Friday, December 25, 2009

Weather

Weather has been dreadful this past while, so I haven't done anything in the garden. Wish I had a greenhouse, then I could work away with my plants even though it's cold! Anyway, no greenhouse, no way am I working outside until the weather warms up again. I have loads of seeds to get planted, and cuttings to pot up, but I can't seem to get warm enough to go and sort them out.
The sad thing is, it's actually been warmer outside than it's been inside my house this past few days!

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Storm

I shouldn't have mentioned the 'no-rain' thing! Winter arrived with a vengeance yesterday. What a wild day it was! Sleet or snow, driven horizontaly inthe high winds, for hour and hours and hours. Course it seemed even longer when the powerfinally went off and stayed off. Thankfully we have a gas fire.

Today, damage-wise, the little cypress tree in the front garden is leaning at 45 degrees. The echium pininana is on it's side, and my lovely big cestrum nocturnum is at a precarious angle.
Upstairs on the terrace, I have lot a few palms that have been blown over and chucked out of their pots, but that should be repairable.

The little late tomato plants are OK. Well they are not dead yet, but the windchill factor yesterday must have been pretty unbearable for them, so I'll have to wait and see if they recover. Likewise the papaya. I'm sure tropical fruit would have hated the weather yesterday, and of course I didn't take them in for the winter.

Of course, it has to be said, that if they can't survive the odd freak weather day here, then they can't be grown here, except indoors. Need to find out which it is to be.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Slow gardening

I really haven't kept this blog up to date much, but then again I haven't done much in the garden. I'm still having to water the plants, but once every 4-5 days is stopping them from dying now that the heat of the summer is gone. It has only rained ONCE since September, when we had more or less three weeks of rain.
The grass hasn't grown any, yet most years at this time, I have to cut it every two weeks or so. I transplanted some of the herbs in pots into the garden, but they are not doing much without rainwater; this time last year the were growing great and I was cutting down bunches to dry and store for the winter.
My solitary chili pepper plant is still producing, but I've discovered I don't actually like chili peppers and rarely have a use for them in the kitchen.
I planted 12 babies in the spring, that I grew in pots from seed.
That very first night,the snails ate three. the next night they ate another six. By the time I found a shop selling snail-killer, all but one were gone.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Hubnuggets Award

This isn't anything to do with gardening, I just wanted to announce to the world that one of hubs over on Hubpages has been nominated for a Hubnugget Award, but I now need everyone to read it and all the other contenders and VOTE! There are 10 hubs in the running and one of them is mine, but of course you can vote for anyone you want to.
Scroll to the near the bottom of the Hubnuggets link above, mine in the one entitled West Coast of Kintyre, Scotland

Friday, December 4, 2009

Seeds

Rubber Tree 'Cone' and seeds
I've been given some great seeds to try. How about the seeds from the rubber plant? I didn't even know they produced seed!
I've also collected a few seeds from the Jacaranda trees that grow in the nearby village. I'm ready to start them off too, plus seeds from pandorea jasminoides, which a neighbour gave me. I'm already seedlings from the pepper tree.
Fascinating stuff!

I've got a couple of baby pandorea seedlings which I will upload photos of soon.

The rubber tree and the Jacaranda seeds haven't germinated to date.