The P5s had a trip today to New Lanark so we only had the 5
club members – but we worked hard!
The weather was windy but dry so we managed to get outside.
First of all we planted a box plant (Buxus is the correct
name) in the duck in the courtyard. This is going to be trimmed into a duck
shape as it grows. It was already too large in some directions so we had to
snip bits of it off once it was inside the shape. It should look good in the
future and be a nice feature in the courtyard inside the 4 square box plants.
Shaping plants like this is called “topiary”.
We had a look at the various things we had planted in the
courtyard. The carrots are almost big enough now to thin out but we will wait
till at least next week. The anemones have a few flowers on them. They are
brightly coloured and there are lots of buds just ready to come out. The
agapanthus is quite slow growing but the tips are through and we will have
flowers in the autumn. The ranunculus are still only leafy plants but we hope some
buds will appear soon. The freesia are a disappointment – only a very few of
the bulbs seem to have grown so we will miss them out next year we think. The
lily of the valley has still to make an appearance but we are sure it will come
through soon, and of course it lasts from year to year.
As for the alpine strawberries – Mrs Morrison managed to
knock over the stack of pots so we had to put some of the plants back in (the
ones that had fallen out). There are one or two plants which have died, but
maybe we will get “runners” of the better ones and we can use these to create
more plants for next year to fill the gaps.
Outside we had a look at the raised beds. The strawberries
and raspberries are really coming on and we saw the first signs of tiny strawberries.
The raspberries have still to flower but we can see lots of buds. Because there
are so many raspberry canes, they are crowded in the middle and not so many
buds there. Next year we need to thin them out a bit.
The lettuce are all through as are the radishes and turnips
and even the spring onions. They are covered with fleece – not to save them
from frosts because these are past (we hope!) but to stop cats and foxes and
any other animals from digging among the wee seedlings. Next week we will take
off the fleece and put some netting over them. We can’t put fleece over the
peas and beans because we want insects to pollinate them. That means they move
pollen from one flower to another so that the seeds (peas and beans) set and
grow. The beans are growing well and the peas are coming on too.
One thing we need to get on to is the weeding. There are
lots of wee weeds coming through. So once we are clear where the lines of seeds
are we need to get hoes and take out all the weeds. We took some of the big ones
out this week – some of them have very long roots! And we took out some
raspberry plants that were growing in the wrong place – raspberries seem to
stretch everywhere! The word for that is “invasive”. The roots grow along
underground for a long way and then plants pop up along the roots.
Next we decided it was time to make some use of the
greenhouse. The nursery dad who is kindly making this for us has not quite
finished yet but it is nearly complete and warm inside. So we planted a green
and a yellow courgette, two pepper plants, two cucumber plants, 3 tomatoes
(another got accidentally broken) and one pumpkin. We hope that might be big
enough to use at Halloween! We have still to get canes to support the tomatoes
when they grow a bit, but we can do that later.
Last of all we made a wigwam in a tub beside the picnic
tables and planted sweet pea plants to grow up them. We still need to put some
netting around the wigwam.
It is exciting to see everything beginning to grow.
