Ants' aphid farm in the apple tree

A few years ago, hubby planted 2 apple trees on the strip of no-man's land on the other side of our monster laurel hedge.

Our apples are your apples

To head off any local difficulties, we diplomatically (& grandiosely) declared it a Community Orchard, & mailed short explanatory notes to all the neighbours to say that the apples were for all.

Over the following weeks we had some nice comments in passing, but we knew the 'hood was down when some kids knocked on the door asking if they could bury their deceased pet gerbil under the trees.

Working together

The apples are different varieties, Bountiful & a Russet, but they are from the same pollination group.

Blossom on the Russet

We planted them, then crossed our fingers, & are chuffed to bits that they have indeed successfully cross-pollinated each other in the last couple of years:

Not actual size, but with any luck these Bountifuls will get bigger

Aphid ant farm

We were out this week inspecting the fruits & checking for damage, we spotted that the Bountiful had a lot of aphid action:

Houston, we have a problem...

Then I saw the ants... slowly the cogs of my brain chugged round... & I remembered: don't ants farm aphids for their honeydew?

This may sound insane, but in the ongoing discussion about what separates mankind from the beasts, the answer is: far less than we like to think. A couple of answers I was given as a child have been overturned since my school days:

• Opposable thumbs
  From pandas to opossums, opposable digits are enjoyed across the animal kingdom.
• Using tools
  Some apes use twigs to fish for ants. Otters, elephants & crows are all in on this tool use action.

Actually, these first 2 were overturned sometime before I was school age, but that was the 70s so many of the books were older than the building. Fortunately, we now have QI, BBC4 & the Internet to sort out the mess.

• Farming
  Some ants farm fungi & some farm aphids.

Earlier this year I saw some stuff on TV about ants farming fungi, and I read about ants & aphids the other week, in Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman.

The Fantastic Mr Feynman

I'm a bit obsessed with Richard Feynman at the mo: the fab docudrama on the Challenger Shuttle enquiry; the documentary the BBC screened with it; the enthusiasm for Feynman that Robin Ince showed when we saw his show The Importance Of Being Interested.

Right from when he was a nipper, Feynman was interested in all kinds of stuff. Even as an adult, he would keep his microscope's eye piece in his pocket, so he could spy upon interesting small stuff when going about his day.

His Dad told him about ants & aphids, & then one day he saw it for himself:

"So here was this aphid and sure enough, an ant came along, and patted it with its feet - all around the aphid, pat, pat, pat, pat, pat! This was terribly exciting! Then the juice came out of the back of the aphid. And because it was magnified, it looked just like a big, beautiful, glistening ball, like a balloon, because of the surface tension...

"The ant took this ball into its two front feet, lifted it off the aphid, and held it. The world is so different at that scale that you can pick up water and hold it!... Then the ant broke the surface tension of the drop with its mouth, and the surface tension collapsed the drop right into his gut. It was very interesting to see this whole thing happen!"

p93 Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman

Well we didn't see what Feynman saw, but every aphid-rich leaf had at least 1 ant...

Ant siesta

I went & checked again lunchtime today, to take photos, but no ants. Maybe they were hiding from the midday sun.

But when I went & checked again in the evening, there they were:

Ant farmer, bottom right of the leaf... honest

Plan of attack...?

We speculated that, if the ants are farming, then presumably that means protecting the aphids from predators. A quick Google brought up a BBC clip showing a group of ants fighting off a ladybird.

So it's no use going to the aphids. I guess we have to target the ants first. I feel really bad about this but, for the health of the tree, something might have to be done.

I've had a dig around online for advice, but am struggling to find a consistent answer - I don't want to nuke the place.

Any suggestions, folks?

Update: All this might be academic if the local kids don't stop ripping the fruit off. I guess this lot were too young to get the memo... :(

Rhubarb!

