I love Wendy. And this year it has earned it’s stripes housing to chillies. Today the Wendy had a refit. The Wendy has suffered with a poor cover. So now we have one that hopefully is a bit more robust.
Oh, sweetie
On the turn. The sweet dumpling is starting to become mottled.
The of thsse
Three of these beauties have kept growing. Lovely to see how they have developed.
Triffic triffid
The cobnut, is all very leafy and large. And having lots of babies.
One, I’ve never grown a cobnut. Gladys was close. Two, never had that many babies. Counted at least four. The concern here is that if any of the babies are actually fertilised. Not sure if they are, flowers; both girls and boys are open. The girl ones, only just. The boy ones have no pollen in them, as I found out when looking into one.
Plugging a leek
These are the only surviving classroom leeks. Less than half a dozen. Maybe the plot has its own little microcosm. And I don’t know much about these variety. So I’m going to keep an eye on those.
Der colour purple
The real seeds purple rainbow chilli has been by far the most prolific chilli I have ever grown. These beautiful little creatures have been arriving fairly frequently. One observation, these are very thirsty plants. If they don’t drink, their flowers fall off and they get very stressed. They can easily drink a pint of water a day. A pint. A whole pint glass.
Oh, and that’s Nigel. Refusing to go red.
Yours in anticipation,
Horticultural Hobbit
Hold the sandwiches
Marketmore cucumbers
Mean green
I have become a bit fed up of seeing burgeoning tomato plants and the fruit still being green. I had experimented before, putting a few on the window sill. Only mother used them before they had a chance.
Have now harvested a few.
Some of them are huge. Some of them
are beautifully ugly. You don’t see that sort in the supermarket, now do you. With the exception of the cherry tomatoes, they are all of a tomato size.
These are all the plants that started their lives off in the classroom. The tiddler tomatoes that didn’t look much a few months ago. They are now beasts.
These could be any number of different colours. Red, yellow, purple or black. Contained in these trays, these are now sat in the four tier blowaway to ripen.
Yours in anticipation,
Horticultural Hobbit
Project Othello: #7 Raising Poly
The box came, the anticipation rose. The instructions and guidance were printed off.
Today was D-day.The day scheduled for the raising of the poly. It would be done today, that was the mission. Mama and H started fairly early. Half a lie in, and down to the plot with the box. All the bits were taken out. Mama went to great pains-after the arch debacle-to count out each of the components. That we had enough, the right ones. Make sure.
And off we went. Carefully constructing the one side, painstakingly making sure that we had the right strut. There was waggling of nuts and bolts. I didn’t think I needed a spanner, so I didn’t bring one. We brought one back later, to tighten things up. It was very straight forwards screwing things together.
Of course, my trenches were wonky. Those that I had measured out and dug last week oh so diligently. The area inside was a bit big still, so with Ma holding the two sides I had to dig around half the poly area to make it sit properly. I never, make things easy for myself.
Mama and I constructed the frame. Then time came to anchor it. I had an anchoring kit, with some long pegs that had come with it. These were twisted into the ground. I was mid wallop with the mallet when pops turned up as much welcomed help. This was after all, something of a Dad job. Mallet was surrendered to Pops, promptly going around and whacking the pegs in. I have in addition to this, staked the corners and also used tent pegs. Not necessary, by in the manufacturers instructions; more for my own piece of mind.
Next phase was to put the cover on. In the first instance, we got it inside out. So taking off, started again. Slid it over the frame quite nicely and neatly after the sticking on of anti hot spot tape. I don’t want the skin burning! Fits very snugly, very closely. As mentioned before, we had wonky trenches. These now corrected, allowed the poly to sit fairly flush. The frame has a skirt, so the dirt from the trenches was now shovelled back onto this. Allowing the poly to have additional anchoring and support.
The inside, as you will noticed is still grassy. This was on a return visit, dug over by the parents. Pops is threatening to dig it over again, before we put a path down the middle and horse shoe the area.
Yours in anticipation,
Horticultural Hobbit
Chillies: the next generation
Have had these on the side for a few days.
Saved, and to be given to loving homes.
Little drops of sunshine
horticultural 'obbit 