A Frosty Warning

As you know for a while Becksie has been getting into gardening! She lovingly watered her pots during the hot times and has weeded her garden every week and even taken cuttings!

Now the cuttings were taken under Da’s careful instruction and are going well! Becksie has always like geraniums as they remind her of being little and going to Da’s huge greenhouse at his old work. So sitting in pots outside are red geranium cuttings, white ones and pink ones! The garden and the cuttings are going so well in fact that a few weeks back Da even exclaimed he was quote ‘proud’ unquote of Becksie’s efforts! This exclamation is note worthy not because it’s unusal for Da to say he is proud of Becksie, Ian, Lizzie, Leah and Liam. Infact Da very often throughout our lives tells us he is proud of us for a multitude of things BUT he has NEVER previously had cause to be proud of Becksie’s garden! In short Becksie’s garden has mostly been a source of frustration! A cycle of doom that we (Becksie) has finally broken!!! You see Da would do our garden, give us plants and instructions and after a month our garden would be back to square one! Those days, however are gone!!!! Our borders are weeded, our strawberry plants are ready to face winter and the winter daisy’s are waiting in the wings to take the front flower basket!

Earlier in the week Da did a garden inspection and issued a warning about how as we head into November we should bring our geraniums inside in order to help them survive the winter!  We of course listened but in the midst of a busy week so far we have failed to bring our geranium babies inside!

This morning we woke up and Becksie did her daily weather check only to move the curtain and see what she thought was frost! Well….. let us tell you, panic set in as we presumed our geranium babies to be dead – having been killed by the frost! Oh no! A rub of the eyes and a moment or two more of conscious thought showed us it was more mist than fog and Becksie’s heart rate (Jenny this incident counts as exercise) started to decrease!

So….. today we have brought in our Geraniums ready for winter and considered this mist as a ‘frosty warning’ that has saved our geraniums! Phew!

In other news today Jessica and Jake are 5 years old!!! How time flies. Today also would have been the 50th birthday of someone who played a huge part in Becksie’s life a few years ago – this post is dedicated to him, the most beautiful of folk!

A Sentimental Apple

Sometime shortly after Becksie was born (fast approaching 30 years ago) Da planted an apple tree to commemorate her birth. This apple tree (rather like Becksie hehe) grew into a fine beast! Every year we would gather loads of tasty apples from it!

Now 3 years ago Da and Mammar moved out of Becksie’s childhood home (a very sad old day) and we were forced to leave this lovely apple tree behind! Now Da being a clever gardener sort of chap kindly managed to take a graft (or some such technical chat) of the apple tree version of Becksie and now has a mini one of it growing in his new garden. Phew!

A couple of days a go Mammar and Da had a visit from our lovely old neighbours (Pip and Sylvia) who…… brought with them a stash of the apples from Becksie’s tree!! These apples are huge, double tasty and for Becksie sentimental.

So….. as Becksie is now a ‘keen’ gardener she’s decided to take a pip and grow her own tree! This is of course possible although it may be about 30 years until we are eating apples from this tree (which by then will probably have to be a graft of this tree due to house moves etc). Mammar grew an apple tree from a pip when she was little, this grew into a beautiful apple (and very tall) tree. Becksie also planted a lemon pip about 5 years ago and (with a little help from Da) it now looks like this.

So……. Becksie is planning to grow a tree from a pip, any tips? Well more instructions actually?!! Thanks in advance, Becksie Charlie Dimmock Pugh!!

Progress Report

A short while ago we blogged about how Becksie was starting to enjoy gardening! Well that was a little while ago so we thought that tonight’s blog should be a showcase of how we are getting on with the garden. Have we a) given up or b) carried on?

And……. the answer is option B! Yes that’s right folks we have weeded and watered and we are rather proud of our little garden. Basically this is a self congratulatory post. Sorry folks we realise this is probably more boring than viewing someone elses holiday photos. Enjoy 😉

back garden hanging basket!

 

Check it out!

 

 

Still the right shape (but…. need a trim up very soon)

Watch out Chelsea!!

 

 

PS – The garden furniture painting is still no further but………… we have painted some of the fence! Go Team Pugh.

Words I never thought I’d say……

Ok…… here are some words Becksie NEVER EVER EVER thought she’d say….. ‘I think I might be enjoying gardening’!

Lizzie ‘enjoying’ snack time in the rain whilst mummy was gardening!