Our rhubarb has plans for world domination. Like most plants in our garden, it is ignored most of the time. Maybe this is why it's so big - it's craving attention. We took 2 chunks out of the crown last year for friends - you'd never know.

I love the look of the rhubarb - big leaves, interesting stems, a good bit of green structure. It's like a Gunnera for small gardens. But I don't like the taste of it. Hubby does, but bless him he's only 1 man with a mountain of rhubarb to climb... eat... whatever.

Psst... want any rhubarb?

We were in the Farmshop the other week, idly mentioning that the rhubarb's 2013 campaign was well underway (none of this "don't harvest when there's an R in the month" stuff for us) & the fruit & veg lady said:

"If you have any spare, we'll take it."

"Really?!"

"Absolutely! We're always looking for local suppliers."

"What? But we grow it in our garden!?!"

"Fine with us!"

How odd, we thought. Schurely sche can't be scherious.

A couple of weeks later we checked again, partly cos the rhubarb was now trying to push down the new fence (it shall not be contained!). And the shop staff were still keen.

So this Friday morning, I harvested just under a quarter of the stems from the plant & shipped them to the shop on my way to work.

One quarter gone - tis but a scratch
(the sorrel bottom right is picking up too)

2 kilos once the leaves are off

Knock, knock

The guy stocking up outside the shop was a little surprised to see me rock up with an armful of rhubarb, but once I'd explained the deal, he looked it over & was really keen:

"Ooh it's really good quality!"

"Really?"

"Oh yeah, really nice."

"Cool! Glad you like it."

He then found a snail on the underside of one of the leaves...

"Yeah, there might be a few of them..."

"No problem"

& so ensued a short conversation on snail species identification & edibility...

We're (sort of) famous!

On the weekend we were back at the Farmshop & there by the door was a sign saying "Homegrown Rhubarb". That's us!

Mind, not all the rhubarb in the box is ours - some of it was a bit green in the stem, & I definitely didn't pick any green stems. To be fair, as soon as they saw me they 'fessed - they'd put some additional rhubarb into the same box, sourced from the nurseries in the next village. Still local, but a bit cheeky, given the 'homegrown' label.

Fruit & veg lady was very enthusiastic about ours tho':

"It was lovely. Most of it sold really quickly.
If you have any more, we'll happily take it."

How cool is that! & when we got to the till, we got some cash off our bill to the tune of the trade-in price of 2kg of rhubarb. Yay!

So, bartering is back! It all went so well we'll doubtless do it again. Our compost bin won't see much rhubarb mulch this year, which seems much less of a waste. Plus, we now also have an alternative outlet for our annual gooseberry glut - bonus! Jury's still out on the snails tho' - I'm not sure the region is quite ready for fresh Northumbrian Wallfish.

p.s. If you know me in real life & want any free rhubarb or gooseberries, shout up before we ship it all off to the Farmshop.

End of April catch up

Crikey, nearly a month since my last post. Is it because I've been too busy doing actual gardening? Of course not.

But that doesn't matter as it's been a fairly sunny round here this April. Admittedly some of the showers have been a tad, erm, white & lumpy, & the temperature has been up & down like the Assyrian Empire. But the garden has clearly decided Spring is here & is just getting on with it. That's the spirit!

So how's everything getting along while I've been maximising my quality sofa time?

Bay cuttings

When I pruned the bay last year, I had a go at taking cuttings from the trimmings.

2 pots, 3 stems per pot, over-Wintered in the greenhouse & they seemed to be going well. But I've been as slow to get started as Spring has & the other week Hubby spotted the cuttings were wilting. With the weather heating up (a bit) they weren't getting enough water. So I've moved them outside & given them saucers, to help them keep some of the rain they catch.

Some green left on the Autumn's Bay cuttings

As you might be able to spot in the pic, at least 2 of the 6 cuttings still have green in their leaves, so hopefully they'll strengthen as Spring progresses.

