Seedballs on the Bank

Finally a beautiful sunny crisp clear and dry day has arrived. So I have taken the opportunity to sow my seedballs on the stream bank.  The tins are very pretty and each has 20 seedballs in them.

 I got four different varieties just to mix it up a bit. 

Each seedball contains seeds, a bit of compost and some chilli to stop them being eaten by various creepy crawlies and birds. 

 And then it was simply a matter of wading into the stream and dropping the balls into nooks and crannies on the bank. I know the poppies say to spread in the Autumn but I have taken a chance. 

And now I have to wait and see what happens. 

After my paddle in the water, I wandered down to the veg patch and did a bit of clearing up. Very rewarding it was too. 

The bulb cutting bed is doing very well, not long now and I will have daffs, tulips and narcissi in the house. 

I also found this lovely jolly little flower peaking out from under a clump of hesperus. I think its an Aster. 

So after all this activity, it was time to sit in the sun and enjoy a cup of tea.

 Perfect day in the garden. 

Tarting up the Bed..

I have a very old friend who I don't see as often as I would like, who has a penchant for a tarted up bed. She does it by covering the said bed in literally dozens of cushions. Whenever I stay, I have to allow an extra 5 minutes at bedtime to remove all the cushions before I can get in. Next morning I have to try and put the puzzle back together again.. You know who you are.

Anyway today I finally got around to tarting up my new raised bed. In a recent blog, I mentioned that for my birthday Jim had bought me a rather nice new raised bed from Harrod Horticultural to replace one of mine that was rotten. At the same time he also got me a cover for the bed to keep away creepy crawlies and flying bugs. 

The instructions looked pretty straightforward so we set about putting it together

Basically you attach the bracket to the inside of the raised bed and then push the hoops onto them to support the cover. 

All told it took us about an hour to get the job done and that was after a complete restart when the first attempt was not low enough to allow the cover to touch the soil. 

We put the cover over just to make sure it fitted and then took it off again, as at the moment, I have Hesperis ready to flower in this bed and I don't want them covered. Once they are finished I shall remove them and they will be replaced with Kale and Spinach. 

I am really looking forward to seeing how it works out. The sides have zipped covers which you can open to allow in air on hot days and there is also a net mesh which can also be unzipped. Hopefully this year I wont lose my Kale to caterpillars .

In other news, the autumn sown flowers in the greenhouse are looking great. 

And because I have no patience and simply can't wait any longer, I have started sowing a few more seeds. 

And to finish off, no new photos of Gibson this week so heres an old one, a visit to the pub. Have great week.