Sit down people, we know this is a revelation mostly because it’s a revelation to us. BUT (never start a sentence with BUT especially all in capitals, its hugely terrible grammar) ever since Grandad Gray spent time sorting out our garden that was a disgrace Becksie has made an effort to:

a) Water if it’s not been wet.

b) Pull out weeds.

‘eeeeeek mummy is still gardening – I’m getting wet’

c) Actually replace a hanging basket.

pre-sweeping up

d) Redo a sort of basket thing that hangs on the fence.

e) Sweep the patio.

f) Think about painting chair number 2 (but it rained so there wasn’t any point)

‘Much better it’s dry in here’

g) She has taken 2 trips to a garden centre (granted one of these times was a time killing exercise but it still counts).

One of our purchases – it’s probably in the wrong place / soil or whatever but….. we’re trying

h) Water the basket and pots outside the front of the house everyday.

i) Not kill a house plant someone gave us (more on this is a mo).

j) We have taken more care with our houseplants – watering them as necessary and not thinking ‘oh we’ll do it next week.

k) Looked at the box of seeds we owned and strongly considered planting some.

l) Picked up a free gardening magazine from the library swap box.

Bet you can’t even tell which bits our garden and which bits the magazine cover (humour us please)

m) Read a bit of a book about how to garden.

Come on then whose impressed? Well….. Becskie is impressed and is determined to try to keep on top of all of the above.

The plant the day we got it

As for the a fore mentioned houseplant Becksie was given this by Sandie’s dad and was very pleased with it. Becksie asked for directions as to how not to kill it. The advice dispensed was a bright sunny place, keep it moist but not flooded. This Becksie did and the plant that is called a Pentas which had one head of pink flowers now has about six heads of pink flowers. It’s surely a triumph! To say Becksie is proud of this little plant is an understatement!

The plant now!

So there you have it, word’s you ever thought you’d hear. Word’s Becksie never thought she’d say. Long may it continue.

Potatoes – A Guest Post by Sandie

Over the last couple of years I have been very keen to grow a few of my own vegetables in pots on my patio and enlist the help of my younger son, Archie, a boy who loves the outdoors. However, as can happen with so many things, I never quite got around to it and so was delighted earlier this year when my very green-fingered dad (henceforth known as green-fingered gramp) took on the first part of this growing project with Archie.

​Off they went to buy a bag of seed potatoes and a couple of weeks later several large black pots appeared outside the kitchen window, each containing one of these potatoes. The next bit was down to Archie, and me too, and that of course was to keep said potato-containing pots well watered. Now this is where I am somewhat forgetful – I have sent many a pot plant to heaven’s garden through lack of water – and it turns out Archie has inherited this trait! Luckily for us, we did have a reasonable amount of rain (and I did remember the water sometimes!) and the potatoes began to shoot and grow – quite well we thought. Although we soon learnt that what you see above the ground is not necessarily an indicator of what is going underneath in the depths of the soil! On a visit several weeks after the introduction of our potato plants, which were beautifully green and tall, green-fingered gramp had a dig around in the pots and we were informed that the soil was ‘very dry’ and the potatoes were about ‘the size of a pea’. Oh dear! However, he told us that all was not lost and we could partly remedy the situation by keeping the plants well hydrated from now on. Phew! So from that day on my ‘I must remember to water’ hat was on and between us Archie and I did a grand job with the hose. And a good job we did as the weather suddenly got very dry and hot.

​A couple of weeks later and it looked as though there could be another potential problem – potato blight. I decided it was high time the crop (I hoped there would be one) was harvested and so set to work one warm and sunny afternoon. And it turned out we were not disappointed, and apart from one pot, each dig yielded a good number of lovely-looking potatoes. Yes some were a bit small, perhaps not surprising given the early drought conditions they endured, but we had a number of good sized spuds and the fun of digging around in the soil to see whether there were anymore lurking at the bottom on the pot was great – like a lucky dip!

​Since then we have been tucking into our delicious new potatoes most days and still have plenty to eat. The flavour is amazing and it is very satisfying to know we have grown them ourselves. Having never done much gardening before I now understand the satisfaction people talk about when working with the earth and the pleasure derived from producing something so natural and delicious. And how lovely for Archie too to see firsthand proper food being grown and eaten, and also for him to learn that it has to be looked after in order to prosper (red-faced mother takes note of this!).

​Green-fingered gramp, Archie and I between us have also grown a good crop of flat-leaved parsley and have some tomatoes on the go, although as the latter are outside I’m not sure how many we will get. Still, for a first time Archie and I (with a little help from green-fingered gramp) are very happy with our produce. We will definitely be doing some more planting in future and looking forward to more delightful goodies!