Magnolia flowers

The week before I put the stairs into Stinky Dog Corner, I bought a couple of trees: a Himalayan Birch, for the top of those steps; & a Magnolia for The White Corner, bottom right of the garden. To be honest I didn't think the Magnolia's flower buds would survive a March planting, but 3 or 4 look like they might just hang on in there. Yay!

New tree: Magnolia Manchu Fan

Old bulbs

In The White Corner, the Magnolia joins some other white plants put in previously. A few years ago I started thinking about playing with some colour theory to make the garden feel a bit longer: strong colours nearer the house; paler ones further away.

So a few years ago, I declared (in my mind) the bottom right end of the garden The White Corner, & I put in some white tulips & pale daffs.

Tulips & daffs in The White Corner

I love the pale green on these tulips, & the flowers are huge.

So, normal sized daffs, fairly large tulips, large tulip-shaped magnolia flowers... yep I've just realised that my colour/distance illusion is going to be shattered cos it's not accompanied by an illusion of scale: large flowers in strong colours nearer the house; small flowers in paler colours further away. Doh!

Hellebore

Also new to The White Corner this Spring, planted underneath the Magnolia, is a white Hellebore... Well it was white when the flowers were new. I didn't realise the flowers would change colour as they aged & set seed.

White (& pink & gold) Hellebore flowers

Bonus!

Dwarf narcissus

Dwarf Narcissus in the Eye bed

The bulbs I planted late last year are going great guns & have brought much joy between the snow showers. The daffs were 1st up & have put on a beautiful show regardless of what the weather has thrown at them. Fair play.

New tulips

2 sorts of tulips went in at the same time as the dwarf daffs. The orange Shakespeares have come & gone & to be honest I was a little disappointed - their colour wasn't as punchy as I'd hoped. Hopefully the Synaedas will be more zesty when they make an appearance... & that should be an "if" cos none of the tulips currently maturing are orange... they're all purple:

The Queen Of Night tulips are starting to colour up

Wow! Looks like these Queens are going to be suitably regal. The purple edges look very much like the dupion silk of my wedding dress.

New Alliums

Last of the new bulbs are the Alliums. I've had them before but they don't seem to stick around in the beds, so this time they're all in pots so I can keep a good eye on them.

The first Allium flower head makes an appearance

The leaves are suitably & noticeably oniony, which I really like. Hopefully when the flowers explode, this tall slender pot won't get toppled.

Onions

I planted them! I found a little time a couple of weeks ago to get them in the ground:

They're alive! The shallots are sprouting! Yay!!!

I've got 2 of these module trays, plus I planted 10 out in the central Twisty Hazel bed. Most of them have started to sprout, one so vigorously it was pushing itself out of the ground... I maybe shouldn't firm down the soil in the seed tray so enthusiastically...

Salads

Hubby's done a great job of keeping an eye on the Greenhouse Gutterbeds:

Lower pipe: over-Wintered coriander & parsley.
Upper pipe: this Spring's mixed salad.

The parsley & coriander in the lowest row have struggled through the Winter - not really vigorous enough to harvest, but hanging on in there. I guess if we plant them out into the main greenhouse bed they might make for a good early crop.

I'm really good at buying seeds I never plant, so this time Hubby's stepped in & put some Spring salads in the middle gutter. A mixed leaf selection closest to us, some little gem lettuce in the middle & some flat leaf parsley at the far end. Hopefully we won't have to wait so many months to harvest these.

Weeds

& of course the early weeds are making a Spring dash too, but I did manage to get in some mid-week weeding recently. My compost bin's never hot enough to properly deal with serious weeds like dandelion & burdock, so I usually put them into my Council garden waste bin. But this time I thought I'd give Alys Fowler's soggy rotten bucket suggestion a go.

Bad-asses in the bucket

But Hubby came in this afternoon & cheerily announced:

"Whatever's in the bucket is sprouting nicely..."

The leggy buttercupy things are loving it in there. I've given them another mushing but if by next week the bucket looks more like a pond, into the Garden waste they go.

