Delight or disappointment?

Feeling slightly neglectful of both the garden and the blog at the moment. In my defence, there's been a few disappoinments on the gardening front, so here's a roundup of delights vs disappointments for everything that's currently in the ground, in an entirely random order.

Strawberries - delight! The odd single strawberry last year has given way to a veritable bounty this year, I'm having a couple of strawberries each day on my cereal and there's plenty left for snacks and desserts. The garden bed where the one plant became dozens via the miracle of runners seems to be the right spot, and I'm getting better quantities and better sizes from the ones in the ground versus the ones in containers.

Leeks - delight! Well, sort of. The one in the ground has sprouted up and developed what must be a flower or seed head - the whole thing looks very elegant and swan-like but the leek itself has stopped fattening up. I think I'm just going to eat it. I also have four germinated leek seedlings.

Rosemary - disappointment. I think my enormous rosemary bush is on its last legs, it has dying spots all over the place

Tomatoes - delight! These seem to have gone from small seedlings to fully grown plants in no time and there's baby tomatoes on there now.

Cherry tomatoes - disappointment. I only have one successful seedling of the Mexican Midget cherry tomatoes, and one might-make-it-or-might-not seedling of the Henry's Dwarf tomatoes, and both have only been planted out today which is pretty late. Fingers crossed they'll perk up and give me a good late season crop though.

Potatoes - delight! The plant tops are horridly raggedy, with the plants in containers practically dying off. I thought this was a bad sign and there was something wrong with them, but perhaps not because there are actually potatoes under there! I've dug up half a dozen small and medium sized potatoes from under the mostly-all-dead plant and will be having them for dinner.

Catnip - delight! Assuming I needed commercial quantities of catnip, of course, which I don't. However I have successfully made a catnip toy for the cat which went down very well, and there's plenty more where that came from. It's trying to smother the lemon tree!

Capsicum - disappointment and delight. My Jingle Belles plant I'd had inside over winter didn't like the conditions outside and has died, I didn't have much luck germinating either more of these or any of the wonderful Burpees from two years ago, but I do have one Alma Paprika that's doing well and was planted out today.

Basil - disappointment. I only had three seedlings to plant out today, far from the border of nine around the tomatoes I had envisaged (although the tomatoes have grown so well there's no room for nine basil). There won't be much pesto for Tiny Tim next Christmas.

Garlic - disappointment. I think the overall quantity (8) is right but I'm afraid that it's not going to be good news under the ground when time comes to dig these up. One's died off (the black aphids swarmed the runt, even though it had been a wet couple of weeks and I though the aphids only showed up when the plant was stressed for water), and several of the others have two or three shoots rather than the one strong sturdy one they should have. I think next year I will buy fresh garlic to plant from, rather than using my own (this year's was 2nd generation).

Watermelon - disappointment, couldn't get any germination. I'll get some fresh seeds next year. I do have a seedling of rockmelon though, which I planted out today.

Pea - disappointment. It was growing, even had a few pods on it, but has suddenly died.

Lettuce - disappointment (Danyelle - no germination at all) and delight (Cos - looking really good although not quite ready to sample yet)

Rhubarb - delight - growing strongly. I also have a second seedling in a pot that looks really good but I can't justify more than one plant with the space we have available.

Eggplant - disappointment. All my egpplant luck was obviously used up on the germination front this year, I had the seedlings ready and planted out much earlier than last year but one's died, another's on its way and the last one is still hanging in there but has a definite failure to thrive.

Catnip

The catnip is now officially enormous. I must find some human uses for it! It does get plenty of use as a place for Bugsy to sleep, judging from the giant cat-shaped indentation in the middle of it, and I will definitely start harvesting and drying it to do some custom-made cat toys.

Catnip

Since the catnip went into the ground a few weeks ago, it had virtually disappeared. I think this was partly kitty-related and partly because I wasn't watering it enough. Anyway, it turns out it's not dead after all as there's several new leaves on it today.

The right tools

Having the right tools makes a huge difference! I bought a 5-litre sprayer, which is enough to spray the whole edible garden at once, with wand thingy so I can reach high and low with ease. This is much more efficient and effective - who knew?

Before I sprayed yesterday I also pruned the citrus trees, to get rid of the new low growth, the somewhat dead bits, and generally thin things out a bit.

Today I did some transplanting - borage and catnip into the ground (the catnip was sampled within about 15 minutes of it going in), and four sage, four catnip and an English Winter Thyme from the seedling trays into pots.

Other sowings

The last two seeds that I sowed on Monday were both herbs, but ones that are primarily for other uses beyond culinary or medicinal.

Borage – borago officinalis from Kings Seeds

Germinates in soil temperatures of 18-25°, takes 7 to 14 days to germinate and are a direct-sown (30cm apart) annual - I've actually sown these into eggcartons so I can keep an eye on them initially then pop the whole thing in the ground once I'm sure there's some action. I'm growing this as it's a good bee plant - the blue flowers are also pretty, and edible! I want to put some of these around by the front path, so the bees come round that side of the house to check out the courgettes and citrus – might as well see if they grow okay in the shade, as well as the sun.

Catnip – nepeta cataria from Kings Seeds

Germinates in soil temperatures of 18-25°, takes 7 to 10 days to germinate, and grow perfectly well in pots (my plant from last summer is disturbingly healthy) but otherwise can be planted out 30cm apart as a 30cm high perennial. I've been pruning and drying as each stem got a bit big, but it's going to take a lot of foliage to make a cat toy! And Bugsy seems pretty fond of the leaves au natural, fresh off (or on) the plant. Highly recommended!