Thursday, 21-05-26

 Good morning (just) everyone.  Better late than never as the saying goes.

Yesterday was busy but I got plenty done.  I went to Personal Training, went on to Longacres and B&Q and found some bedding plants and some rhubarb but the tomatoes looked newly pricked out, minute and no way plus there weren't any cucumbers.  

So later on I drove out the Grenville's which is a proper nursery, rather than a garden centre.  They had some excellent tomatoes plus some cucumbers, four for a fiver so I came home with a tenner's worth.

I spend the rest of the afternoon in the back garden and things look a lot more organised now.

Two cucumbers.  One should produce minis and the other should give me the usual sized ones.  Fingers crossed.  I took off the top half of the soil in the pot and replaced it with some chicken manure pellets (phew) and good stuff from the bottom of the compost bin so they have no excuses.

There's eighteen tomatoes, all in the blankety bed around the edge so the cane supports look quite Heath Robinson-ish at the moment but in four to six weeks' time, it should look good and productive.
I've got Shirley, Gardener's Delight, Honeycomb, Sungold, Roma, Alicante, Rapunzel, Red Plum and Sweet Millions.  No fancy pants types this year and, in fact, I don't remember seeing any 'heritage' types.  I've had them all before and I know they are tasty and prolific.
I've always had them in pots before so it will be interesting to see how well they do with deeper roots - the few I had in the bed last year did really well so fingers crossed.

As for the rhubarb, I need to get myself a big, big pot and some good soil - I think the RHS suggested John Innes no 3 (does that sound right?) and I will also add chicken manure and some compost soil.  I've never grown rhubarb before but I gather I just leave it this year for the roots to establish and cut the stems back at the end of the fruiting season.
More fingers crossed!

Today I have had a good old chat with Chris and now I'm off on a coach trip.  A tour of the Poppy Factory followed by a boat trip from Richmond to Westminster where the coach will pick us up and bring us home again.  It should be very interesting and the weather forecast is OK
the poppy factory

Have a lovely day, all, and see you tomorrow.  xx