Hopefully, at some point soon, I'll get out there & sow some more seeds, & fill the gaps the weeds have left.

Can I keep on top of the weeds this year? Only time will tell.
Let battle commence!

Treasure! Free onion sets!

It's been a gloriously sunny week. & despite last night's rain sounding decidedly lumpy, most folk round here are more than ready to declare Spring officially sprung. The daffs are blooming - that's good enough for me.

& if the prospect of Spring wasn't exciting enough, I scored some free onion sets from a friend at work. Result!

Don't they look jewel-like?

They're a mix of white, gold, long red & round red. No idea what specific varieties - the colour/shape descriptions are good enough for me.

I'm very excited about having a go with these. I blagged some free sets last year too but blew that opportunity by never quite getting around to planting them out. I shall endeavour not to waste this gift in the same frivolous manner.

& reading that paragraph back, I see that I need to simmer down - some alarm bells are clanging...

Shoulda woulda coulda

In the past I've given myself a real hard time for things I feel I should do. I had a really rough time a few years ago, so got some counselling. One of the best bits of advice my counsellor gave me was:

"Beware 'should' statements."

You know, those niggles of I should do this, I ought to do that. Those guilty little thoughts that have us skulking off to do something begrudgingly... but for folk like me they can open the door to the downward slide, & frankly who needs that? I'd much rather do stuff with spring in my step & a song in my heart; do things cos I want to do them, not just cos I should.

My counsellor suggested examining the shoulds when they popped into mind because, she said, they frequently come from things folk have said in the past. Not always nice things. Rarely for the recipient's benefit. Often for the other person's own ends. Not all of those shoulds were meant maliciously, far from it, but they've become poisonous over the years. So shed that baggage - Spring is the perfect time.

So, there are no promises that I will plant these onions. & no getting depressed if this lot rot in the bag just like last year. I may plant these onions, I may not. & if I don't, it's probably cos I was off doing something that was more important to my mental health at the time, like yomping up hills with hubby, or getting in some quality, guilt free, relaxing, sofa-time....
mmm... sofa....

Loving the jolly dwarf narcissus

First hack n slash of the year

Last time I said the next few post would be about the Japan trip. This isn't one of them. I'm having a spot of bother coralling that content so instead I'll tell you what we've been up to today.

When it comes to weeding, hubby tends to favour a scorched earth policy. It ain't subtle, but by god it gets the job done. It's efficient at bringing a weed-donimated border to order, but it does also tend to involve colloteral damage: the blitzing of innocents.

Potato plot

Yesterday, hubby floated the idea of spending some of Sunday planting out the potatoes that are currently sprouting on the kitchen window sill. Hmm... this means clearing some space for them.

The best spot I think is the big bed at the bottom right of the garden, but there are some items of value already in there.

Won't somebody save the children?!

So, who needs protecting from the marauding ground clearance squad?

• Cyclmen: A few years ago, this preminiscient specimen thankfully had the foresight to emigrate from a bed that no longer exists (lost to the pizza oven project). & very happy it is in its new home too.
• Primrose: Also evacuees from the defunct pizza bed, these sorry survivors may not last much longer. Sadly these poor buggers seem to get smaller, not bigger.
• Ferns: Most of them have survived last year's reshuffle in the corner of this bed, I think... most of them...
• Anemone: Planted when the ferns were shuffled, but it has had a terrible winter - we came back from our holidays to find it fair flattened by a slab of sandstone from the boundary wall. Oops :/ I hope it recovers cos its late Autumn white blooms were just lovely.
• Snowdrops: We appear to be massively down on snowdrops this year. Dunno what that's all about - we usually can't move for them. Maybe they've paid the price for last year's restructuring.
• Daffs & tulips: Bought in a giddy moment at the garden centre & planted along to boundary wall for no good reason. But at least I know where they are...
• Clematis: In another giddy moment last year, this time at Asda, I bought 4 climbers for a tenner. Just too good a bargain to miss, only I wasn't really sure where to put them. So I've procrastinated - they're in pots in various locations "to see how they work". Fair play to the one by the yard door as it's showing green shoots already. On the upside, by having it still in its pot, the one by the boundary wall is real easy to shift out of the way of today's groundworks.
• Horseradish: Very little of it above the ground at the mo, but I did mark it out during last year's labelling frenzy. Man, I'm loving those labels right now - they're telling me it's the dwarf narcissus bulbs that are poking their heads through; & this one's telling me not to flatten the horseradish.
  
