Six on Saturday

I have no shame, I just saw a post by Beryl who writes MudandGluts post on Twitter about #six-on-saturday. Visited The Propagator website (who started it) to find out what it is all about. Thought that I rather liked the idea and here I am writing it. This all took me, hmmm, let me see – 10 mins from reading to writing. Thank you both, and here it is,

1. This is a complete coincidence, honestly, I know that I just admitted to jumping on a bandwagon but the following was an accident. This morning over my early coffee I watched a Charles Dowding video about sowing and growing lettuce. He conducted an experiment (video here) on germinating lettuce comparing sowing into compost only with compost mixed with vermiculite. The theory being that the tiny lettuce sometimes don’t cope well with the roots being wet and often the just germinated lettuce root will rot off or only grow slowly. Sowing into the vermiculite/compost mix gives better aeration to the roots and therefore potentially better germination and growth. I would recommend watching the video. The amazing thing for me is that I have just experienced exactly this. I had sown a batch of seeds recently into just compost, and then a few weeks ago into a mix. I have had no seedlings from the compost only and yet, from exactly the same seed in the mix, I have had excellent germination with lots of lovely little healthy seedlings. Complete coincidence but how great to have had what I had just experienced explained.

2. My back garden – up until today was an embarrassing mess, so much so that when I thought I had seen a Gardeners World competition for a small garden makeover I was in the middle of entering it (had even selected the photos) before I realised it wasn’t for me. It was, sadly, for people to enter who had recently completed a small garden makeover (think the competition is now closed).

Well having my hopes dashed that Monty or Carol or Adam was coming to my garden very soon G. and I (G. being husband) spent the day clearing debris, pruning, sweeping and weeding. The result a much tidier garden, however it really needs a rethink, last year it was overgrown and not very pleasing to sit in with only a few nice bits to look at (it is a really small garden, although we do have a huge shed with a green roof that G. built), I don’t want it to be the same this year, I want colour and lush growth but low maintenance too as most of the effort needs to go into the allotment. Anyway, time for a think and another coffee.

3. Tomorrow is my son and his partners’ dogs’ 5th birthday (apologies I really didn’t know where to put those single quotes then). He is a beautiful black lab and the daftest dog I have ever met. I have bought him a card and cleaned a ball for him to chew. Here he is.

4. Earth Hour WWF #earthhouruk I nearly missed this, I had pledged a couple of weeks ago but had completely forgotten it was happening. Total nincompoop (spelling I have no idea) if I hadn’t looked at FB post at 8.25pm from my sister I would have missed it. Fortunately we made it, although posting up a dark photo of my front room with oil lamp and candles with the tv still on standby as I had forgotten to turn it off at the electric somehow doesn’t feel quite right

5. Hopefully tomorrow we will finish the last of the bed prep work at the allotment. All beds, polytunnel (sans cover because one of the the storms ripped it to shreds) and fruit cage are mulched for ‘no dig’ with the exception of two new beds that are replacing the four original beds made from osb (oriented strand board) that disintegrated finally in the winter. Am going completely ‘no dig’ this year having been following it to increasing extents over the last couple of years. Am hoping for good harvests and over time less pests with less work carried out by either me G. Or my brother who does most of the heavy digging work up until now. The photo on my cover page is of the original beds (in the background is my neighbours plot) in early Summer, later in the year I will post a new picture.

6. G. planted the garlic yesterday. We have chosen to space it wider than the usual spacing with the intention of interplanting it with lettuce. This is it just before it was covered with compost and about a month after sowing.

Unfortunately I haven’t a photo of it planted as we worked on the garden today and it went in yesterday when I was in work, apparently G. got all arty and planted it in diamond. Will have to see what THAT looks like tomorrow. Am going to sneak another bit in here as on Thursday we had squash risotto with one of the last few remaining squash from last years harvest. It was absolutely one of the best tasting risottos I have ever had. The squash variety is Thelma Sanders and it came from #twitterseedcircle17 curated by mudandgluts (see intro for link). Thank you seedcircle17 and thank you again Beryl for hosting it.

So that’s it, hopefully this won’t be the only one of these, but there’s no guarantees am afraid, but it has been fun.