Six On Saturday

This is my first time taking part in Six on Saturday. It’s a kind of gardening round robin that I found on a great blog called The Propagator. The general idea is to do a round up of six things in your garden. Not sure I’ll remember to do it every week but I’m going to try.

It’s still really cold here in the garden in Liverpool so none of my veg planting has started yet but lots of preparation is going on and I have a plan for the next few months so that’s always a good thing – it gives me a great deal of comfort to know I’m not just winging it. I have a plan. Some organisation. A list of things to do. So here are my six things from this week in the garden (or the window sills).

1 – Cherry Blossom. As an avid photographer and scrapbooker I’ve always documented my garden, even before the huge increase in gardening I started to do last year because of the pandemic. So I can usually pretty accurately tell how far along the trees and plants are in my garden. The Cherry Blossom is quite a long way behind this year. Pre-pandemic we would often miss the blossom as we usually take a holiday towards the end of April but obviously no holidays no so it’s fascinating to compare day by day a year apart.

2 – Buddleja. One of the joys of having a garden is feeling like you’re doing your bit for nature. Buddleja is one of the easiest ways to do this. This specimen self seeded itself into the concrete right under the kitchen window about 4 years ago. I was thrilled and while it’s a bit of a pain in that position I love it. This year we decided to give it a really good pruning because we need the space it usually invades for tomatoes. So rather than pull it out I opted for a very severe cut so that I can keep on top of it all year. I have also invested in 5 new plants to put around the garden to spread the buddleja love. This is the original three weeks after being cut back from over 5 foot tall!

3 – Cauliflower. These are my cauliflower seedlings. I’ve never grown them before and I didn’t know what to expect. They are amazing – they appeared really quickly and despite my inept planting they are doing really well. I have far too many obviously for my small raised beds so I know I’m going to have to only pick the very best but I’m going to try and grow some in pots to get mini cauliflowers! Wish me luck.

4 – My onion seedlings are in stark contrast to their neighbours. They’ve been in the tray since February and quite frankly none of them look strong enough to go outside!

5 – This is a Cosmos plant that sprung up in the onion seed tray! There was also a sycamore seed growing in there too but that was removed once it was identified! I actually think this cosmos might flower indoors before the actual trays of seeds I panted in March have been planted out!

6 – My sweet peas. I have about 70 or 80 seedlings on the go again thanks to my lack of experience of growing from seed. They look strong, I’ve taken a few out but mostly they look great. I’ve been pinching them out and they are getting bushy and looking like they need to be outside with something to climb. They’ll need to be patient a few more weeks I think.