  & finally, & most importantly
• Nameless plant from a friend: Bunged into this bed for "safe keeping" during the restructuring & then lost under the rampaging burdock that lept the wall. This is the most precious to me cos its not one I've bought. Donated plants seem that bit more special. They're not my plants; they're their plant in our garden. & I always refer to them that way: Richard's raspberries or Anna's purple ground cover plant.
  
  Problem is, I'm not exactly sure what this plant looks like, which is going to make saving it a little trickier. Pants.

Division of labour

So, as I said up top, when it comes to ground clearance, hubby is very enthusiastic. And I am glad for that: it was hearing him battering through the swollen garage door & out into the garden this lunchtime that spurred me off the sofa & into action, to channel his energy.

We established our goals:

1. Don't flatten the valuables.
2. Evict the weeds.
3. Create a potato patch alongside the path.
4. Find the lost plant if poss.

It's good to have a plan.

The bed's a quarter circle easily big enough for us to work in without tripping over each other.

Hubby was on potato plot duty: clearing the strip closest to the path but being careful of the cyclamen, the clematis & the bulbs. He knows some of our regular plants, so he can spot an aquilegia & they can all come out of this bed today cos we've got loads elsewhere.

For myself, I'm hunting the missing plant whilst also clearing the marauding burdock & ivy from the lea of the boundary wall. The burdock didn't go down without a fight:

Burdock burrs: nature's Velcro

Don't I know you?

There were loads of green leaves underneath last year's dead but still bolshy burdock stem, so I'd assumed they were either new leaves of this year's burdock, or new baby burdocks. But as I put the big fork in & lifted the 1st clump, I spotted flowers amongst the foliage. Hang on... this isn't burdock then... Looking over the rest of the leaves I found more little flowers. Ace! I've found the missing plant! It was right in front of me all the time... I'm an idiot.

It's been busy while I've been ignoring it & had fended well amongst our usual bullies. So I lifted a big chunk of it, dumped it into a bucket of water so it didn't dry out while I dug over the rest of the bed... I say I dug over the rest of the bed, hubby volunteered to do it. As I said, he does like a bit of slash & burn, & Sunday is usually an exercise day for him... I'm sounding pathetic so I'll shut up & get busy with the coffee machine...

All done

Bed turned, weeds expunged, potatoes planted, friend's plant re-homed, garden waste wheelie bin filled & 2 bags over. Now to do the washing up.

Gardening has helped me get into the zen of the clean up. Every job creates mess & you could view the tidying as a bit of a chore (OK, to be honest, when tackling the hedge from hell, it is). But I've found I really like cleaning the mud off the tools & putting them away on the rack. Does that make me sound like James May arranging his spanners? Don't care, cos I like an ordered socket set too so nur!

However I always forget to clean my boots. They may be on my my feet but they're just not on my radar. I use these very same boots when I ride my bike, & that usually means I realise they're still caked in half the garden just as I'm pulling them on before heading out to work.

But today was different cos hubby was gardening too, & his boots were the 1st, nay the only thing he cleaned. He hates cleaning up after a job, but he does look after his boots, & so following his good lead my boots actually got a timely scrub today too. I might even polish them once they're dry. Maybe.

Tomorrow morning I'll not only have clean boots, but I'll open the curtains & see a corner of order amongst the chaos. A good start to the coming gardening year.

