Greenhouse happiness and a my new Toby Buckland Book

The greenhouse is looking like a proper greenhouse, with tomatoes in the growbags, two types of peppers and lots of chillies, which need potting on and a fresh sowing of purple sprouting broccoli. It feels quite lovely, standing in there with the light streaming down from all sides. In fact it has got a bit too hot but I don't like greenhouse shading, so I think I will fashion some sort of blind out of fleece.

My outdoor tomatoes have been planted out and I need to sow some more peas (my first sowings now have flowers!) carrots and parsnips. I learnt a very interesting fact from my new book by Toby Buckland called Practical Gardening Handbook and that is to pinch ouf the first fruit of the courgette, pepper and aubergine as they tend of be quite tough and seedy and doing this encourages more tender fruits.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gardeners-World-Practical-Gardening-Handbook/dp/1846078547/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1276029170&sr=8-1

I love Gardeners' World so much, it's my favourite programme and has been for many years but why oh why is it only 1/2 hour, I haven't even finished my glass of wine before it's over!

My gravel garden is looking quite pretty, with the Peony, my new Poppy and Iris in flower and my Crambe Cordifolia, smells like honey. Next year I am going to develop another part of the garden, to enable me to grow lots of lovely plants. I was eyeing it up last weekend. It's just a scruffy patch of grass at the moment, half in full sun and half shaded by the garage, so I will be able to grow a good range of plants. I think I'll start making a wish list now.

Crambe Cordifolia

Iris

Peony

Poppy