Crazy daisy weather.....

Its that time of year again - everything is bursting into life - crazy daisy weather! The nights are so light so long - and then light again so early sunrise at 4am, sunset at 10.20pm - soon we'll be out at midnight reading the paper in the twilight - its very surreal! Everything growing like crazy out there!

Doesn't Peeide look lovely and happy - here he is at the edge of my crop (willow), or should I say my old crop frolicking in the daisies. Excuse the late post - I'm not sleepy - I'm all at sixes and sevens - I've just finished my pesky thesis write up - but having gone from crazy busy to job done two copies in the post to the University in the 'sooth'. Now what? Um, tidy up desk - wait for the oral exam (viva) - file everything 'willow' related in a lot of files and put them on a shelf............feels really wierd - my poor crop, I'll miss thinking about it (in a good way). We've gone through alot together over the past 4 years, but I'll bore you about all of that another day. I'll even miss the cutting, lugging samples around and weighing and measuring it all over and over and over again lots of times! Me and the salix have become quite good buddies over the past wee while.



Always good at helping with botanical field work - um, are those my fieldsheets peedie????

Having come vaguely out of my post write up haze - I've had a look around the house (which needs a huge clean!) and apart from that it currently looks like an explosion in a garden centre. Plants on windowsills everywhere - some planted up, some not planted up (many).  The gardens not in any state to have anything out there and the past week or so of really bad winds have even trashed the shallots I planted out. I never learn - here you don't plant anything out until June. Oh, its june, rats - I'll have to get going soon I've a garden to sort out for planting up!

The veggie patch to be - getting there in Januray, but more work needing done.

I did a recky around the house with a cup of peppermint tea...........to survey the carnage and the indoor vegetation situation. It's alot like this:

Indoor chilli having a shower to get rid of aphids last year - got a good crop from it though!

The utility room has plugs of melons, tomatoes, jalapenos, rosemary from seed and wandering spider plants.

The kitchen a tray of 8 physalis desperate to pot up, big pot of chives, window box of coriander, pot of sage, rosemary, spider plant babies, eucomis, spring onions and some random cuttings of a plant I don't know the name of.

Downstairs sunny room (dining room) - bursting with chillis (7 types), tomatoes (2 types), various cuttings.

Downstairs bath room - ginko tree, purple hazel tree, birch, fig, a chilli on the naughty step (it has aphids) and a wandering spider mummy, 9 cucumbers in the bath (they aren't bathing, just having a rest in there)

Gamerboy bedroom - one tub of tomatoes one mixed lettuce

Cellist hasn't let in on her window sills yet - I'll break in soon and leave a couple window boxes in there

Upstairs loo - italian flat leaf parsley but only a small pot - very small windowsill

Living room/Conservatory upstairs - 9 window boxes of tomatoes - one of basil (on its 5th hair cut), one cucumber with an almost ready cucumber (go Horatio!) on it and one window box of strawberries.

My bedroom windowsills are as yet un planted - need to get on with that one!

Last years sage from a windowsill grown pot - then it got rehomed to a friend - for her to plant outside - it doesn't survive in my garden outside unfortunatley. But makes a nice house plant!

I'm thinking I'm needing to get this polytunnel up and soon - I've started to make a few enquiries about the things I need (ground posts and a cover) - I'll need to do a bit of saving/paid work - cover will be £300, the ground posts I might get here (or something that will do) - but the delivery for the cover is over £120 + vat  to get the cover here as we're an island - but I'll have to try and fathom a plan to get it delivered to scotland (only £20 delviery from the polytunnel company) and then get it over here by a local courier - which should be another cost but hopefully cheaper than the figure quoted by the company in England.

My own tunnel  is recycled from a man in Orkney who inherited a house with two and wanted one of the them to go to a good home - this is hopefully a good home  -  and it will look a bit like that! How cool?!

Fingers crossed we get something sorted soon! Otherwise the plants will take over the house more than they are already. I had put out a thyme and it has got trashed in the wind, not sure it will come back to life - very sad. Thankfully the rosemary, sage, chives, parsley, basil and coriander are all inside - they'd not stand a chance out there at the mo. Not if I want anything from them in the way of leaves.

However, its not all windowsill growing, I've made a tiny start to the outside garden - and I've decided to put my money where my mouth is - I'm going for a total flower/vegetable take over out there too. I've got 'potato onions' in my main central flower bed, planted up with calendula, and I think I'll put carrots inbetween them all. I'm planting a new willow hedge to replace the dead fushia and flowering currants - so inbetween the cuttings I'm putting Ailsa craig onions grown from seed, lettuce, beetroot and maybe something else. I can't grow courgettes/squashes outside - so I think I'll try them in a fishbox cold frame until I can get them into the tunnel - if that happens in time this year...........otherwise I'll have to do without, its pointless with the wind - they'd not last a day out there, or of course I can grow on the windowsill - like the tomatoes.  But I'm running out of room!

Until then, I'll get on with potting up and filling the windowsills to bursting - and trying to get the bits organised for the polytunnel - no wonder I'm not sleepy - how exciting with that be? Very soon infront of that house (this side) will be a polytunnel! Can't wait until the view changes and the vegetation in the houve leaves the buidling for thier very own compound!

As for me - I'll have to learn to channel this bound up this post-post-grad energy into something else wont I? My first task was to repaint my toe-nails - long overdue - and a bit girly eh? I went for a suitable colour and tried my new toes out on the crazy daisy garden!