Self care by growing a garden

[Smc]

I planted a pack of mixed ranunculas last year, but for some reason only a few of them have regrown this year. Looks like I'll need to invest in more next autumn.

More weeding today, some pruning, planted a pot of Cerinthe, repotted three types of mint- chocolate, ginger and spearmint. And yesterday I had a try at grafting. A friend in town had gotten some free apple rootstocks, and was going to host a grafting workshop, but since that can't happen now, she's given out the rootstocks to those who had "expressed interest" and we've been swapping scions of assorted apples we have or have access to. 🙂 And there's a couple of pear rootstocks I want to have a go with too. Dunno if any of them will succeed, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.

If they all succeed, not too sure where I'll plant them... 😛

[Former-Member]

If you are successful with the grafting, you could always use the trees to bless others @Smc.  

[Smc]

That's a possible @Former-Member, either directly or indirectly. They're all varieties I'd like to have, so if they take, I will try to squeeze them in, if I can't, I'm sure I'll be able to find takers... but also if they grow well, that's extra fruit, and we have some very enthusiastic and friendly food sharing systems in place in our town. Assorted enthusiasts had encouraged/set up an online produce swap page and a "Food is Free" stand. I was more an "encourager" than "setter upper" due to not having the leftover energy to play admin for either. They were slowly picking up speed before the lockdowns, but have really come into their own this year. 🙂

[Former-Member]

What a fabulous initiative @Smc , it is wonderful to be able to share in any abundance that we have, particularly that from our gardens (whether it be trees or the fruit off them). 

[Smc]

🙂

It's kind of odd, having been one of the "early encouragers", that the Food is Free stand has ended up on the other side of the town... a long walk, particularly if the weather's unfriendly, but feels silly getting the car out for the "short" distance, so I haven't ended up being a regular contributor. I've been passing on some plant bits and pieces via putting them by our front gate with a "heads up" online instead. It's good having more than one option for doing so. The stand is near some community facilities and the local fish and chippery, and on a main road... we're a short walk away from the supermarket. So both our place and the Food is Free location are accessible to enough people for them to be worthwhile. (And most people probably don't have our hesitation about short car trips! :P)

My parsley has reached that point where it's going to start shooting up to flower, so I might get organised to pick some of that to distribute before it's too far gone.

In the past, I've occasionally taken our suprlusses along to church and left them on a table at the back, and other people have done likewise, but you kinda can't do that via Zoom.

[Former-Member]

A few little jobs done in the garden over the weekend. Two more ranunculus flowered (both lemon) so they joined the other one in ground out the front, 5 more borage seedlings from a friend were planted in the apple tree bed and a little bit of weeding was done.

[Smc]

Whole lotta seed planting today. I dug out my tin of tomato seeds and planted some of each variety. Most are out of date, but they've been stored in an airtight tin in a dark, dry, cool place, so they might grow.
If they all grow, there will be tomato plants to share... They're mainly  different types of cherry toms, because they're more likely to fruit within our short growing season. But there's a few bigger varieties among them too.

[Former-Member]

Planted a punnet of pink cosmos in the cottage garden today. An orange ranunculus was put in ground into our bright border. 

[Smc]

My Cape Gooseberries are coming up. 🙂 Tiny tiny seedlings.

I've also planted some zucchini and squash variety seeds, a couple more tomato varieties that I'd missed in my first planting, and I dug over a bed to get rid of runnering grass, then planted some seed potatoes.

We'll probably need to go up to my parents' house sometime in early October to get their yard "fire season ready", which means I'll have a bunch of young seedling plants that will need babysitting, but my sister has said she's happy to do that. 🙂

[Shaz51]

hello @Smc , @Former-Member , @Adge , @Determined , @Sophie1 , @Anastasia , @Emelia8 , @Faith-and-Hope , @FindingStrength 

we went plant shopping this morning for us and mum at the plants sale , we have brought iris, peace lilies, Bromeliads and others , the back seat was full 

now for some planting