Hubby's a fungi

Yeah, I still can't resist the terrible puns. I'll get it out of system soon, I'm sure...
(I'm not sure)

This Autumn we've been catching the occasional edition of The Great British Food Revival on Beeb2, picking up loads of foodie tips. During the mushroom edition, there was a story about a guy who sold mushroom kits. Nowt new here: grow your own 'schroom packs have been kicking around for ages, & my Mum had a kit in the 70s. Mind, all it managed to cultivate was a cupboard full of tiny little flies - bit of an anti-climax.

But these kits from Fungi Futures are slightly different - they use recycled old coffee grounds as the growing medium for the mushies. So we already have a reduced fly risk. Yay! And these are a different variety too. Mum's kit was for the button/closed cap/portobello variety - yep, those 3 supermarket stalwarts are really the same type of mushroom at different stages of 'fruit' maturity. The Fungi Futures kits grow Pearl Oyster mushrooms. Yummy!

Lemme out of the box!

£11.95 of your hard-earned gets you one of these:

Ooh... it's a big box of potential

The pack is about the size of a wine box. When you get your kit, the fungus is already growing: when you take the bag out of the box to give it a soaking, as instructed, you can see the spidery white fibres of the the mycelium (the 'roots' of the mushroom) running through the coffee grounds. If you've ever made leafmould, it looks a bit like the end of year 1.

So, you soak the mushroom bag. Then you pop it back in the box & open that tear flap on the front. Then you cut through the bit of the plastic bag the tear flap has just exposed - this encourages the mushroom to 'fruit' in that location - the mushroom's 'fruiting bodies' are the bits we eat. You then pop the box somewhere gloomy & not too warm, mist the exposed bit daily with water, & wait...

Are we nearly there yet?

Hubby put the mushrooms in the garage - it's certainly gloomy in there, & not too warm. The box says to expect a harvest in 14 days. After a week, there wasn't much sign of progress. Is it too cold in there? We've had snow recently... Is this going to work at all?

But after 2 weeks, there's action:

Peek-a-boo! It looks like it's actually going to work!

Yeah I admit that photo looks like a poor soul with a particularly bad attack of psoriasis, but trust me this was really exciting. When those little brown knobbly ugly ducklings grow up, they're going to be splendid swan-like oyster mushrooms...

Even though we can see things are moving along, we take the strategic decision to move the mushies onto the hall window cill (alongside the recovering chicks). We're hoping that a bit more heat & a bit more light will speed things along a bit...

Success!

Ta da! Looking tasty...

Wow! Doesn't that picture just speak for itself?! Don't they look magnificent?! I'm so impressed. It's like magic! They took about a week to develop into the fully gilled brackets you see here & the progress was so rapid that Hubby was convinced you could just stand there and watch them growing. Coming home from work every day, we'd close the front door & just be blown away with how much they'd developed.

So, is anyone feeling peckish?

Dinner time!

The mushrooms are getting big now - some up to 10cm across, which is much bigger than the ones we've previously bought from the supermarket. So it's time to get busy with the garlic.... *dribble*

Hubby's the cook of our household &, like Mark from Peep Show, thinks nothing of doing a midweek roast dinner. Which is great, cos it means scrummy scran all through the week, & lots of lovely leftovers fit for snaffling.

& just in case I wasn't already sounding like a monumental arse, I now have to tell you that this week's mid-week roast was... erm... guinea fowl. What kind of fucking Princess eats guinea fowl? Mid week!? Yeah, that'd be me. Are you being blinded by the glint from my tiara yet?

But hear me out, as I pathetically feel the need to justify such pretention... *cough*sputter*... I mean, compare guinea fowl to a free range chicken:

• Cheaper: cos it's...
• Smaller: There's only 2 of us to feed, after all.
• Tastier: A bit more gamey than chicken, not as strong as pheasant.
• Different: Chicken's nice & all that, but it's fun to change it up a bit.

