Roofgardener 2020: Back to the Soil

[SueA]

I'm sure if there are any males around they'll soon head to your pond to find her Roofy, they hide all round our garden not necessarily close to the pond.

[roofgardener]

Mar 14, 2020 9:10:33 GMT SueA said:

I'm sure if there are any males around they'll soon head to your pond to find her Roofy, they hide all round our garden not necessarily close to the pond.

I do hope you are correct, SueA

[roofgardener]

Well, I've planted over 120 onion seeds, and ONE of them has survived. Another 12 germinated, and then shrivelled up and died. Ungrateful little sods.

I've emptied all my seed pots out, discarded the compost, washed them in Jays Fluid, rinsed them, and am slowly refilling them with a better compost. (John Innes seed compost).

But I've also given up on Onion seeds, and instead have bought a bag of about 30,000 onion sets (Sturton) from Wilko's.

I shall plant these directly in the ground... once I've evicted all the geraniums and bush roots n' tha.

[Eli]

I have always had better results from onion sets than seeds roofgardener

[roofgardener]

Well, I've planted about 30 of them

And something dug some of them up overnight

So I've borrowed some large wire trays (a bit like bread baskets) and put them all over the patch to prevent this happening again.

After all the trouble I've gone to, they had BETTER start growing

[ladybird]

Mar 31, 2020 12:23:41 GMT roofgardener said:

Well, I've planted about 30 of them

And something dug some of them up overnight

So I've borrowed some large wire trays (a bit like bread baskets) and put them all over the patch to prevent this happening again.

After all the trouble I've gone to, they had BETTER start growing

I wonder what dug them up roofy ? I hope your solution works . One of those outdoor cameras would be handy to see what going on.

[roofgardener]

Well, the 30-odd onions in my Onion Patch have GERMINATED.. and some are about 6" tall.
Yaaaaaay.

I've had 8 chilli seeds FINALLY germinate. Well, actually they germinated a week ago, about 4 weeks after I planted them. They're not growing particularly quickly however

I will take some photographs this weekend

[ladybird]

Apr 28, 2020 10:06:21 GMT roofgardener said:

Well, the 30-odd onions in my Onion Patch have GERMINATED.. and some are about 6" tall.
Yaaaaaay.

I've had 8 chilli seeds FINALLY germinate. Well, actually they germinated a week ago, about 4 weeks after I planted them. They're not growing particularly quickly however

I will take some photographs this weekend

thats great roofy that they are growing well. Peppers are VERY slow and take a long time to fruit so I wouldn`t worry too much.

[Eli]

I'm glad your onions have germinated roofgardener. Good luck to them !
I've never grown chillies myself but I agree with ladybird that peppers are always a bit slow. I have some germinating now after sowing them 3 weeks ago. I almost gave up and discarded them. 

[roofgardener]

Thanks for the encouraging words folks

I shall have an update - with pictures - over the weekend

[grindle]

that's good news roofgardener none of my pepper seeds germinated I've had to resolve to buying plug plants (if the ever arrive)

[SueA]

None of my chillies germinated either, I've just given up trying so you're doing better than me too roofgardener!

[roofgardener]

June

EGADS.. summer is upon us, and I havn't updated my diary since January !

Well, there is lots of news, but I'd like to dedicate this post to my birdlife

Funny thing is... when I was on the roofgarden, and never really NOTICED birds. There where a couple of wood pidgeons that would occasionally land, but that was about it.

Since moving into the new Cottage, they are slowly taking over my life, however

Introducing The Birds

I've got quite a few regulars now. So.. in no particular order.....

	They don't cause any fuss, but just quietly get on with the job of hoovering up all the food. Welcome to The House Sparrows ! I've got about 4 of these.
	Like the sparrows, these chaps are quiet and businesslike, with no fuss and palava. I seem to have two of these. They are very timid, but dogged when it comes to fitting inbetween the bigger birds to get at the birdseed table
	The largest and most dignified of the birds. Also quite possibly the most stupid !
	Now this one came as a surprise. I think these are thrushes ? We've got two of these that seem to be hiding in the shrubs at the bottom of the garden. Perhaps they've got a nest there ?
	My favourite.. Conrad the Blackbird. He's got quite tame. To the extent that he's been in my cottage twice, to everybody's consternation. You don't notice how small your kitchen is until you have a panicky blackbird flapping around it. To give you a sense of scale... the blurred blue/purple thing at the bottom-right of the screen is my knee, and the brighter purple thing is the tip of my slipper</td>
	This cheeky chappie was a very rare visitor, but has come more frequently in the last week. He has a friend who occasionally comes into the garden, but is too shy to come to the table
	And last, but by no means least, the Starlings. There where 4-5 adults, but these have now been supplemented by about 8-9 juvenile fledlged chicks. And oh BOY are they noisy and rumbunctious. Here we see 'feeding time at the zoo' when I threw a handful of mealwords out. These are all the "chicks".

Well, that's about it for the birds. Next week, I'll return to the plants, and I've got quite a good harvest growing

[ladybird]

How wonderful to see so many birds in your garden roofy. They do love the mealy worms , my late hubby had a hugh tub of them the birds ate them so quick.

[grindle]

Lovely to see all the birds, how lucky to have a couple of thrushes in the garden they are all obviously liking what you are doing