Pottering in the garden

Despite the best part of 11 hours' sleep, I woke up feeling wiped and really dizzy. D, bless him, tries to make sure I get out at least a little while each day so I don't go completely stir crazy, and comes with me to make sure I'm all right. He even goes round garden centres with me, now *that's* devotion!

Today we went to the garden centre so I could get one of those fabric containers for growing salads/ tomatoes in in the greenhouse. This will serve the additional bonus of acting as a ballast to weigh the greenhouse down once positioned so it's on the lower frame. So I've sown some lettuce seeds, but need to get more salad seeds, and bought four tomato plug plants: Roma.

Now, tomato plants and I really don't have a successful partnership. I have no idea why: I grow them in lovely soil in the greenhouse, giving them as much warmth as a Scottish Summer will allow, feed them and water them, support them (they do like a bit of cheering on :-D ), and do pretty much everything you're supposed to do, and they reward me by doing absolutely nothing... However, being a gardner, hope springs eternally each Spring, so once again I will try and grow them. This variety (Roma) apparently can be grown outdoors, which means outdoors in the more consistently warmer climes of southern England, but if the weather is kind, I might get away with the greenhouse. We shall see.

I've had some success with my onion sets that I planted a week or so back, the ones I put into a seed module tray and stuck in the greenhouse to sprout. The red ones are still to come, but the shallots in particular (on the right) have done really well. In addition to the shoots, they have sprouted roots so when I gently tug on them, they remain fast in their cell. I'll wait another couple of weeks and then transplant them in the allotment.















I removed a dangerous and violent clematis from the garden, much to what I imagine is the relief of our elderly neighbour. Poor soul, he's getting on and every year he complains that the clematis causes him to swerve on the way out of his parking space past our house... We have no idea why, the plant tumbled over the garden fence but for it to be any kind of obstacle, our neighbour would have to be driving within 6 inches of the fence. Terrifying thought...

However, it was a fairly rampant plant, and had a tendency to choke the apple trees it grew next to. It would have been more forgiveable had it been a pretty plant, but it wasn't - to my eyes at least.

Inspired by Gardner's World the other night, I planted some dahlia tubers in the place of the clematis. Dahlias do well in our garden but I do keep forgetting to lift the tubers in the autumn and they die off. This year I'll remember. Honest.