So we had roasted legs earlier in the week, leaving the breast meat & wings for another day. Roast poultry makes a great risotto. Mushrooms love risotto too. Risotto it is then.

Using a small sharp knife, Hubby carefully cut through the fleshy stems of the largest mushrooms:

First mushroom harvest with mid-week roast leftovers

He then sautéed the mushrooms in garlic butter, waved his magic stirring spoon, et voilà!

Guinea fowl & mushroom risotto

That bit of green sticking out from under the mushroom? It's spinach. Not home grown I'm afraid, but maybe one for next year's seed list. But there is another homegrown element in there - lovely tasty Lemon Thyme. I'll take you on a tour through our herb bed another day.

Our fungi futures?

Apparently we can expect at least another flush of mushrooms from this box. Plus, Hubby bought 2 boxes, just in case the 1st didn't work. Plus plus, a fungal friend reckons if you rehouse a chunk of the mycelium in fresh growing medium, you can repeat the cycle indefinitely. Woo hoo!

I wonder what other mushrooms we could grow...? I hear you can get Shiitake logs... & on River Cottage they once went foraging for Morels in the wood-chipped borders of a housing estate... Cool...

Salads all year round?

At any given moment, I've usually got several stray thoughts floating around the back of my head. Half-formed sentences waft around, searching for something to hang on to, waiting to coalesce into fully fledged, proper ideas... A bit like this post...

What does it all mean?

Here are some of the itinerant ponders that were bubbling up over the Summer:

• You can grow seedlings in lengths of guttering.
• Seedlings grown in gutters can be easily planted out, in chunks, reducing root disturbance.
• At River Cottage, they grow tasty micro salads in gutters, all year round.
• Hubby really enjoyed cooking with the lovely fresh parsley that survived all winter in the greenhouse.
• We could really do with some shelving for seedlings, but there's no space in the greenhouse.

The mists are clearing...

& slowly... an image formed... & I said to hubby: "Do you think we could attach a couple of rows of guttering to the back wall of the greenhouse, & grow salads & parsley & coriander in them?"

He was so keen on the idea, he did it that very weekend - wot a star!

3 rows should do it

So we've got:

• Some timber planks screwed to the window frame; then
• Guttering brackets mounted onto the planks; then
• A standard length of guttering per plank;
• Capped at the ends with standard guttering ends.

How neat & tidy is that? Lovely.

1st sowing

The next step is to bung some compost in & sow some seeds. Rather than going mental & filling all 3 rows, we plump for just doing the bottom row for starters, with the 2 leaves we're most likely to use: Parsley & Coriander.

They're ALIVE! The coriander get going

After a couple of weeks - success! The seeds are starting to germinate - woo hoo!

Fancy a dip?

It's been a wet summer; you may've noticed. However, what we've never realised before, is that we have a very leaky greenhouse:

Hmm... are we creating a water feature?

It seems the rain just runs all the way down the garage wall, with scant regard for the greenhouse frame. But no matter, less watering for us :) It does mean tho' that if we don't want the seedlings to drown, it's time to get busy with the drill.

There's a hole in my gutter, dear Liza, dear Liza...

We'll keep an eye on them to see whether we need to add any more.

2nd sowing

When hubby put the 1st set of seeds in, he deliberately left some gaps. As well as trying to grow more things over Winter, we're also playing with sequential sowing. This is partly to try & give us a more regular delivery of leaves, but also cos when I've tried to grow corinader in the past, it's bolted quicker than Usain.

A second sprouting

So now all we have to do is wait & see how the little seedlings cope with reduced heat & light over the next few months. If these quite tender fellas should struggle, we can also try out some winter salads.

Up here in North East at midwinter, it starts getting dark about 3:30pm, I kid you not. On the upside, it's now less than a month til the days start getting longer... which means Spring is on the way - you heard it here 1st, folks!