So role on the harvest.

It is ten at night and we are just coming in from our evening walk and a little tending in the gardens. I have learnt that a plant in the wrong place is a weed and as soon as you are sure, grab and pull. The weed in the poly tunnel however which I identified as a poppy way back in May was left to flourish and is four feet high with ten heads in a deep crimson. It is beautiful and I am leaving it to live it's life out and then we will collect the seeds and it can be an out doors poppy next year. Only goes to show that some things need your patients and attention and I feel happy to have given it both.

Mike was looking over the geraniums and noticed that the leaves were turning on one in a pot, when he went to touch it, The whole plant came away in his hand. You know the one, the biggest, healthiest and most beautiful one with all the flowers on it, we both looked at each other in horror and rushed it into the poly like an episode of ER. I filled a trough with soil and compost, Mike went for sand and we had a rooting bed up and ready for the disembodied plant to be split and replanted to root for next year in a matter of minutes......well that is the theory, watch this space. I have a few plants in propagation and a trough of seedling rambling roses. I have made a propagation chart for all the plants we have in all the gardens and July and August will be busy, I can tell you. We just looked up the best time to trim the hedges and then plant cuttings and that will be September. I want lots of hedge, and that is my focus this year but I also want to produce enough babies to make a new garden next Autumn, this planning lark is so not our normal way of working but it is good for the soul and makes you appreciate time and effort a little more.

My time in the kitchen is mounting up now, I spent all evening putting courgettes to freeze and made ratatoue from this years courgettes and last years tomato passata, I am very pleased to say that I have only given the chickens two freezer bags of last years courgettes so my numbers were good and we were nourished all year, I am now coming to the end of the tomato and all the beans are gone too, so role on the harvest.