A Lucky Find

At the bottom of our garden, behind the shed, is an old steel cabinet. Since we moved in, we have never been able to open it and find out what was inside, as it was jammed at the top of the doors. Thinking it would be an ideal home for all my plant pots and trays, which were until then stacked up in front of the cupboard, covered in a thick layer of rotting autumn leaves, a couple of days ago I went out and bought a crowbar, and finally got the thing open. Inside I found this mini plastic growhouse: all it needed was a good clean and it's as good as new. So I have set it up inside the greenhouse, moved a few seedlings into it and there is still plenty of room, I might move some of these tomato and pepper seedlings in as well, which are currently cluttering up the conservatory and dripping water all over the floor.

I now wish I had discovered it BEFORE I had gone out and wasted £25.00 on a plastic/aluminium coldframe, which is worse than useless. One gust of wind and it would blow away if I left it outside; inside the greenhouse it takes up a lot of room and is difficult to get things in and out of without having three hands. Oh well, you live and learn. Another offering for Freecycle I suppose.

Makeover

If you are a regular reader you will have noticed that I have given this blog a bit of a makeover. Not being very technically minded it took me quite a long time to work out how to do it, particularly when it came to sizing photographs. The air was pretty blue for a while I can tell you. Anyway, I am pleased with the final result, but I do have a confession to make, which is that the picture at the top of the blog is in fact a picture of my old allotment, by that I mean two allotments ago. Perhaps that doesn't matter although I feel it might give a false impression of what my current situation is!

Anyway, having absolutely nothing to take pictures of at the moment, except for pots of compost containing seeds which have yet to germinate, I have made a little collage, a sort of advance preview, of what I HOPE to see adorning my present allotment this coming summer. I have recently sown seeds of cosmos, swan river daisy, marigold, calendula, borage, poppy, cornflower, echium, nasturtium, sunflower, cerinthe, verbena bonariensis, godetia and candytuft. Plus I have planted small plants of lavender, ox eye daisy, fox and cubs, English mace, yarrow and one or two others I can't recall just now. So not only will it look pretty and delightful to humans, but will also have the pollinating insects swarming in from far and wide. So far only the marigolds, swan river daisies and cosmos are starting to come up, but it's early days. Fingers crossed this will be the most colourful allotment year to date.