Day: Feb 19, 2019

Sweet Peas

Some of our sweet pea seeds were started off last October. They were planted individually into cardboard toilet or kitchen rolls and then stood in supermarket fruit punnets. These were then left in our cold greenhouse over winter and they are now coming along fantastically well.

October sown

I sowed a second batch of seeds in January but these are a little leggy and have had to be pinched back today. We only grow really super scented sweet peas like Windsor, Prince Edward of York, Fragrant Skies, Nimbus and Cupani because I love picking the flowers for the house and if they don’t have a scent, they’re not worth growing! Prince of Orange, Heaven Scent and April in Paris are new varieties we are trying this year. We are looking forward to vases of sweet peas throughout the summer.

Sown in January

Seed Potatoes

I started off the seed potatoes in egg boxes on the dining room window sill. I’ve chosen a first early – Maris Bard – and a second early – Kestrel from a selection at our local garden centre. We have grown Kestrel before and it’s a very tasty potato, but Maris Bard is a new one to us. These are going to stay indoors until the weather warms up in April when I can then plant out the first earlies in the raised beds in our vegetable garden. Any that won’t fit in the beds will go into containers. I have covered the potato beds with plastic, weighed down with some large stones, so that the soil warms up before planting.

Maris Bard and Kestrel seed potatoes

Chigley Green

Welcome to my blog in which I will be posting articles and photos from my gardening year and also of visits to local gardens or places of interest.

Chigley Green is a medium sized garden on the east coast of Scotland.  We have a vegetable patch consisting of 18 raised beds. We have six small fruit trees; a Victoria plum and five apples, and there are lots of flower borders. 

We have been working on the garden for a few years and now have an unheated greenhouse and cold frame.   There is also a small meadow which is very much a work in progress. I have managed to get yellow rattle to establish and hope it will weaken the grass and allow other meadow plants a chance.

The weather is fairly temperate although we have the occasional heavy snow day in winter.  The site is very windy.  We have a hedge and a hazel hurdle fence, but these only provide a little protection from the westerly winds.

Thrush in the snow
Sunrise over the fields
Redpoll on the niger seed feeder
One of the flower borders
Homegrown veg