Hanging Gardens of Suburbia

I have made what should be the final additions to the UTC garden. We have a couple of hanging basket hooks attached to the back of the house that we have never really used, and as I have probably taken up enough ground space, they are prime candidates for a bit of vertical farming (as Brass Eye would call it).

In order to use some of the packing straw that came with my veg I have filled one with a couple of strawberry plants, a trailing type called Roman that is meant to be suitable for baskets and produce an apple blossom pink flower and deep red fruit.

Just the right height to hit my head on!

The other basket is for yet more toms, in this case Tumbling Tom Reds, for which there is an informative post on this growing from seed blog. Again a variety best suited to baskets. Hopefully they will provide lots of fruit, in which case if the peppers go well it will be panzanella ahoy!

Not yet tumbling toms

So this time that really is it, all the plants I am going to grow this year, as any more and we won’t be able to fit in the garden.

 

Potting on

Being rather unobservant, I had missed the fact that my plants had started to push their roots out of the side of their paper pots (no photos as it was starting to rain) so I decided it was time to move them up the property ladder.

The handy part of having a gravel back yard is that I am never short of stones to put in the bottom of my pots before adding the soil. I have officially called time on the chillies.

Getting bigger

The missing tomato plant is on the shelf above.

One thing that puzzles me is how do you get new soil to take on water easily. It always seems that the first few times you water freshly potted plants the water just sits on the top of the compost instead of sinking in. I may try poking holes in to see if that helps.

 

A spot of rain and a splash of colour

After a bit of a dry spell, we’ve had some rain round our way in the last week or so, and the effect it’s had on the greenery in the garden is quite impressive. Mind you, in the northwest 2 hours without rain is considered a drought.

I can claim no credit for these as they are all G’s plants.

The climbing hydrangea as turned from a couple of twigs into something more recognisably alive.

Climbing Hydrangea

While the hostas have sprouted up from nowhere.

(Currently slug free) Hostas

It won’t be long before the back yard is it’s usual hydrangea forest, not that G is obsessed by them or anything.

 

In the beginning…..

Okay this is where it starts- my growing so far. From left to right I have 3 pots of chocolate habaneros, 3 pots of garden peach tomatoes and 2 sunflowers (okay they aren’t veggies, but for that matter nor are toms).

Two paragraphs in and I already have a confession to make, I am due to take delivery of lots of lovely seedlings from a company called rocket garden. This was a birthday present from my wife, G, who I suspect didn’t want me covering all the windowsills with tomato plants and chitting potatoes. So it’s toms, peppers, aubergines, artichokes, and salad ahoy. I hope they are hardy breeds as it can be wet and cold up my way.

Question-  If I am taking delivery of plants, why am I growing things from seed? Well not only did I I get a pot maker and seeds from my SiL (Sister in Law), I am also in a sunflower growing competition against her and my FiL (you can work that one out yourselves). I am in the most southern of the contenders, so hopefully I have a head start. Mind you, even I am well north of the Watford gap, and a fair few degrees north of the sunflower fields of France.

So here’s the deal, I will update this with progress photos and bits of info on what I am using and why, lots of it will be guess work, lots of it will probably be wrong, but hopefully it will result in tasty food. I may post on other things as they take my fancy, we will wait and see. If you are growing yourself, feel free to to add your successes and failures.