A Shiny New Greenhouse

The greenhouse is now complete! Andy is making some staging to run along the back of the greenhouse and then we are good to go.

I bought some handy plastic trays for the grow bags to sit in and some bottomless pots, so I can plant the tomatoes into those, onto the top of the grow bags, so the roots have a deeper longer run, resulting in healthier, stronger plants and of course I had to buy a book to advise me of the ins and outs of having a greenhouse. I turned to a series of books which used to be my bibles when first learning about gardening over 20 years ago. I call them the doctor books because they were written by Dr D G Hessayon. All the expert books follow the same layout and they are brilliant no nonsense books.

Shiny new greenhouse

I think in hindsight I have too many purple sprouting broccoli plants. We harvested a bundle, blanched and popped them in the freezer but no sooner as my back is turned, it's sprouting again. It's now flowering away looking so pretty but I need to get out there and cut some more for the freezer.

Purple Sprouting Broccoli In Bloom

I think I will have to dig up the plants before they have expired, which is a shame but I really don't have any room to spare.

My three sisters method is starting to take shape although not without hitches. Firstly the sweetcorn has been a disaster with only 3 seeds sprouting, so I had to buy some little plants from the garden centre. The garden centres are now selling plenty of vegetable seedlings, so if you don't have the room to sow or you are too late to start them from seed, the garden centre can come to the rescue. My second hitch, which was really a mistake on my part, is that instead of planting the climbing bean seed next to the sweetcorn, I started them in modules and they are now about 5 inches high and ready to start climbing and the sweetcorn is only tiny but on the bright side, my little squashes are looking lovely; every cloud.............

In the flower garden, I have spotted a dahlia poking through and my Allium Purple Sensation is looking, well sensational!

Allium Purple Sensation

The RHS Chelsea Flower Show is on this week and I will be glued to my television watching and taking notes. (My favourite so far is Roger Platts M & G Garden) I haven't been for many years and although I love going to Chelsea where you can appreciate the scent of the flowers which you can't through the television set, you definitely see more on the box, unless of course your name is Alan Titchmarsh!