Not so Fruitful

Now I may have harked on about my displeasure with the gravelly back yard that I have, and hankered after a lovely big veg patch or allotment, but as I'm stuck with my lot for the time being, I grow my veggies in a plastic shelving unit. It has a double zip up the front and the shelves are removable, so I had two tomato plants and a chili pepper in a grow bag in the bottom, and a sweet pepper plant in a pot at the front. Anyway, now that the sun has gone into hibernation I decided to bring my potted pepper inside to see if it would fare any better.

For some reason the slugs and caterpillars have gone to town on this plant, and it's looking very holey and disheveled. So far I've only gotten one fully grown pepper from it and a lot of the flower heads have shrivelled up and dropped off before new peppers can form. But all is not lost! The heat of the house and light from the kitchen door seem to be working because I have several new (and rather pretty) blooms coming as well as the flowers that were already there. Their stalks seem firm too so fingers crossed they'll prove fruitful at last.

I'm not familiar with pepper harvesting so someone please tell me whether I'm completely deluded in thinking that I'll get more peppers this late in the year. Note to self: next year plant out earlier!

Fruits of my Labour

Here they are - my biggest crop so far, in all their beautiful imperfection. I am so proud of them, especially considering I don't have much of a garden at all.

I have loads of tomatoes still on the vine that need to redden and loads of peppers to come yet, but so far this year I've only one of this and a couple of that ripen all at once.

My courgettes are starting to taper off now, but I've had some beauties this year from that plant too! If anyone is interested in growing their own then I'd definitely recommend looking up Alys Fowler - she's a gardener's world presenter but she's just done an "Edible Garden" series for the BBC and I am in love with her garden! Mine will be like that one day I swear.

And Rain Will Make The Flowers Grow

So the weather's been quite strange recently - warm, sunny, then showery, then it starts all over again. But one good thing about the rain is that it saves me from the watering can!

and it makes for really pretty pictures too!

In the words of Eponine - rain will make the flowers grow!

And with a little help from these guys...

...we'll be all the more colourful next year too!

Anyhoo, gardening aside things are getting quite hectic here at Jemima HQ. I have a custom order to finish, a craft fair to prepare for as well as a couple of personal projects to finish up. Best get busy then!

Learn Something New

If you cast your minds back to the beginning of the year I made my first new year's resolutions in many many years. For those of you who missed them, here they are. Well anyways most of them are going well - lagging a bit on the make things for me resolution, but before now I've been totally stumped with number 10 - Learn Something New.

My Parents usually come over to stay during the last week of May so that's usually when my garden gets any attention. Maybe now would be a good time to mention that my Dad is a gardener! So basically everything I have in my garden is what's available for planting in late May.

I have a slight crush on these pansies that I planted last week.

So I've decided that my Learn Something New resolution will be Gardening. I obviously know some of the basics so I'm not starting from scratch, but I only really know how to water and weed. I want to learn how to grow something from seed, what time of year I need to plant different flowers and veggies, what needs direct sunlight, what can be grown in shallow soil etc.

They are the most beautiful shade of flowers I have ever seen! "Summer Embers" I think they're called.

So I'm gonna start putting together a folder of information - I could buy a few books but I'd rather check them out of the library and copy out the useful stuff. And of course pick my Dad's brain as he knows everything there is to know about every species of plant known to man! Well maybe not every single one, but he is very knowledgeable.

And if I enlist the help of this wise and handsome fellow I'm sure my little garden will be in full bloom very soon. This lovely kitty is Starsky, lord of our little Park, who frequently comes over the fence for a belly tickle and a chin scratch. He's great company on my daily watering round!