterflies and adding fragrance.' So I just had to try it! The border is parched so I made the planting holes much bigger than the size of the pots, filled them with water and once they had drained added potting compost and bone meal before I popped the plants in. Then I gave them a very good soaking to ensure they were settled.

The Pansy seeds I sowed a few weeks back have germinated well so I pricked them out into modules and popped them in the greenhouse where I hope they will make nice sturdy plants for my winter hanging baskets. I noticed that the Solanum (Winter Cherry) had self-seeded everywhere in the window box so I pricked out some of the seedlings into modules to make more plants for winter containers. I sowed self-saved seeds of Dicentra Alba and collected Aquilegia and Pulmonaria seeds as the cases were beginning to open. I'll let them dry out completely before sowing.

The Pelargonium Candy Dancer plants have all had a growth spurt so I potted them up into their final containers for the year. I potted on a few other things too including three Box cuttings I took last year which now have nice strong roots.

Edibles

I've pegged down more Strawberry runners into small pots to increase my stock for next year. And with a bit of reorganisation I've manged to find room for the two Courgette plants - one in the border and one in the veg plot. I had a good look at the Broad Beans today and I've got about ten pods in total. I hope they'll reach eating size soon because I really could make much better use of the space the two containers are taking up. There are lots of fruits on the Physallis, a good few green Raspberries and some green Tomatoes on Micro and Whippersnapper. But sadly I've had to throw away most of the pots of red onion sets as the slugs have eaten all the foliage and I've had to move the Parsley too for the same reason. Grrr!

Georgie