Another boring gardening blog post

This time in years past, as Facebook smugly reminds me most days, I was posting photos of the garden in flower: yesterday’s reminder was of last year’s first rose.  And a few weeks earlier in past years, it was photos of the viburnum, which this year has only just come into flower.  After a cold, dry April, mid-May has brought day after day of torrential showers - even thundery hailstorms - which we can normally expect to have come and gone by the end of April.  Consequently, gardening is limited to what can be achieved between downpours, though these relieve one of watering duties for the most part.  The big garden success story, of course, is that of the weeds.  Still, the grass seed alongside the new path is germinating well at last, and I’m hoping for similar results in newly seeded bald patches. 

I have now planted dozens of leeks, so confidently expect to be heartily sick of them in due course.  Dill, rocket and spinach beet are coming along, and following some stern advice, the climbing beans are climbing.  The potatoes are coming through pretty well, so they’ve had their first earthing up.  We even appear to have some carrot seedlings, but are not abandoning the Sainsbury order just yet awhile.  Next job is to improve a pretty poor bed for bedding plants and maybe some fence-covering subjects. 

Age is taking its toll, not only on the joints, but also on the memory.  I was puzzled about how few runner bean plants we appeared to have, and more so when I went out to plant out rudbeckias.  After catching myself saying out loud ‘where the #@%¥ are the #@%¥ing rudbeckias?’, I was coming to the probably correct conclusion that I’m losing my marbles.  I eventually spotted them in the summerhouse, together with the missing runner bean seedlings.  I can’t remember when (or indeed why) I put them there, but fortunately most are alive and well and responding to a good soaking or three.  Before I found them, however, we’d gone out and bought more runner bean seeds and sown them.  The abandoned beans are now rescued and planted, as are a dozen or so rooted penstemon cuttings from last year, and another batch of tagetes.  And after I’d planted out a dozen or so of the last-mentioned from the greenhouse, I was puzzling why there were so few.  Yes: I’d already got a couple dozen out to harden off, and they were (and remain) standing on the soil in their pots maybe half a yard from where I’d planted the rest.  We’ve identified a site for the next batch of runner beans, so I’ve an idea the autumn blog will be full of even more boring stories of cropping, blanching and freezing.

Next job is to get the tomatoes out in growing bags on the terrace.  We’ve grown them in big pots in years past, with generally good results.  On Annie’s advice, we’ve bought some tomato rings, which should make watering much easier.

Despite (or perhaps because of) all the gardening, my knees are behaving slightly better than of late.  I’m not planning any major hikes, but feel modestly optimistic.  But I’m not going to compound the boring blog felony with tales of hospital visits!